Everyone who has ever bought a camera or a camcorder has also most likely dealt with a lot of hardly understandable specifications of these constantly more and more sophisticated gadgets. However, one of the most important features of a camcorder or a camera is the lens used in it. And it also makes a huge difference in picture quality. You will notice that every description of a camcorder or camera deals with some sort of zoom. Now the question is: What is actually a zoom? Well, here we get to the very core of the problem.
Zoom in a sense is only optical zoom. Optical zoom works thanks to lens, which either get closer to each other or get further away from each other. That way, we can achieve picture quality, which is almost perfect (of course that depends also on lens quality). In other words, optical zoom works like binoculars. Look through binoculars and than turn in around and look the other way. In the first case you can see far away and in the other case, everything will seem so distant.
On the other hand, digital zoom is purely a marketing bait. It does not have anything to do with real zooming whatsoever. It basically works on distorting sensor sensitivity. That means arithmetical blur: 2x digital zoom means 2x less clarity. Zoom 4x and you will end up with a picture, which will be absolutely unusable. To put this in different words, it essentially is similar to zooming a digital image on your computer.
All this being said, it is time to make a conclusion: Do not ever pay ANY attention to digital zoom, it is absolutely worthless (It is better to take the picture without the digital zoom and then zoom in on your computer, that way you have the clear sharp picture as compared to blurred image). Optical zoom is what you need to be looking for at a amateur level. With a optical zoom, you will deal with a very little (unrecognizable by a amateur) picture distortion. For professional use the best choice is to purchase particular lens for particular distances, with minimal or no optical zoom (macro lens, telescopic lens, etc).