Optical Zoom vs. Resolution

What about optical zoom vs. resolution? Sigh! Now you all know that we cannot and should not be comparing apples and oranges, but we still try. The megapixels resolution of a digital camera can be thought of as the number of pixels available to capture an image.
Do not compare optical zoom with megapixel resolution because optical zoom is not megapixel resolution-dependent. That is, the resolution of your final image does not change no matter how much you zoom in. If your digital camera is 15MP and has a 12x optical zoom lens with focal length of, say, 30-360mm, then at 30mm, your image is 15MP and at 360mm, it is still 15MP. With digital zoom/enlargement, the megapixel resolution decreases as you “zoom” in digitally. If you now bring the cropped image back to the same 15MP size, then there are pixels interpolation and the resulting image suffers in quality.
We always disable digital zoom in camera, choosing to do our own cropping and enlarging in an image editing software.
Optical vs. digital zoom? There is no contest. Only optical zoom matters when selecting a digital camera.
What we are really trying to say is this: do not compare. You’ve got to decide what is more important to you: resolution or optical zoom? If the answer is both, then find a digital camera that has both. It’s that simple. If it’s outside your pocketbook range, then choose a digital camera for what is more important to you.
One important consideration with regards to resolution is important to make here: don’t be fooled by the high megapixel resolution advertised for a camera. A compact digital cameras with around 6-8 MP produces perfectly beautiful images for most point-and-shooters. Go higher and overall image quality seems to get worse instead of better. It has to do with pixel density: cram too many ever tinier pixels close together onto a tiny image sensor and all kind of image quality issues come up, including the all important noise. I am here talking about compact digicams with tiny sensors (usually sized at 1/2.3-in. to 2/3-in.). The micro Four Thirds and APS-C digital cameras have much bigger sensors and the megapixel resolution can safely go as high as 24+ MP.