SWMBO has a pretty nice camera, a Panasonic DMC-FZ18 with an 18x optical zoom lens on it.

In the setup menu I have the option of turning on 4x digital zoom, giving it a total zoom ratio of 72x.

With digital zoom turned on, when I zoom from widest angle (28mm equivalent) to maximum zoom (~2000mm equivalent) the camera zooms from 1x to 18x, then pauses for about one second before continuing on to the 72x maximum.

Obviously once past the 18x optical zoom range, the digitally enhanced zoom offers reduced picture quality. The question I have is this: With the digital zoom switched on, is there any degradation of picture quality in the 1x -- 18x range compared to having digital zoom switched off? And if there is no degradation (as appears to be the case) why bother to have the option of disabling the digital zoom?

tanstaafl.