Originally Posted by earlybird
Thanks. I'm looking for a camera with image stabilization and good optical zoom which I believe is different than digital zoom?
Yes absolutly it is. Most Digital SLR's have optical zoom, not digital. Let me rephrase that, most decent Digital SLR's have optical zoom.
The difference in a nut shell is, optical zoom allows you to zoom in and out of a frame without losing its quality no matter how far in you zoom to moves you closer to the object being photographed. Digital Zoom is not bringing you closer to the picture, it digitally crops the picture and then enlarges it to the size of your view finder, resulting in a poor quality picture.
I am not sure about todays Digital SLR's but when I got mine stated in an above post. It was about 2 yrs ago, it was the only Digital SLR that had image stabilization. Although its an over kill with slr's mainly because there is no shutter lag in an SLR so there is no need for it. It would be like adding that into a film camera. But the functions of the camera allow you to add alot of lag into the shutter for more dramatic shots or to allow more light in. for that reason the IMS is a must, but I have never used it.
Your std cyber shots and others of that type have a real lot of lag time before the actual picture is taken as you press the button it has to focus then you press it fully, it re checks focus measures light and snaps the shot. All that even though takes no more than 1/2 sec to 1 full sec can blurr a pic with out the stabilization feature.
