If you do decide to zoom – a tool which I think rarely looks good – remember this… “Optical zoom, good. Digital zoom, bad”. If you were tricked into buying a camcorder because of some magical zoom number (like 800 times digital zoom!), DONT EVER USE IT! Not unless you like grainy, pixilated videos. Digital zoom is a big fake. As you increase zoom level, the camcorder crops further and further into the centre of the image, enlarging that cropped portion to fill the screen. As a result, videos look terrible. Stick with your cameras optical zoom which relies solely on the lens for magnification. You can usually turn off digital zoom in the camera menu. If you need to get closer to a subject, follow the old photographer’s maxim: ZOOM WITH YOUR FEET.”