As much as I’ve loved using the zoom lenses on my Pixel phones since the Pixel 6 Pro, I’ll admit that it’s a pain to find the exact zoom level I need with Google’s silly camera UI. Pinching to zoom is not as precise as I like it to be, and I like round numbers, so you’ll never see me zoom to something like 6.4x or 12.9x. I’d rather move my hand or step forward/back to get a round number. The other reason is that Google allows for lossless zoom at specific levels; you get a quasi-lossless 12MP 2x shot from the 50MP 1x main sensor, and a 12MP 10x from the 48MP 5x telephoto sensor.
I used to swipe with a finger on the zoom slider to try and find the exact zoom I wanted, but even that is frustrating. You swipe left and right, make tiny movements to adjust the exact level, and just when you think you hit 10x, you lift your finger and see you inadvertently nudged it to 9.2x or 10.5x instead — argh!