Differences between optical and digital zoom

Zooming capabilities vary depending on the type of camera you are using. Both fixed and pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras can zoom, but there are important distinctions between optical and digital zoom.

Optical zoom

With optical zoom, a camera’s lens physically moves to provide the required angle of view without losing image quality. If you zoom in and out optically, it affects what is recorded.

When viewing live video from a PTZ camera, you typically use the PTZ camera’s optical zoom features.

Digital zoom

Digital zoom simulates optical zoom, but the digitally zoomed portion has a lower quality than the original image.

With digital zoom, the required portion of an image is enlarged by cropping the image and then resizing it back to the pixel size of the original image—a process called interpolation.