I appreciate everyones responses. This has been a very interesting discussion.
Does anyone have any tips on how to achieve a decent dolly zoom? Is it possible to get good results using a tripod on a 3 wheel dolly? I can't imagine this looking smooth trying to use my Glidecam.

My camera, the Canon XH-A1, lets you set a zoom point and "return" to it at the pre-set speed when you press a button. Automating that process leaves all of your attention on doing a smooth dolly.


J.

As much as I love doing things by myself, I can't imagine trying to pull off a move like this without another pair of hands to help out. I have to wonder what most crews go through in terms of rehearsals when preparing this move.

Matthew mentioned Hitchcock earlier, does anyone know which of his films was the first to feature a dolly zoom? Off the top of my head I'd guess "Vertigo", but I'm embarrassingly unfamiliar with his body of work.

You also need to consider whether you want to do the effect in the first place. It's become overused and clichéd.


J.

I'm not even sure when and if I would ever use this effect, especially since most of what I shoot is weddings. But if the occasion were to arise that this effect would fit the scene its cool to know ho to do it.

I think thats cool the Canon has that setting, that could definitely be handy.

Pretty certain it was Vertigo, in the tower at the end. I did a paper on Vertigo in film school and I seem to remember the dolly zoom being discussed for that film. BTW, I have an A1 and didn't know you could do that with the zoom. How do you do that? I'll have to check it out (-:

for a wedding, it can be fun...since every guy has a bit of a panic attack right before he says "i do"...make THAT your dolly zoom shot...i would have laughed so hard if somoene shot my wedding that way.

P.34 of the manual. "Zoom preset".


J.

Very cool. Looks like it has the same thing with focus as well. (Maybe I live under a rock - never really noticed that before).

I printed out the pdf manual and read the whole thing while I was waiting for FedEx to deliver my camera last year. :-)


J.