Digital Cameras

Zooming in on Lumix’s Optical Zoom

Lumix cameras are rightly renowned for their high zoom ratios, however Panasonic is always looking for ways to enhance both the zoom quality and the user-experience.

Extra Optical Zoom
Many cameras complement their optical zoom ratio with digital zoom, where a portion of an image is ‘blown-up’ digitally to give the effect of a higher zoom. However, images taken with digital zoom become highly pixilated as they are merely digitally processed images rather than images delivered by a true optical zoom.

Being aware of this, Panasonic has now introduced ‘Extra Optical Zoom’ to some Lumix cameras. Extra Optical Zoom cleverly enables you to extend the optical zoom ratio with less image-quality deterioration compared to digital zoom. This function provides additional magnification, extending the zoom power by using the center part of the CCD; compared with conventional digital zoom functions that directly enlarge the image data, it provides better image quality.

Easy Zoom Button
Now, zooming has been made even easier. Many Lumix cameras now have an “Easy Zoom Button” next to the shooting button. When pressed, the zoom ratio automatically toggles between 1x zoom, a mid-range zoom, and full optical zoom. This lets you bring your subject right up close, quickly, easily and comfortably.