Difference between IP Camera Optical and Digital ZOOM

Most IP Cameras in the market come with Optical and Digital Zoom options.
Buyers should not get confused between the two as
sellers will often not mention whether the zoom is Digital or Optical .
They will convince the buyer that the camera supports 10X Zoom without mentioning the fact that it is Digital Zoom.

In a Optical Zoom IP Camera the lenses actually move close and apart varying the focal length and bringing a distant object closer without affecting the quality of the Picture or Video.
Optical Zoom is similar to what we see in binoculars.Where distant objects come closer without degradation of quality of the picture.

However in a Digital Zoom IP Camera I cannot stress enough the loss of quality that results when you use the digital zoom instead of the optical zoom.Digital zoom works by scaling up the pixels in the video after it is captured. This is very similar to cropping and resizing your video  in any video editor except that the camera does it for you.Simply doubling the size of the pixels creates a very "jaggy" or stair-stepped appearance.

All IP Cameras support Digital Zoom functionality, but the ones that support Optical Zoom will definitely cost a lot more and give uncomparabily better performance than Digital Zoom Cameras.

For e.g
An IP Camera with 360 degree Pan 130 degree Tilt with 10X Digital Zoom can effectively cover an area of  500 square feet.

An IP Camera with 360 degree Pan 130 degree Tilt with 10X Optical Zoom can effectively cover an area of  5000 square feet.




Sample IP Camera Images

Original Snapshot from IP Camera

Snapshot from IP Camera using Digital Zoom(4X)

Snapshot from IP Camera using Optical Zoom(4X)

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