An optical observation system (1) according to the invention comprises an optical observation apparatus, more particularly an endoscope or an exoscope (2), comprising an imaging optical unit and an electronic image recorder, wherein the imaging optical unit is embodied to image an object field (3) on the electronic image recorder with an alterable imaging scale and the electronic image recorder is embodied to produce recorded image data of the object field (3), an image display apparatus for presenting at least a section of the object field (3) and an image processing apparatus (20), which is configured to produce display image data by scaling the recorded image data with an alterable scaling factor and to actuate the image display apparatus with the display image data. According to the invention, the imaging scale is alterable over a plurality of levels and the scaling factor is continuously alterable, wherein the scaling factor is coupled to the optical imaging scale in such a way that the scaling factor is changed in the opposite sense when the optical imaging scale is altered. The invention also relates to a method for operating an optical observation system (1).
