"Bill" <billzucker@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message

news:70d96dd.0402292016.229f1df7@posting.google.com...

> A super-slow zoom is a must for serious productions, and a jerky zoom

> start or stop is a sure mark of an amateur. I recently tried the

> VX2000 and the GL-2 and found neither can perform a slow zoom with

> either their rocker lever or their manual zoom ring. I was counting on

> the DVX100 to avoid that issue, but just read in the latest Digital

> Videomaker magazine that it too suffers, at least with the power zoom

> controls.

>

> Can anyone tell me why these cameras cannot perform slow zooms? My

> lowly consumer-grade TRV720 can do this with the right finger

> technique. Are Sony, Canon, and Panasonic colluding, telling us we

> have to pony up the big bucks to perform this necessary function?

>

> Thoughts? And can anyone tell me which 3-chip prosumer camera's zoom

> works well?

This has been one of my complaints with these nifty-and-surprisingly-

good-but-not-perfect "small" 3-CCD Mini-DV camcorders. Not so

much that a fairly slow zoom rate is not available (the VX2000 is

OK for this), but that the start/stop is abrupt. Using the manual ring,

you can start/stop the zoom progressively (so the electronics are

there to do this), but you cannot maintain an even zoom speed

over much range with it. Using a Lanc controller does not help

(though the Varizoom permits accelerations/decelerations, but

not to/from 0) since through it, there is a minimum zoom speed

that is the same as the one offered by the good rocker on these.

Too bad, since the ring action indicates that it might have been

possible to have wired the Lanc and rocker to have had a lower

available zoom speed at least (but both [except with the Varizoom]

offer incremental speed changes, which also do not look good).

BTW, I generally combine a zoom with a pan/tilt when shooting,

and the additional picture motions can help conceal the zoom

start/stop limitations. Also, it is unwise in this medium to try to

"zoom in post", as someone else suggested - the resolution does

not permit doing this well, and even slight zooms within the picture

result in undesirable artifacting in addition to noticeably lowered

overall resolution. Ah, well, what price convenience...;-)

--

David Ruether

d_ruether@hotmail.com

http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com