Optical Zoom vs. Digital Zoom

There is a world of difference between the digital and optical zoom. I cannot stress enough the loss of quality that results when you use the digital zoom instead of the optical zoom.

See the photo examples below of pictures taken with both types of zooms to illustrate the differences:

Here is a photo taken utilizing the digital zoom. You can see that the image is blurry and digitized.

Here is the same picture, taken using only the optical zoom. With most cameras, that range is much smaller and the zoom isn't as close. The quality of the image is far better, though.

Even if you can't get as close, use photo editing software to crop instead of using the digital zoom. You can't crop a tremendous amount, but you can get closer while retaining quality. This is the same image shown above as the optical zoom example.