Optical zoom in a camera refers to the ability for the camera to zoom by moving parts within the camera lens. As opposed to digital zoom, which does not use moving lens elements. Instead, a portion of the frame is selected and enlarged by the camera’s sensor to fill the entire frame, but this incurs a loss in picture quality. Optical zoom doesn’t experience this quality loss in the image. The higher the optical zoom, such as 40x zoom, the more the camera can zoom into an image without loss in quality versus a lower optical zoom, such as 2x zoom.
Weather Resistance
For outdoor cameras, weather resistance is an important feature. A camera’s resistance rating is referred to as the ingress protection (IP) rating, such as IP66, IP67, IP68, etc. The first digit in the rating refers to the ingress of solid objects including dust. The second digit refers to ingress of liquids such as water. For outdoor cameras, a minimum rating of IP66 is recommended. However, the higher the better.
Analog and HDoC Cameras
Analog cameras are still widely available in the video surveillance industry because they are less expensive than IP cameras. Also, many customers have had their analog systems installed for a long time and would rather not rip out and replace their coax cable and wiring to update to IP cameras. For those who prefer to extend the life of their analog infrastructure for as long as possible, high definition over coax (HDoC) cameras can offer a viable method to upgrade to HD video using their existing coaxial cabling.