Why is Zooming in Your Videos Is Bad For Business

Smart video habits earn you money. Zooming is not a smart video habit.

Not all video for business is just a shot of you speaking to the camera. Often you will need to get some video of what you are talking about. Maybe it’s a community engagement video of a sausage sizzle that you put on to support the local sports club.

You walk around with your smartphone getting some video, and then you see some kids eating the sausages and you think, that’s a nice shot, so you zoom in …and that right there is your crime.

Don’t zoom.

Do you know why people zoom? Because they can. That’s not a flippant answer. Humans love to play with new technology. It’s novel. This is true for professionals.

The zoom lens was invented in the 1930s but didn’t become readily available until the sixties and seventies. Watch the movie Jaws shot in the 1970s. There are zooms throughout that movie. Compare that with movies from the 1980s and 1990s. Zoom shots in feature films then are few are far between. The novelty finally wore off.

Ten years ago every music video had variable speed shots; someone running at normal speed then mid shot it turns to glorious slow motion. In the past few years, drones have become the new video toy. 

When we get out hands on a video camera there is unchallenged folklore that seems to have been passed down over the past few generations that if you want to see something closer, then zoom in. It’s beyond shaky, it’s nauseating, it’s jerky.

Don’t.

Nine out of ten times your audience, your customers, your family will be better served if instead of zooming, you walk in and get a closer shot.

It might be a bit wonky as you walk but it’s a lot more stable when you get there plus you are closer and you will get better sound. The microphone is an equally important part of your storytelling toolbox.

There are times to zoom. If you physically can’t get close then it may be your only option. 

Get into the habit of NOT zooming. Good video habits earn you more money.

By walking closer to the action you want to video and using some simple editing to tidy it up, you will begin to make videos that attract customers instead of turning them away.