Darned! That's bad. And the manual does not say anything about this limitation.

I'm not so sure that the explanation of "one motor for both functions" is correct, but the fact remains that you can't zoom and focus at the same time on any DV or HDV camcorder that has an auto servo lens.

I didn't know that. Thanks, Philip and Chris.

I put my right hand inside the wrist strap to hold the cam, my left hand underneath for support with my thumb on the zoom ring. Then I use my third hand to operate the focus ring. Is this how you are doing it?

At last Tom, you admit to being a mutant. I had my suspicions all along.

My own technique is left hand under the lens, thumb and first finger on either side of the focus ring. Second finger on the right side of the zoom ring, up behind the XLR block. Third finger on the iris ring if needed.

Sure, Tom, normally I would have done so ...
No, seriosly: I was zooming with the upper lever (speed 3) and turning the manual focus ring at the same time trying to make a focus "jump".

Aha! Your hand is attached upside down!

Actually, I'm almost always on a tripod and like my index finger close to the AF button so I do it the other way round.

Just KNEW you wanted and needed that info.

Lol...

I'm going to try that, but 3 or 4 fingers operating the rings is guitar-like dexterity I don't have, plus you have to get accurate focus feedback from the eye and maintain the framing. Would you really juggle those 3 rings together at once?

Does AF response speed influence focus pulsing?
 

Meanwhile I did some tests to check whether AF response speed (low, middle, high) has any influence on the frequency of the focus pulsing:

My first impression is, that it has no influence.

Oh for a double armed tripod, with focus demand under one hand and zoom demand under the other.

Yes, I agree. I also couldn't see any difference in the pulsing.

Oh damn.. I totally forgot about this point (currently planing to switch from DVX100 to the A1) ... can the A1 be switched to manual zoom somehow? This is a really great feature of the DVX so you can do "real" (manual) crash zooms and stuff... please don't tell me the A1 only has a servo controlled zoom *sigh* :-(

Sorry dude, I think its all servo. I think that manual zoom on the DVX is really one of those features that seperated it from the pack.

No crash zooms on the A1, (also not on the Sony's Fx1, Z1, V1, etc.) If that is important for you and you want to make the step from dvx to HD, take a look al the all manual JVC lenses. You lose auto focus, OIS.

Z1 and FX1 do have crash zoom.

XH cameras have an option called "quick zoom." It's like the Z1 and FX1 feature in that it's as close as you can get to a crash zoom with an auto servo lens.

As chris pointed out the quick zoom feaure is pretty fast, but isn't as responsive and has a slight delay, compared to the realtime on the DVX.

It shouldn't be a dealbreaker for you though, the I use the quick zoom all of the time with good results.

Sorry wrong topic, post deleted...

I cannot verify this anymore since I sold my FX1:
Can you manually zoom AND focus at the same time?

You can (almost) crash zoom on the FX1 or Z1 by flicking the zoom switch to "lever" and then twisting the zoom ring to the other end of the zoom. When you flick the switch back to "ring" the zoom speed is about a second from one end of the lens to the other.

With high speed zoom on the A1 you can get from one end of the lens to the other in about 2 seconds - though it has a longer reach, but by my perception it's not even as "crash-like" as the Z1.

Michael, I've just checked and the Z1 and FX1 can be zoomed AND focused at the same time, both using the zoom ring and focus ring or the zoom lever and focus ring.

Thank you, Alex, for checking this. I sort of remembered it that way, but was not sure.

How come the FX1 can do this and the A1 don't? The FX1 has a "servo" (what is this, by the way?) for zoom and focus as well, right?

What a bummer... the full manual zoom is really a great thing.. even if you don't do crash zooms all the time ;) it simply "feels" much better because you just have more manual control... guess this is a case of try before you buy then... let's see if the servo zoom is sufficient for my needs.
Jeez when will they finally come out with a camcorder in that price range where you can switch off all that damn servos ;o) .. i hate all this "automagic" stuff...

I suspect the FX1 / Z1 has two servos, one for focus and one for zoom. A servo is basically a variable speed motor that you can control using some sort of a "proportional" control surface - like a lens ring.

As I understand it, Canon lenses use a single motor for both zoom and focus, probably with some kind of mechanical gearing that (invisibly) switches between the two mechanisms.

Although autofocus continues to work during zooms on the A1 (with the unfortunate addition of pulsing artefacts in 24/25/30F modes) the focus mechanism appears to be disengaged during zooms in manual focus.

The lens control on the FX1 / Z1 was one of the nicest I've ever come across on handheld prosumer cameras. The lens rings were setup just right (for me) and it did pretty much whatever I asked of it, with very smooth professional looking results.

I adore the extra resolution of the A1's image (I was shooting cineframe with the FX1 which is very soft), I love the image controls, and I love the extra range on the zoom... but I'm not smitten with the "feel" of the lens controls. There have been occasions where I'd like to rack focus and zoom at the same time (background landscape to foreground presenter for example).

It seems like you can't quite have it all...

Crash zooming is manual lenses only (I'm old school). No servo lens is doing that really. Indeed Alex, you can't have it all. If you mix all the sub $10.000 cams together and take the goodies, you are close, but it's never going to happen. Live with the quirks and the strong parts.

For the most you can live with it by changing the way you shoot or work, 'workarounds'. You can continue what is not there -the empty glass- or what is there -a half bottle- and make the best out of it. I bought this cam, it gives me an incredible lot for the money, it is by far the best buy I can get.

Regarding the pulsing issues... Has anyone tried zooming manually with autofocus on... Does that pulsing still occurr?
If it's a servo lens, and works like my sony dsr 250's, the zoom should be smooth enough.

Uh.. well, you don't really zoom "manually". Its always a servo controlled zoom, regardless of if you use the rocker or the lens ring. So if you zoom (using any method) with autofocus on, the pulsing can occur.

Sounds reasonable. Anyway - has anyone TESTED whether the pulsing really occurs during "manual" zooms? Thanks, Sergio, for your proposal. I will test and report.

Yes, that goes for me too. And there is no possible workaround - either zoom or focus. (Not true: We could always focus in camera and "zoom" in post - I'm joking).
Thanks, Alex, for your "servo"-explanation. Again, the manual should at least inform about this quite fundamental "zoom OR focus"-limitation. (No reason for indignation, fans: I would have bought the A1 just the same. Like Alex says: The image quality in 25F is simply too good to resist).

I need to come back on my early post on manually focus/zoom behavior, camera is back in the house and todays testing find out that you can not zoom and focus together. You can move the rings but one action (zoom) has priority over the other (focus). You can zoom in manually and push AF button but actually focussing is on the moment the zoom acton is finished.

Meanwhile I tested whether the AF focus pulsing also does occur while zooming manually (by zoom ring), as proposed by Sergio Barbosa. My first impression is that the pulsing is just the same.

I tested it too, there is no focus pulsing. Only in badly lit, no contrast situations where an object is out of the center in the screen, and you zoom in, auto focus can't be easy found. This is understandable behavior, an object needs to stay in the middle, the two-way focus system tries one after one to focus, that is shifting in and out focus. It is very rare to happen, it is autofocus behavior. Sure you can manual focus in that situation.

Hi all, first time poster.

Reading through this thread it occurred to me, is the focus-pulse-during-zoom thing largely a PAL issue? An earlier poster touched on this but nobody seemed to pick up on it.

It just seemed to me that most (if not all) of the people who have complained of this problem seem to be from Europe and thus would be using the PAL version of the A1. Right? I haven't gone back through the entire thread systematically, but is it possible that the problem only exists on the PAL version, or is more pronounced on the PAL version?

Ben, yes, judging from the reactions so far the pulsing may possibly be more pronounced on PAL units. Tom Roper posted a short 24p clip (NTSC unit) that also showed the pulsing, but I found it less pronounced than the pulsing I get on my PAL A1. But to become more certain, we would need more reports.

The focus pulsing is probably due to the lower sampling rate of PAL shooting compared to NTSC shooting. When stepping down to 24F the sampling rate is very low, hence the pulsing appears on the NTSC model at that point.

FYI, I've shot some 24F under challenging lighting/focusing environments and gotten pretty severe pulsing, worse than Tom's sample.

Philipp, if possible - could you upload a short sample of yours?

It's fairly likely that the pulsing is caused by the motor switching back and forth between focus and zoom.

If this is the case it could be possible that in 24F/25F we're seeing a temporal artefact.

For example, if this switching happens at 30 times a second (say) then you wouldn't see it in 30F or 60i.

But you would see it in 24F/25F and to a lesser degree in 50i (although the interlace scanning would somewhat cancel out the effect).

So it's possible it might be invisible to the vast majority of users who are filming 60i...

Interesting thought, Alex.
Could anyone of the NTSC users shoot and upload a short native demo take in 60i (slow zooming to the long end, AF switched on)?

I don't have upload capabilities here, otherwise I'd try to get a comparison 24F/60i clip up.

I can say that I actually tried to get the effect in 60i and wasn't able to.

Thanks, Philip. That is interesting to know even so.

So does the pulsing happen in NTSC at 30F?

We simply don't know yet in general, Ben. Therefore we would need more reports from NTSC users.