HC1 & A1 Fast Action
 

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for the great forum, I have been reading a lot about these cameras and I can’t find a good answer to my question so I thought I would ask:
From what I have read it looks like you can get some blur with these cameras in shooting fast panning scenes. My primary use of the camera would be for shooting Dog Agility, indoors (typically gymnasium style lighting) does anyone have any experience in this type of setting, and what kind of results are you getting? (The competitions (so far) don’t allow additional on camera lighting)
If either of these cameras won’t work for what I need, then do you think the FX1 could handle the job? (Sorry if this question is in the wrong forum)
Thanks
David

I have a HDR-HC1. I took pictures of my brother's dog running very fast and they look very nice. Of course if you pause the video it wont be good. From what I have learned is that every camera has a limitation on maximum panning-speed. Even filmcameras. You can also get some blur-effect when you loose focus. I typically zoom out and in again and then it corrects itself. You can use manual focus as well. BTW, my brother's dog is very white and that felt more of an issue than the panningspeed.

Thanks Fredrik,
When you were taking pictures your brothers dog, were you shooting indoors? I am worried that the combination of fast panning and not enough light might cause this to be completly useless video.
Has anyone else taken video of say indoor basketball, etc?

No, it was outdoors in pretty good sunlight. But agility indoors, isn't it fairly lit up? I remember that we had a lot of light in our room. Of couse HDV eats a lot of light. Interesting to know is that if you have a picture which are in similar colorspace you get a lot better picture. I took a picture of the sky and a railwaystation. Since it was pretty late the railwaystation was pretty dark. As I moved the camera down towards the railwaystation the camera compenstaed and took a very nice picture of the station.

There is also a button you can press that gives you more light. It's in a different post.

And if you go for the A1 you will have black stretch which might be better.

Finally, the HC3 is supposed to have better light than the HC1.

From the courses that I have seen the lighting has not been that great, similar to a high school gynmasium and thanks for the info on the colorspace too.

Hmmm... then I am quite sure the HC1 isn't for you. I am not sure how well the A1 will perform. Maybe you can try it out. Regarding FX1 you should ask in that forum...

HC1 & A1 Fast Action
 

hi all,
I recently filmed (A1P) a snake from about three feet away. The snake's head was swaying left & right and only slightly above the flat ground. I used auto focus and the lens on full wide. A little later I again used full wide inside a piston engined aircraft which was vibrating quite a bit. Upon reviewing the footage I found the snake's body in focus but it's head is very blurry. The footage of the aircraft instruments on the other hand had no blur at all. I wonder if the head of the snake was just simply too small an area for the auto sensor to focus on. Any snake filming hints anyone ? cheers HH

G'day
Sounds to me like the HC1 was simply focusing on the ground rather than the snake's head. These cameras like high-contrast lines to focus on, and i've noticed that often an animal or a flower (especially a small one) doesn't have enough hi-contrast for the auto-focus to 'pick it' in preference to the background which often is ground or trees and has more contrast in.
Especially from 3 feet away the depth of field isn't going to be huge anyway, so assuming the snake wasn't moving too quickly, you can discount shutter-speed-issue. - focus issue. Solution is either to zoom in tighter on snake, or move camera much lower, to frame the shot so that the background is further away / less distinct to 'persuade' camera that the snake is the subject.
Or obviously just use manual focus or spot focus. More you use the cam, the more you'll become aware of what it likes to focus on and so you'll watch the screen carefully to make sure the desired object is in focus.
Now if it was a taipan i sure wouldn't even have got to 3 feet..... and you get those up there in FNQ...

Dont forget that these cameras also have manual focus. I dont even see why you guys would even be using auto focus.

I do. It's almost impossible to pull manual focus on 1080i using the small flip out or the viewfinder as reference.

Flying Focus vs. Snake-style
 

Yes, it is very easy to think you're in-focus on the camera itself, it looks sharp even when you're a bit off... There is a button called 'expanded focus' which will blow-up the central region of the image to fill the screen, and allow you to focus, then back out to normal viewfinder mode. Very useful for a shot you're able to set up.

But... Snakes in motion?

No real fault (in my eyes) for trying the auto-focus in the snake shot - I think with the unpredictable nature of a snake, you would sort of hope the auto-focus would be able to keep up, but it seems it didn't.

As i said, i don't think it's a matter of the snake;s head moving so much as there wasn't enough contrast in the head to get an autofocus lock.
Background (the ground) will have had leaves/stones/sticks/debris and camera can easily focus on that and obviously that's what it did.

I've had the same problem with certain animals and exotic plants. There's often just not enough contrast in the flower's or the animals coats to get a lock. Most animals are designed for camouflage and are going to be more or less a uniform dullish colour with no sharp lines/ edges.
Camcorders like lines /edges of high contrast to lock onto. Often they just 'give up' and focus on the background.

HC1 & A1 Fast Action
 

hi,
well, i'll be testing all focus options on the A1P now on small critters. I used auto focus because I thought that the flat ground would keep the focus and the snake would fall well within the depth of field. I was wrong. expanded focus is not an option when the object is moving even at a slow pace.
cheers HH

Depth of field when filming only 3feet away will be really very shallow Hubert.
Zoom in to max., and then manual focus or spot focus on snakes´head while panning with the snakes head. Even Spot focus might not have worked if snakes head has too little contrast.

All the tips sound good, but you might also consider the telephoto lens. I have found the autofocus difficult to manage in high-contrast scenes with other "distracting" elements for the camera's auto-focus. I have also found the autofocus works a lot better when my shots are locked down on a tripod. If only the object is moving you'll have a better shot. Snakes will be safer and less zoom involved with the telephoto lens adapter. Get the Sony one.