Lester E. Spray, American Republican politician, Candidate for Pennsylvania State House of Representatives from Allegheny County 16th District, 1960; Judd Spray, American Democrat politician, Member of Michigan Democratic State Central Committee, 1969
Zoom Shot. A zoom is technically not a camera move as it does not require the camera itself to move at all. Zooming means altering the focal length of the lens to give the illusion of moving closer to or further away from the action. The effect is not quite the same though.
Most people who have used a 35mm camera or an APS camera are aware of only optical zoom. Optical zoom uses the optics (lens) of the camera to bring the subject closer. Digital zoom is an invention of digital video cameras. It is not uncommon to see digital videocams with 300x digital zoom. For our purpose, digital zoom is not really zoom, in the strictest definition of the term. What digital zoom does is take a central portion of the image and enlarging it, thus âsimulatingâ optical zoom. In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size.