Does your camera have zoom settings?
Cheryl, if you have the Vixia HV30 then yours has them too. The camera has a 10x optical zoom and a 200x digital zoom setting. Check your Instruction manual pg 28 and 37. The digital zoom is not really recommended since it degrades the quality of the recording. But it can be handy if you can't get any closer and the optical zoom is still not enough. But there is just no way to film handheld and expect stable footage, you really need a tripod for it to be usable.
You turn it on in the Menu setup, same place where you can choose the zoom speed. I always use variable. I try to avoid zooming, most of the time I cut the zooming sections out in post.
