Digital camera, KODAK "Pixpro AZ528", dark blue

Optical zoom is the best possible way to zoom in on your subject when taking a picture. The sensor plate is then loaded with the magnified image you want, so the data captured is the image the photographer wants to see in the shot.

When using digital zoom, the camera uses the central portion of the data captured by the image sensor to create a smaller cropped image (digital crop) or a digitally enlarged image at normal resolution (digital zoom). In this type of digital enlargement, the camera tries to create image data that was not captured, resulting in a lower quality image. The advantage of digital zoom is that it enlarges the image before applying JPEG compression.