Depth of Field XL2
 

I am working with an XL2 with the 16x manual servo lens. What is the best way to manipulate DOF? Are there certian setting in the camera that I could adjust to get great DOF?

Open up the iris as wide as you can, and zoom in as much as you can to decrease the DOF. Using ND filters is a good way to compensate for the extra light the CCD is recieving. Adjusting the shutters will work as well however, at 1/90 you start to get a noticable 'stutter' in the footage that resembles the jerky motion of old fashioned film. Anything higher is more suitable for high action shots (ie fight sequences), but that is a matter of taste. Outdoors in high light situations, a diffusing screen behind the subject works very well.

Another "trick" if your doing interviews is to focus on the background behind the subject, zoom back out frame your subject and use the macro to bring the subject in focus. This does a good job of "popping" your subject and making the background soft. Also move the camera back as far as you can, this increases the DOF between your subject and the background.

Keep in mind that you'll want to be able to keep a good distance between your camera and your subject...your subject and the background when you zoom in. Focus is a range (distance from the camera)...anything outside that range is out of focus. Zooming exxagerates this effect. The more space you give behind your subject, the more exxagerated the soft focus of the background will be.

The problem is that the smaller capture plane (CCD @ 7ish mm) causes the Focal range to be quite long, so we have to play with physics to get the shallow DoF we're looking for.

Uh...the XL2 doesn't have a macro (although it is a good tip). If I could afford the Beta SX cameras I used to use in news, then I would have a lens that had an amazing focus/iris/macro...the manual stuff, not this digital, turn the focus ring round and round and it never stops stuff...then I would use the macro...or am I missing something in the manual for the XL2 (I have the 20x lens).

The 16x manual servo lens has macro. It is a really good lens if your looking for the manual features.

Yes I should have specified that I use the manual lens ,although Alex stated in the intiial post that he was using the manual lens, thus the "advice" on DOF.

Oh, my bad. That is a good thing to have. I still say all the lenses should have it, though. That's one of the things that would elevate this prosumer camera even higher. Granted, that might make it cost more, too. Hmmmmm.

Would using lenses from say... a stock Canon Rebel EOS lense with the EF adapter for the XL work to achieve a better DOF than standing far and zooming in with the 20x lense?

Yes, because since EF lenses are designed for a 35mm sensor, they come with a magnification factor of around 7x when used on an XL2, whose sensor is 1/3". Due to this fact, though, you still have to be pretty far away from the subject unless you want an extreme close-up or something. It's basically the same effect as you'd get by zooming in on the 20x or the 16x.

With 1/3" sensors, if you want shallow depth of field the only ways to get it are to either get far away from the subject and magnify the image in the lens (in any of several ways), or to get a cine-lens adapter like the Red Rock or similar.