Take the A1U to the next level?

[csgaraglino]

I have a Sony A1U and I wan to find some information, books, DVD, website or something to help me move it out of auto mode.
The manual is not cutting it!

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

[Steve Grisetti]

Wow! That's a truly beautiful camcorder!

I couldn't find any resources in any of the obvious place. Since this is a professional camcorder, maybe it's best to see if there's a pro forum for discussing it.

Meantime, I did a search on "Sony A1U" on YouTube, and there are some nice test videos there. It might be worth contacting the people who created these videos.

[Chuck Engels]

videomaker.com and camcorderinfo.com both have pretty good forums that often discuss specific models and advanced techniques.

[csgaraglino]

Thanks guys.. I'll take a look at the sites and see what I can find.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

There isn't a lot of manual adjustment/settings available on this camera.

Manual focus is tricky because the focus ring is of the 'continuous turn' variety and the only indication of focal range is in the viewfinder/LCD. The 'focus ring turn distance' to go from a couple of yards to infinity involves a very small adjustment. Also the focus ring, having no focal range markings (c.f. 35mm camera lenses) means that approximate pre-focusing is impossible.

So for using manual settings in operation, you are limited to some very basics such as exposure, white balance and focus.

Having said that, it is useful to have even that basic level of control especially when, for example, sudden changes in contrast (a dark vehicle crossing the foreground of a shot) would cause the auto-exposure to change to compensate for the change light condition and the auto-focus to shift due to the movement in the foreground.

[sidd finch]

This is an HC1 with mic & 24fps support but the same engine and menu’s as the HC1. I have an HC1 and I love it. There is a DVD called hands on HDV for the HC1 which does a pretty fair job of detailing the menu and shooting options. But you will love this camera. I have logged many hours on mine and recommend this camera to anyone.

http://www.handsonhdv.com/DVD_HC1.html

Sidd

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

EDITED POST:

Thanks Sidd for that link. The instructional DVD costs only US$20 but to deliver to the UK costs another US$22 so I won't be buying.

RANT

I don't understand why US postal charges for non US addresses are so high. Another high cost seller is (was?) Digital Juice where they were selling a particular DVD that I was interested in for US$100 but wanted another US$65 for shipping to the UK. If a company like Footage Firm can supply and ship a DVD from their free collections for US$8.41 I don't see why other US companies can't do something at a similar shipping price. After all, just how much does a packaged DVD weigh? Or maybe a European market of 350m people just doesn't appeal.

As for this, no comment necessary!

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-at-work/ ... -40088600/

Based on the same UK£/US$ exchange rate (US$1.53=UK£1.00) the prices for the full versions of Windows 7, as listed on Amazon USA and Amazon UK, are as follows. Note that the UK price INCLUDES 17.5% tax. All prices expressed as UK£. If Microsoft can do it.....

Home - US price UK£95.43; UK price UK£94.99
Professional - US price UK£167.98; UK price UK£156.00
Ultimate - US price UK£183.01; UK price UK£168.03

...........so both the Pro and Ultimate versions are slightly cheaper in the UK.

So what is all this guff, Adobe, about different currencies, different languages etc?????

RANT OFF

[sidd finch]

Amazon also sells it so I am not sure if there is an amazon UK site that might be cheaper. I do know that you can use Yahoo IM to send up to 2GB of data files like a VOB type of file

Sidd