sony hdv-z1p focus issues
by dan frost
on
Jul 22, 2008 at 11:15:50 am
hi there
a company i shoot for have recently purchased a sony hdv-z1p camera. I have done several shoots with the camera and never feel entirely confident that I have sharp focus when shooting interviews.
Some of the shots that I have seen in the edit suite look okay but not entirely crisp and some have come back very soft on the subject and sharp on the back ground!
On a couple of occasions I have zoomed into the eyes and focussed and pulled back to a mid shot only for the subject to then look soft. I have switched to auto focus and still the image looks soft. When outside I have set the camera filters to 1 or 2 and the gain to 0db plus locked the shutter 1/50. Are there any other settings I should be adjusting? Some shoots the footage comes back looking okay and other days it comes back looking soft with no apparent change in shooting conditions or camera settings.
I would really appreciate hearing from anyone with advice or similar experiences
Re: sony hdv-z1p focus issues by Ernie Santella on Jul 22, 2008 at 1:23:15 pm
My Sony's are very focus critical. HD is not very forgiving. I always use the 'Expanded' focus button to check focus. But, it sounds like you may have a problem with your camera. If you z-in, set focus and when you z-out it looks soft, then something is wrong. I would take it in and have it checked.
Re: sony hdv-z1p focus issues by Lee Berger on Jul 23, 2008 at 12:55:29 pm
Hi Dan:
This sounds like a back focus issue. I had the same problem twice with my V1U and had to send it back to Sony twice to get it fixed. The last time was September 2007. Here are two posts from DVInfo.net about the problem and resolution.
