Do your self-produced business videos look like everyone else’s? Today I am going to tell you why and show you how to make your videos stand out. Watch the video below or keep scrolling for the text version.

What’s The Difference?

Are you finding that your videos are looking the same as other businesses self-produced videos? Well, it’s all down to the equipment you use. Most of you will be using your phone to create your videos. Your phone is an incredible piece of kit but it has one big limiting factor, it only has one lens.

If you look at a professional videographer they will have a range of lenses with different focal lengths. Each focal length will give a different look to the image. For example, the gif below is taken with a 16mm lens which is wide-angle, it will capture a lot of the scene which is great for landscapes but it is harder to separate a subject from the background.

Whereas the next gif is from a 50mm lens, it captures less information in the surrounding area but is great for creating separation between the subject and the background.

Obviously I am speaking in really simple terms here and there is a lot more to consider when choosing your lens but the basics are, the longer the focal length, the more the subject will be separated from the background.

The Lens On Your Phone

Let’s look at your phone, it only has one lens with one focal length which is usually around 29mm. This means all of your videos are going to have roughly the same look to them.

So how can we fix this? By buying a set of universal clip-on lenses like these ones from M-Pow.

You can find them on amazon and get a set of 3 for around £15. You will get a wide-angle lens, a macro lens for extreme closeups and a fisheye lens which has its own unique look. I would also recommend getting a telephoto lens separately.

They are universal so they clip on any phone. It will take you time to figure out which lens works best for which application so I would suggest playing about with these in your everyday life. For example, to make something appear larger than life put on the wide-angle lens and get really close up.

That’s A Wrap

So your footage currently looks the same as everyone else’s as your phone only has one lens which has one focal length. You can change this by getting a set of clip-on lenses and trying them out in different scenarios to see what they do.

For more filmmaking tips make sure you subscribe to our YouTUbe channel and if you need a professional video for your businesses get in touch through the contact page.