Digital Zoom = Digital zoom is not really zoom, in the strictest definition of the term.  What digital zoom does is enlarge a portion of the image, thus ‘simulating’ optical zoom.  In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size.  In so doing, you lose image quality.  If you’ve been regularly using digital zoom and wondered why your images did not look that great, now you know.