Right to go manual exposure?

[Brandon Freeman]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Actually, that's the opposite, Richard. f11 is a smaller aperture than f1.6. The larger the aperture, the more shallow the DOF. The smaller the aperture, the greater the range of focus. One way to get shallow DOF with a small format camera is to back the camera way off, zoom in, open the aperture as wide as possible (usually 2.2/2.8 on small chip camcorders), and you'll get a reasonably shallow depth of field. Increasing the aperture number increases the range of depth, which means you've got a sharper image. Decreasing the aperture number decreases the range of depth, meaning you've got a softer image outside of the range.
Make sense?

Hehe. Didn't see this when I was replying.

Although I will say that in my film THE BROKEN QUIET (currently looking for distribution), I was able to achieve a lot of nice fairly-shallow depth of field shots without pulling back terribly far. Here's a few pictures.

http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image0.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image1.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image2.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image3.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image4.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image5.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image6.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image7.jpg
http://www.hall-e-woode.com/DOF/Image8.jpg

Most of these pictures I was only about six to ten feet away, but a few of them were in tight rooms (which you can probably tell). No adapters. All with the HVR-Z1U.

[Leslie Knox]

I guess one of the thngs I find wrong with the Z1 is the positioning of the iris control. While on a tripod it's fine where it is, but handheld...I find i have to take one of my hands off the camera to adjust it manually, which causes obvious shake. Maybe this is the work around you have to pay for a lighter camera.

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Leslie Knox

I guess one of the thngs I find wrong with the Z1 is the positioning of the iris control. While on a tripod it's fine where it is, but handheld...I find i have to take one of my hands off the camera to adjust it manually, which causes obvious shake. Maybe this is the work around you have to pay for a lighter camera.

Depends on how you hold the camera. You could argue about which is the 'right' way, but I think the iris knob on the Z1 is meant to be adjusted with your left thumb while your fingers are in position to work the zoom and focus rings.

But I've seen many people hold their cameras from underneath, which I find less effective, and which leads to more shaky footage (at least for me), and too low angle all the time.

[Leslie Knox]

Your going to have to take a picture of that!!

I can never find a good way to access focus, exposure and zoom in an affective manner.

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Leslie Knox

Your going to have to take a picture of that!!

Your wish is my command.

My hand position is a bit off because I'm trying to lean back and see the camera viewfinder at the same time, but you'll get the idea.

My right hand is holding the camera through the strap.