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Zoom range is one another feature of the camera. Most digital cameras allow you to zoom in or out to change the perspective of the image. Be careful of digital cameras that do not have the word "optical" in the sentence discussing the zoom range. If your camera only has a digital zoom, it is not really a zoom.
An optical zoom actually allows you to change the "field-of-view" of the image, so that you can widen out for a landscape shot, or zoom in for a portrait. It does this by moving lens elements to change the focal length of the camera's lens. Some of the best optical zooms can be as much as 10-to-1 (10 xs). Most medium priced digital cameras will have a zoom in the 6-to-1 (6x) or 3-to-1 (3x) range. Just BE SURE that you're buying an optical zoom.
In cheaper digital cameras there may be an beautiful "digital" (not optical) zoom range mentioned. Usually it will be about 3-to-1 or 4-to-1. The problem with a digital zoom is that it is not a real zoom. The image is simply being magnified and a section of the image taken out of the middle. It is the same thing as if you took a film picture and cropped out everything except a person in the image, then made a big enlargement.
You would then only be using a small section of the negative, so grain will increase and sharpness will degrade very quickly. With "digital" zooms, the image is magnified or cropped electronically and the image simply has larger pixels. You are not really zooming in on the subject. Instead, the subject is being electronically magnified, with image degradation as a result. Stay with an optical zoom for best results.
Many cameras come with a combination of optical and digital zooms. That's okay, since the digital zoom is not used until you have maxed out the optical zoom. If you really need that much zoom, though, you might just want to use the old fashioned "sneaker-zoom" whereby you walk toward the subject to make it bigger, or away to make it smaller. Or, you could buy a digital SLR (DSLR) camera and one of those huge long lenses you see at football games.
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