digital zoom vs optical zoom does 3x optical plus 2x digital = 6x overall? Is the digital zoom done in the camera or on the pc? If I zoom digitally, how severe is the loss in image quality?

-- Joe Donahue (joedonahue@aol.com), May 18, 2000

Answers

The digtial zoom is done in the camera, but it is done by software interpolating (or is that extrapolating in this case) the pixels to simulate a longer lens. Essentially, the camera is simply cropping the image and yes, you lose a lot of quality this way. Enough that I never bother using digital zoom because the image is just too grainy.

-- Darron Spohn (dspohn@photobitstream.com), May 19, 2000.