Optical zoom works by using the camera’s lens to enlarge the object, bringing it closer without losing image quality. It does so by moving parts of the lens relative to the object’s distance, making it appear as if the object is closer than it actually is. Digital zoom, on the other hand, simply resizes parts of the image, which allows you to zoom in much further but often results in a loss of image quality. That’s why the best zoom camera phone models rely on optical rather than digital zoom.