I don't know about anyone else on this forum, but this drives me crazy.

The shots I do a lot of for B-Roll are to snap-zoom in or out, followed by a nice slow zoom in or out using the servo.

I wish Sony had a servo zoom that could also be 'snapped' in like a lot of auto-focus lenses out there for digital SLR cameras. On my Nikons, I can manually focus or auto focus using the same setting.

Anyone else run into this? Anyone else have a solution?

This is a dumb question, but does it hurt the servo if I snap in manual using 'Servo' zoom? I would think so, as I had forcing anything. But maybe it doesn't.

Thanks,

Jim

You can set up a snap/servo zoom by using the "shot transition" feature. This requires you predefine the in-focus and out-of-focus endpoints, then actuate the shot transition.

I'll have to try that, but I'm thinking that it won't be as fast as a manual snap zoom.

I don't think the motor can move as fast as I need it to.

Don't force the zoom if you're in servo mode. You'll damage it.

A workaround is to "time remap" the clip to shorten the part where you zoom in. I've been seeing that a lot with some National Geographic shows.