Having security cameras at your commercial and residential places is one of the ideal ways to eliminate security concerns. Now brands are manufacturing more innovative security cameras to give users peace of mind regarding security threats. Among so many unique features, the zoom feature of security cameras helps to get a detailed view of all the captured videos and images.
In this blog post, we’ll learn about security cameras with a zoom feature. The most widely used security cameras with zoom features are Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) cameras, allowing users to control the camera using their smartphones. Other than this zoom feature also comes in infrared bullet cameras or dome cameras. Well, it’s up to the user’s budget, and they must choose the right camera according to their security need.
Most security cameras operate with these types of zoom features, i.e:
- Optical zoom
- Digital zoom
Now we’ll discuss the main difference between these types of zoom and the advantages and disadvantages of using these cameras.
Digital Zoom:
The Digital Zoom feature allows it to enlarge the pixels of a portion of the area already captured by the camera. Digital zoom is an innovative feature that is wonderfully larger than pixels. A user can quickly narrow the apparent angle of view of images and crop the areas outside the margins.
Although digital zoom cameras enlarge the pixels of an image, this results in blurry images and video quality. It is why security camera experts prefer optical zoom security cameras over digital zoom cameras.
Advantages of Digital Zoom:
Digital zoom security cameras offer the following benefits:
- A user can easily zoom in after the camera has recorded a video.
- Another benefit of using a digital zoom security camera is that this camera doesn’t reduce the angle of view.
Disadvantages of Digital Zoom:
The most significant disadvantage of using a digital zoom security camera is blurry image quality because recorded images or videos get zoomed too closely.
Optical Zoom
The optical zoom feature of the security camera allows the users to zoom in or zoom out to view more details and broader angles of images. Optical zoom cameras can maintain focus even when the focal length changes.
These cameras give good quality output with 3x, 5x, or even 20x optical zoom capacity. Users who want good-quality surveillance images or videos should buy the latest model of security cameras from renowned brands.
Advantages of Optical Zoom:
- One of the most significant advantages of optical zoom cameras is high-quality image quality without compromise.
- Users can view the image details of any object, even from a long distance, and still get a clear image quality.
- Users can also view the more minor details from a longer distance, i.e., faces or plates.
Disadvantages of Optical Zoom:
- Optical zoom cameras can’t get added after the video is recorded.
- The optical zoom feature lessens the viewing angle when the user zooms in to get image details.
Difference of Working between Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom Security Cameras:
| Optical zoom security cameras | Digital zoom security cameras |
| Optical zoom security cameras work by the actual adjustment of the camera optics. | Digital zoom security cameras work by narrowing the apparent angle of view of images and then cropping the unwanted areas outside the margins. |
Which is Better Optical Zoom or Digital Zoom?
Before choosing a security camera, it is important to consider the camera that best suits the user’s security needs. The only difference between the optical and digital zoom cameras is the way of zooming the images.
The optical zoom security cameras do the real zooming by adjusting the lens during zoom in or out. Digital zoom cameras only capture an object’s entire field while allowing users to crop the unnecessary parts of an image.
Many security camera brands incorporate optical and digital zoom lenses to make more innovative quality. The advantage of combining both features is to record the different angles.