The Nikon 995 has a 4-1 optical zoom (8-32). It works smoothly. It then has an additional 4X digital zoom which increments in factors of 0.2.

1.2, 1.4, 1.6 etc up to 3.8 then 4.0.

That would make the top end 128. The higher the digital zoom factor, the more 'noise' you MIGHT experience. But I haven't really experienced problems at the top end of the zoom.

You WILL need a tripod at these extreme focal lengths.

I also purchased an auxiliary 3x telephone lens. (Nikon also makes a 2x auxiliary.) (The lenses are auxiliary because they do not REPLACE the basic lens, but screw on the front.)

When you add auxiliary lenses on the 995, you program the camera to tell it which lens it has on it.

I'll shoot some examples of wide, normal and telephone shots tomorrow and post them.

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Once you've narrowed you choices down to a few, you might want to visit "shortcourses.com" and print out their free user guides. Then you can see how simple or complex the camera might be and what special features it has:

http://www.shortcourses.com/guides/guides.htm