[pilotet]

Hi,
I would like to buy a camcorder consumer/prosumer with manual focus over the iris to get more creative videos.

I'm completly new in the camcorder world and I've take a look at many consumer camcorders with Full HD. This type of cameras it seems to sell only the FULL HD sticker with not many options. The best one I found it's the Canon HF10 but it doesn't permit manual focus over the iris.

I would like to use the camcorder with manual focus to focus the people and blur the background like with a reflex photocamera. I don't know if this feature it's only possible with professional cams only.

May be there is some professional or consumer camcorder withoutFULL HD but with this feature. Only I want the camcoder to film my baby and some special events so I prefer more control over the camera to get great effects than FULL HD.

Any recommentadion?

Thanks in advance

[senu]

It not the HD tag that is the limitation here . it is the lack of such features in consumer camcorders
Prosumer ones are a notch above consumer ones and all have manual Focus ( Im not sure what over iris means)
they tend to cost a couple of thousand pounds give or take some though
You may be confusing control over aperture with focus control. You can get a shallow background with Auto focus
However the "Focus pull" in which you can decide whether you want to blur background or foreground or any partcular subject in a scene needs MF and control over aperture , but the ability to do this may be limited by the small sensor sizes these camcorders have

Consumer camcorders do have some means of manual focus but it may be a rocker switch or touch menu ( )
However the size of sensors mean that they are optimised for fine focus rather than shallow DOF . As such even if you ar able to adjust the aperture wide open you may not get the shallow DOF you seem to desire

[A n d r e w]

Originally Posted by senu

( Im not sure what over iris means)

I suspect the original poster means a manual focus ring - is this correct? If so, there ain't much in the sub-£1000 market with a focus ring - the new HDC-SD100 leaps to mind which, being a Panasonic, offers full manual exposure control too. But it hardly falls under the "prosumer" label.

On the subject of depth of field, moreover, which sounds like it is important to the OP, I agree that the relatively small size of the sensor chips in sub-£1000 cameras is going to limit flexibility here. For example I find with the 1/6" chips in my SD9 that a shallow depth of field (foreground in focus, background blurred) is possible only at the big end of the zoom.

So it comes down to budget - how much dosh is the OP willing to part with?

[pilotet]

Thanks for both replies!
Now I've understood it.

I see it's like a digital photo cam.

It's not the same my Sony DSC-T1 than my Canon 40D with my 17-85mm.

So may be to start I buy the Canon HF10 or if you can recommend anyone with a bigger sensor and Manual focus? I have a 1100£ budget.

Thank you guys!