Shot Transition
 

Does the A1 have the Shot Transition feature like the Z1 ?

It has the focus shift transition feature. You focus on an out point, then refocus your in point, press the button when you're ready to shift and it will do the shift for you to the exact preset point.

How long does the transition happen over?

I think you can program the shift times. I haven't got that far yet.

I love the preset feature. But I wish Canon had done two presets - like the Sonys.

The Z1's shot transition feature makes filming interviews a real pleasure. Mid shot on one button... CU on the other. Flick between the two easily. But I didn't like the way Shot Transition mode took over the display on the camera.

The other thing I wish a camera manufacturer would do is to ditch LANC in favour of a USB controller or something that would let me control the preset without touching the camera.

So you cannot focus from a to b and back to a ?

Using the focal distance readout available in the display, you can pull focus from A to B to A as much as you want. For example, watch the display in order to accurately roll from 1.2 meters to 10 meters back to 1.2 meters (or in feet, for all you Yankees).

If you use the focus position preset, then you have a choice of three transition speeds: fast, faster and fastest. Hope this helps,

Roughly how long do the fast, faster, fastest transitions take?

And is there any artistry to them? I mean, does the zoom have any gentle "feathering" or is it just crash-bang-wallop?

There's a focus transition and a zoom transition. The focus transition speed is three varieties of fast. The zoom transition speed is whatever constant speed you've previously dialed in, from incredibly slow (zoom speed 1) to very quick (zoom speed 16). Hope this helps,

Yeah, that transition is way too fast, I've discovered. That's a bit disappointing. With the Z1 you can make it go on as long as you want. This fast speed makes it not so good for dolly shots as I had hoped it would be.

The good news is it's a lot easier to follow focus with no assistant when you can see the readout in the lens. In that regard, this lens is better than a fully manual lens. I use a Losmandy Spyder dolly a lot and often make the simple dolly moves by myself. With the DSR500 I have to position my fingers on the lens and rehearse the move a few times and not move my left hand until after the focus shift, which I do by feel. This readout will be much more accurate, than that. I don't think the transition is a total washout because lots of times a dolly move is pretty wide angle, and I don't think the too-fast shift will be bad in some situations. But it would be nice if one of these days they came out with a downloadable upgrade to change the speeds. I wonder if that's possible, to have downloadable upgrades via firewire?

It's possible to have downloadable firmware upgrades via the SD card.

See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=73850 for an example.

Interesting thread there. So, if we all whine loudly enough, eventually Canon might do a firmware upgrade to slow down the focus transition and give me the option to use one of the custom buttons for the stabilizer on-off switch???

Wouldn't it be nice if they can upgrade the firmware to allow for rack focus settings in 0.25 second increments, like the zoom increments (1 to 16), resulting in times between 0.25 sec up to 4 seconds? Then send out SD cards to existing customers, together with the maintenance software. That would be great.

I second that whine, especially the stabilizer custom button. Is canon listening?