Now I want to learn more about using my VX 2000. I'm a visual person, so I need something with a lot of illustrations. I need to learn about F. stops, depth of field and all those other thingies :-)

The larger the f-stop number, the smaller the aperture or iris opens. The wider the aperture/iris, the more light comes in and the shallower the depth of field.

The faster the shutter, or the smaller the f-stop (larger number), less light hits the prism/CCDs.

If you zoom in from a considerable distance to your subject, you will get an interesting effect: stuff will be out of proportion. Your depth of field will also shrink.

The slower your shutter speed, the easier it is to get blurring---when panning, tilting and zooming. If you don't want blurring, pan/tilt/zoom slower or increase the shutter speed.

Say you are shooting your subject with lots of light in the background, in auto, your VX2000 will be confused or fooled with the brighter, back light, so it will adjust to that making the subject dark. If you white balance the subject, however, the subject won't be dark, but the background will be very bright (over-exposed).

All to often, shooters aren't creative with shooting angles. A good tripod can work wonders, but many times it's a good idea to get down and dirty with your cam low and shooting high; your cam high and shooting low. Vary your angles, but keep pans well under 180 degress.

As you can see, I was a bit bored. And I don't like to see neglected posts, especially from a poster I know well. Perhaps Bryan (beaser) will give you some VX specific suggestions. Afterall, they do call you beaser Jr. over at that other place---since you both own a TRV20 and a VX2000!

<<<-- Originally posted by Frank Granovski : The larger the f-stop number, the larger the aperture or iris opens. -->>>

It's actually the other way around. Higher-numbered f-stop values stop more light.

> Higher-numbered f-stop values stop more light

No, the f-stop is inversely proportional to the aperture size, so higher f-stop values mean a smaller iris and therefore less light.

Nigel, we are saying the same thing, aren't we?

You're absolutely right. I misread "Higher-numbered f-stop values stop more light" and tripped up. It's almost like one of those "Peter Piper" tongue-twisters!

My apologies! :-)

In addition to all this other good advice, you might want to spend a few minutes going through this workbook (http://www.urbanfox.tv/workbooks/sonypd150/index.htm). It's geared towards the PD-150 but almost everything will also apply to the VX-2000.

Thanks for the correction---I posted this late last night!

Since you also posted this at the other place, I thought I'd place Pete's link here, regarding "a website from Malaysia with a lot of info about basic photographic principles: aperture, shutter speeds, depth of field, etc, all applicable to video."
http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/fototech/apershutter/index.htm

Now, where's beaser?

Thanks to all of you for your great advice!