Landscape photographer Andy Lim has published a short but sweet guide to the basics of photography (digital and film) with lots of sample shots to clearly illustrate the point (found via brownglasses.com

“On consumer digital cameras, the terms optical zoom and digital zoom are common. When shopping for a digital camera, ignore the digital zoom. What you should look for is the optical zoom capability, because what is captured using optical zoom is what the lens actually sees. Digital zoom is basically using in-camera software to enlarge the center pixels in the photo, resulting in loss of detail and sharpness.”

Website: Andy Lim’s Photography Basics