[Bill Parsons]

Larry, I’ll try that option.

After playing, I’ll post results.

Bill

[Bill Parsons]

I played with the focus assist last nite and it works really well for close focus but is pretty useless at long distances.
It does blow up the image 3x but the focus “success” bar is isolated to the left end of the bar range. Max usage is about 10% of the information the bar would reveal. Read: useless.

I am really unhappy with the quality of the image I am getting. Auto focus works the best — but this is no good for stage work because everytime the auto focus gets confused it hunts, ruining the quality of the video image.

My previous Pan camera was a 100B and it was dead on when I pre-focused it. This Pan 250 does a manual focus fine, but the DOF is too narrow for sharp images.

Very frustrating.

Regards to all, Bill

[Bill Parsons]

I find that the image is sharp when I am shooting and soft *in reality* when I post process.

My clients are complaining about the image quality.

I am going to experiment with focus assist, but am considering another camera.

[Bill Parsons]

I played this afternoon with autofocus and manual focus from a distance that equates to the back of the theater.

This camera doesn’t have much DOF when in manual focus (or, at DV definition I just didn’t see that the DOF wasn’t very D) and when using autofocus, it hunts a various times — definitely NOT desired.

If no one has any suggestions, this guy is gonna get lost.

Regards, Bill

[Bill Parsons]

If you didn’t need to restore the media, can you reformat the cards so that they work again?

[Bill Parsons]

I use a Sennheiser, as well. I use the short shotgun; it is either the ME-62 or -64. These guys are only a couple of hundred bucks.

In addition to being an excellent mike for front sound, it also works very well to collect sound from a stage 100′ away. I use a Rane mixer that I bungee to the tripod. It has terrific gain. I run the hpx250 gain to max, and control the volume from the mixer. You can hear a pin drop on the stage and the isolation from the side is excellent.

I bot mine on ebay for about $150. Great shopping place!

Regards,

[Bill Parsons]

Would you give details about your system. There were some postings that the panasonic drivers are not completely ready for 64-bit OS’s.

And, you can see everything from the 250’s viewer, right?

[Bill Parsons]

I have a bunch (!) of these hooked up to my MBP and have not encountered this problem.

Have you tried a different USB cable?

[Bill Parsons]

Steve, what camera did you go to after the 250. Also, did you find its focus a bit soft?

Many thanks, Bill

[Bill Parsons]

Thanks, Steve.

I’ll pick one of these guys up.

Regards, Bill