opitcal zoom vs megapixal

[mikevet]

i am looking at the kodak 3570 10x opitcal zoom with 5megapixal vs the olympus c7000 with 7.megapixel and 5x opitcal zoom. most of the pictures we take are vacations in the carribean (lots of sun and scenery). my wife usually likes to get pictures of us in the foreground with large objects behind us like water falls, buildings etc...
my questions is which contributes more to the quality and sharpness of the picture (mpixel vs optical zoom)? any advice or experience on either of these cameras would also be appreciated.
also could someone explain what the term optical zoom actually means!
thank you,
mike

[mdvaden]

I am fairly ignrant about what you asked. What came to mind from your post, is that if you are going on a vacation where there is nice scenery, it would seem a shame not to get at least 10x zoom if not 12x.

Last summer, I bought a $380 Canon with 10x zoom. It's only 3.2 megapixels. WIth $400 to spare for a camera, I went out looking for 5 megapixels. I decided to sacrifice 1.8 megapixels to get the zoom.

Wish I had $1000 - I'd get the zoom and the megapixels.

I will move up later. This Canon was probably a good way to go while I get some experiience. And I won't get rid of it. It's great for taking in dense forest.

If I did not already have Compact Flash cards, I may have considered the 2 Panasonics for $400 to $500 that have 12x zoom, 4 & 5 megapixels and image stablizing.

[Mando327]

First of all i don't know which camera you're really talking about. Did you mean the new Kodak DX7590? Look on www.dpreveiw.com to see the lates cameras from Kodak and other makers. I don't see Kodak 3570 there, although I strongly suspect you meant the 5 MP 7590.
Going back, Megapixels and optical zooms are both different things. The difference between optical and digital zoom, is that with optical, you basically zoom in with the lens, or glass, which renders sharper pictures because all of the pixels in the frame are still there.. The second one, you're actually not zooming in, but rather cropping...take an image in a computer and crop it, and you get a "digital zoom". It's basically a marketing tool for the stupid who don't know better, that way they can advertise their "total zoom" therefore inflating the number....ALWAYS look at the optical zoom, NEVER the digital...you can always crop the image later in your computer if needed, but that will take image quality away, because the more you crop, the more apparent the square jaggies appear (if you zoom in close enough in any digital image, you will see squares).
As for what gives you more sharpness, the answer is both...lol. The more megapixels you have, the more of those little "squares" you will have in your image, making them smoother. Think of a newspaper....when you look at the pictures close enough with a magnifier, you see dots....think of those dots as megapixels....the more you have, the shareper and smoother the image will be, and the more freedom you will have in cropping without sacrificing quality too much.
As for the lens, a good lens will always render pictures decently sharp, or razor sharp. An example of this is the one i think your talking about, the Kodak DX7590 compared to the Panasonic FZ20 (or something like that). They BOTH have a good optical zoom range (10x and 12x respectively), but the Panasonic has a WAY SHARPER lens. If you go to www.dpreview.com and click on cameras>Panasonic>FZ20>In-Deph Review, you will see that on the later review pages it compares this one along with the Kodak one you're mentioning, along with images taken by both in side-by-side tests. You can clearly see for yourself that the sharp Leica Lens of the Panasonic Shines through (which is why I'm recommending it). The Olympus also has very good lens. To me the Kodak is trash, although it's comparatively cheap.
On another subject, you mentioned that your wife likes to take pictures of you guys with big things in the foreground. This is a typical case of beginers who don't know any better. Don't you just hate it when people take pictures of you and when you come back from the lab and see the prints, your a miniscule little thing compared to some big, majestic thing? Exactly my point. You need to Isolate your subject. Ideally, you only want to have one focus point, or one main attraction in a picture. Either take a picture of you only, or take a picture of the builiding. What's the point of including you guys if you aren't really clear in the picture. You need to be able to without a strain, see the expressions in the face from a standard 4X6 print. Lemme see them faces and expressions!
Good luck with your decision. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me at Mando327@yahoo.com

Regards,

Mando

[mdvaden]

Yeah, that's the one.

Panasonic FZ20 (and FZ15)...

Seems that if those have the same options mainly, it would be well worth the extra speck of cash for the FZ20.