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**ceewi1** · 03-10-2006, 11:58 AM

Optical zoom actually moves the lens to zoom in on the subject, as a normal camera would. There is no loss of quality. Digital zoom just enlarges the image, causing quality loss. IMO, there's really very little point to digital zoom, as any image editing program will do that for you. Basically, don't believe the hype about 400x zoom, or similar figures - just look at the optical zoom rating when making your decision.

While you can use a digital video camera as a webcam, i've found it to be quite annoying to balance it properly to get the image desired. Given how cheap webcams are these days, i'd buy one seperately.

As suprasteve has said, you really need to decide what you want to use first. Reasonably priced digital cameras are very limited in their ability to take videos. You're usually restricted to short, low quality takes.

Here's a couple of articles you may find useful:
http://www.scrapjazz.com/topics/Phot...graphy/414.php
http://www.photoxels.com/article-opt...ital-zoom.html

03-10-2006, 11:58 AM	#4 (permalink)
ceewi1 Moderator Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 22 Posts: 5,418	Optical zoom actually moves the lens to zoom in on the subject, as a normal camera would. There is no loss of quality. Digital zoom just enlarges the image, causing quality loss. IMO, there's really very little point to digital zoom, as any image editing program will do that for you. Basically, don't believe the hype about 400x zoom, or similar figures - just look at the optical zoom rating when making your decision. While you can use a digital video camera as a webcam, i've found it to be quite annoying to balance it properly to get the image desired. Given how cheap webcams are these days, i'd buy one seperately. As suprasteve has said, you really need to decide what you want to use first. Reasonably priced digital cameras are very limited in their ability to take videos. You're usually restricted to short, low quality takes. Here's a couple of articles you may find useful: http://www.scrapjazz.com/topics/Phot...graphy/414.php http://www.photoxels.com/article-opt...ital-zoom.html __________________ CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600 / MOBO: Gigabyte 965P-DS3 / GPU: Gigabyte HD4870 RAM: 2GB G.Skill F2-6400CL4D-2GBPK / HDD: 2TB Total HDD / PSU: Antec NeoPower 480W Cheap PSUs - 2% of system costs, responsible for 28% of system deaths As Sealed Stick was removed, lost or damaged, it shall be out of warranty validity. - The "Warranty void if removed" sticker on numerous CoolerMaster PSUs. Useful PSU Guides Last edited by ceewi1; 03-10-2006 at 12:01 PM.