You can’t always get right up to what you photograph — be it a band onstage, a kid on a soccer field or animals in nature. That’s why cameras have optical-and digital-zoom capabilities — but these are two very different technologies, so it’s important to know how they work, and when you should use them.

Optical zoom uses lenses to magnify a far-off image. It’s possible to find cameras priced under $150 with lenses that zoom by a factor of 10X; and zoom ranges of 30X and even 60X are becoming common.

However, if you read the product description for these cameras, you’ll often see a second, even bigger, zoom number. This is digital zoom: The camera’s processor crops into the center of the photo.
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