no, that is not true.

it depends on how you frame the object. you can deliberately create shallow DOF with an HV10 on auto-focus, but you have to make conscious choices about how you are enabling the selection of the object by the camera's auto-focus.

you can't just frame it up squarely and start shooting away, and expect that you are creating the same DOF that you can create manually -- or getting a complete understanding of how that camera can be focused -- or, therefore, its sharpness.

i actually posted some examples of this, when i first purchased an HV10, and i would direct you to those, chris has already removed them from the server. in other words, you can manipulate the HV10's auto-focus to rack focus two objects separated in the foreground and the background by manipulating how you direct the camera's focusing mechanism, but this has to be a deliberate choice and a deliberate manipulation - these are subtle manipulations.

it doesn't happen automatically, and it does not happen if you place an object in the middle of the frame and start shooting away with auto-focus.

when a camera "hunts" in auto-focus, it is trying to determine where to put the focal plane, so to say that focusing has no bearing on creating the DOF is not correct. because if you do that manually, yourself, or by subtly manipulating the camera until it gets it "right," then you can create a shallow DOF effect. but if you aren't forcing the camera to "see" the object that you want, then the camera will decide the focal plane for you, and it won't necessarily calculate it according to what is in the foreground - hence the "hunting" while it tries to figure it out...

moreover, if you're auto-focusing, you're typically giving up control over the aperture, which is, as you say, one of the main particulars in creating a shallow DOF, as you point out, tom, so the camera's auto-focus is less likely to create this effect.

anyway, the question is whether the sharpness of the cameras is apples to apples. are they both focused manually. is the aperture set the same. etc.

my suspicion -- and only joe can say -- is that we are looking at apples to oranges....

i'll put this another way...

here's a bit of footage that i shot when i first purchased an HV10, just mucking around, nothing fancy.

Internet Archive: Details: HV10 in the Desert

(it somewhat suffers from softness due to old flash compression technology, but i did not compress it, archive.org did...the quicktime doesn't look soft...)

to get the 1st shot required opening up the HV10 aperture and manually focusing the camera -- even the most subtle manipulations of the auto-focus could not have generated this shallow DOF effect.

no camera could do this on auto-focus - at least not remaining locked down.

so to say that focusing has no bearing on creating shallow DOF seems confusing to me -- of course it matters where you place the focus....

C'mon Meryem - I say it with a smile but if you're in a hole, stop digging. I use autofocus a huge amount in my run 'n' gun work, and I *never* give up control of the aperture, it's always locked down. As is the shutter speed, gain and white balance.

What you're saying is if the camera auto focuses on an unintended plane then you won't get the dof you had aimed for, but if the intended object isn't sharp in the frame then dof variables are the least of your worries.

tom.

what i'm saying is that i don't get soft images such as these when i manually focus an HV10.

what i'm saying is that my FX-1 and my HV10 can be matched pretty well in the post process, and the HV10 is sharp when you focus it manually.

maybe the FX7 is a big improvement. i don't know, i've never used it.

I was thinking maybe you purposefully desaturated the Sony to look like CHILDREN OF MEN, since in my experience with similar Sony cameras, Sony always had rich vibrant greens compared to any other similar camera. The Canon's usually are a little more subdued color (as seen in your other canon pics) Sony more contrasty and brighter hotter colors. I found JVC and Canon to be similar with maybe Canon being the most subdued.

It didn't look like a dark day or particulary overcast. Was it? Did the Cmos not do as well for color when it wasn't bright daylight? Just spitting in the wind with those questions. There is definatly more to play with in post with the Canon, but the out of box snappyness of the Sony can't be denied either.

Specifically looking at the SJ is a better comparison to the Canon stuff, I think I might have boosted the saturation in that too... heh...

Which was only adjusting levels to make black's look more like blacks and not greys.

And to the other guy, both were shot with auto-focus, but with the FX7 I will frequently use auto-focus to get the right player in focus, then switch it over to manual focus to keep it at that point, then adjust the frame accordingly. But I would lock the exposure/shutter/wb etc. down, basically I was using manual focus with a "push for autofocus" button... but in reverse, it was auto-focus until I hit the manual button to lock it (much easier for me because the manual focus button was closer to my pointer finger the way I was using it with a cover to protect it from paintballs... sorta...

http://lousyhero.com/videos/epicprevhd.wmv
http://lousyhero.com/videos/epicprevhd2.wmv
http://lousyhero.com/videos/epicprevhd3.wmv

Are some examples of what the FX7 stuff looks at 1080p... I don\'t have any of my canon stuff in anything but 720p unfortunately...

http://lousyhero.com/blaze/dvi/fx71.jpg
http://lousyhero.com/blaze/dvi/fx72.jpg
http://lousyhero.com/blaze/dvi/fx73.jpg

http://lousyhero.com/blaze/dvi/hv101.jpg
http://lousyhero.com/blaze/dvi/hv102.jpg
http://lousyhero.com/blaze/dvi/hv103.jpg

Some more 1080p screen caps... straight from the cams...