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Zooming is the process of changing the focal length of a lens. If you've ever had a fixed-length camera lens (one that didn't zoom), you know that to change the perceived distance to a particular object, you have to move the camera. With a zoom lens, you can change the focal length without changing the location of the camera.
Another calling card of amateur video is zealous use of the zoom buttons. Something happens to people when they get behind a camcorder with a zoom feature. They zoom in; they zoom out. Zoom in on the baby, zoom out from the baby.
Spend a little time doing some research (that is, watching TV), and you'll see that a professional rarely zooms in and out during a single shot. (It happens sometimes in news footage and during newscasts but not much in interviews, informational shows, and fictional shows.) This doesn't mean that the zoom feature is useless. It just means that changing the focal length between shots instead of during shots is generally more effective.
Zoom technique and the three shots
Rather than zooming and moving the camera to follow the action, professional videographers often use a series of shots that are taken from different angles and that use different focal lengths. To get better-looking pictures for your own video, you should consider using this tactic. The common shots are as follows:
- An establishing shot: An establishing shot gives your audience a sense of location. Using a wide-angle focal length (zoom set to 0 or, on some cameras, W for wide), you shoot an entire scene without necessarily showing your main action or by showing it as only a small part of the scene. In establishing shots, showing some zoom, especially to suggest the direction of the action, is common. For instance, if you're showing New York's Times Square in wide angle and you want to make it clear that you're going in to the heart of Times Square, you may smoothly zoom in a bit to convey that action.
- A medium shot: A medium shot keeps your subject in full frame, giving the audience the sense of what action is taking place and who or what is the main subject. A lot of your footage is likely to be shown in medium shots. Rarely will you want any zooming to go on during a medium shot because it simply distracts from the action.
- A close-up shot: A close-up shot shows something particular that continues to tell the story, such as a small object or a person's reaction during dialogue. The number of close-ups that you use can vary depending on the meaning that you're trying to convey. You can sometimes zoom while in close-up mode but usually only to emphasize an action. For example, you may zoom in slightly on a sweating interview subject as he makes the fatal admission or zoom away from your on-air narrator as the story is ending. Otherwise, keep the focal length locked and just shoot the action with a steady hand (or better yet, a tripod).
The point, then, is to avoid zooming too much during each individual shot. Instead, shoot your establishing shot and hold steady for a while. Then change the focal length (zoom in) to a medium shot, and hold that one. Now, zoom in to a close-up shot and hold it. Zoom back to a medium shot, and hold that.
In most cases, you should also move the camera to change angles on your subject so that your establishing, medium, and close-up shots all have a slightly different look at your subject. For instance, you could start with a wide, establishing shot from behind your family walking into Times Square. Then get a medium shot from the side of them as they walk past stores. Finally, end with a straight-on close-up shot from in front of your daughter as she spots something interesting at a sidewalk vendor's table.
How would you get all these shots? Ideally, you would get one shot, pause the camera, move it, change the focal length, get the next shot, pause the camera, move it, and so on. In practice, this can be tough to do if you're shooting vacation footage. In that case, you should simply make sure that you're holding each shot — establishing, medium, and close-up — long enough before you begin zooming and finding a new angle. Then, you can edit out all the zooms and movements while having enough steady footage of each shot to build your edited video nicely.
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