Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and 4H-SiC are prominent materials with large applicability such as optoelectronic nanodevices and for instance ultraviolet detectors. There is lack of more information about optical transitions beyond the indirect band gap energy (BGE) of 4H-SiC and even more for ZnO direct BGE grown on the former material. Using the vapor-liquid-solid and the aqueous chemical growth methods we have grown ZnO nanorods on different substrates, such as quartz, n- and p-type silicon porous silicon and n-type 4H-SiC. The Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are shown and compared for all samples. We have calculated the absorption and energy gap by employing a first-principle and a full-potential linearized augmented plane-wave (FPLAPW) method within the local density approximation (LDA). The absorption of ZnO nanorods, on different substrates, is lower than that of quartz substrate when photon energy is low. It is shown the strong effect of 4H-SiC on ZnO nanorods. Experiment and theory show a good aggreement when the optical energy gap is considered for both materials.