In plans for shooting a short entitled "Witchbane" I set up the dolly again to get some test shots.

In particular I wanted to try out the famous Hitchcock "Vertigo" zoom and dolly trick. Knowing that the XHA1 has a servo mechanism for both zoom and focus I had hoped that setting the camera on auto focus would possibly allow for zoom at the same time.

Unfortunately it does not.....

While zooming the focus makes quick little adjustments instead of a smooth racking focus. The effect is noticible enough to have to re-think this approach.

My consideration now is to either have the subject at a longer distance from the lense to allow for less focus adjustment....or use a higher f-stop and hope the camera will have the required depth of field....OR....the best possibility use the Letus Extreme and rack focus on the taking lense while controlling the zoom on the camera.

The strobing effect and colour grading was done in post.

Produced by James Hooey
soundprostudios.com