Sony makes digital camcorders with great zoom and picture quality. A good one would be the Sony HandyCam HDR-XR150.
That would be the Canon GL2 Pro MiniDV Digital Camcorder With 20x Power Zoom.
A digital camcorder that has the best ratings include the Panasonic HDC-TM700 and the Kodak mini slim XT0099. They both have excellent reviews and seem to have a great picture, sound and zoom.
Optical and digital. With optical zoom, the camera uses lenses to magnify objects. In digital zoom, the camera's built-in software creates a magnified image.
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Some specifications someone should compare when buying a camcorder include the megapixels that are included with the camcorder. Also the optical zoom as well as digital zoom should be compared as well.
Digital zoom takes what the camera is capturing and artifically enlarges the image to give you a zoom effect. Optical zoom, however, is actual physical magnification of the picture, ensuring that your footage is as good as it can be.
There are a number of great features on the Sony HD Handycam. Some of the many outstanding features of this camcorder include face detection, high zoom, quick auto focus, optical steady shot and full high definition.
The key features of the Sony DCR VX2000 MiniDV digital camcorder are that it now has an LCD screen, image stabilization, digital zoom, and a very high captured image quality.
JVC GRD230 MiniDV Digital Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom do good macro
It all depend on your personal need. Either would be best depending on what you use it for.
A good midrange zoom is best for shooting sports.A digital zoom is useless so don't worry about that.Other than that any good quality camcorder is designed to perform well at sporting events.
There are two types of zoom, optical and digital. Optical zoom is the actual capability of the lens itself. Digital zoom is what the computer in the camcorder does above and beyond the limit of the lens. If you've ever taken a low-resolution photo and blown it up much larger than the original size, you know what happens. The pixels get bigger, and bigger, and bigger until all you see is a patchwork of squares. That's what digital zoom does, it just enlarges the image that the lens captures, so quality degrades the further you go into the optical zoom range. When you zoom in on an object and the zoom seems to hesitate, or you have to press the button again you know that you are then switching to digital zoom and have maxed out the actual capability of your optical zoom. So, to answer your question, 200x is not always better than 24x zoom, unless of course it's all optical zoom, not digital, which is very rare unless you have a very high-dollar camcorder with inter-changeable lenses.