Newbie to videography and I did a bit of research before I bought the Canon XH A1. A lot of people told me to go for the Sony FX1 which is now obsolete or the newer FX7. I wanted to be in a position of having a camera that would enable me to experiment with HD, give me the XLR inputs and provide me with great results.

Having owned the camers for a month now (and comparing the shots with my mates Sony VX2000) I was becoming concerned. The colours were not rich enough and the shots looked saturated.

Spent ages reading the manual, no luck... went on the net and hey presto DVInfo told me everything I needed to know. Brilliant!

Now I get the shots with the XH A1 with what I believe to be a good colour balance... especially when it comes to the capturing the rich colour of Asian clothing!
:o)

Keep up the good work and this site is firmly positioned on my favourites as number 2 (Number one being my beloved Liverpool Football Club - :o).

Steven,
Your VividRGB preset I've noticed skin tone is slightly more on red color, can you guide me which color settings to adjust to tone down reddish skin? Thanks.


Nathan

Munaf,

Which preset do you use for best colour in Asian clothing? I too am a new purchaser of the XHA1 (2 weeks) but have not had much of an opportunity to play with it so far.

Regards,

Brendan

"Now I get the shots with the XH A1 with what I believe to be a good colour balance... especially when it comes to the capturing the rich colour of Asian clothing!
:o)"

I've been using the VividRGB. This one's my favorite, it gives great results.

Mark

I'm trying to load these presets, but I can only load up to 9 and the last three are taken. Is there a way to load all 18? This is driving me nuts. I see these other preset functions and those are up to 20, but it looks like something different than the custom preset...Help?

Thanks Mark (Rook). I've now loaded VIVIDRGB on to the camera and had a test fly. Looks good.

Regards,

Brendan

i am ameture with xha1 have a stupid question have been trying with the presets but have noticed that if i put the camera in manual mode with AGC on auto and AWB on auto at night during indoor all the preset looks great but if i put the AGC to gain 3 the picture still looks quite dark..... so my question is do i have to have them on auto while using the presets ??
sorry about this stupid question but everyone starts somewhere rite.........

I'm trying to load these presets, but I can only load up to 9 and the last three are taken. Is there a way to load all 18? This is driving me nuts. I see these other preset functions and those are up to 20, but it looks like something different than the custom preset...Help?

I am Pretty sure that if you want more you have to store them on your SD memory card and use them from there.

Yes, just keep an SD card in the camera at all times, and you've got 20 more preset file slots that way. It doesn't have to be a high-capacity card. If you have an older 256MB or 128MB card, that's just fine. A high-capacity card will let you record more still photos though, and you can have the camera write the current Custom Preset file along with the photo, so the number of CP files you can have on hand is practically unlimited with a 1GB or 2GB Secure Digital flash memory card left in the camera. As inexpensive as they are, there's no reason not to have one.

if i put the AGC to gain 3 the picture still looks quite dark..... so my question is do i have to have them on auto while using the presets ??Hi Mickey, the only stupid question around here is the one which isn't asked. First, make sure your viewfinders are properly set up. The might not be bright enough. Use the Display menu to make those changes by comparing their images to your best video monitor or an HDTV. Then keep AGC switched off, and try a higher Gain setting. You can use +6 or +12 without degrading the image too much. The Gain values for the L-M-H Gain switch are found in the Camera menu. Hope this helps,

Mickey, also keep in mind that there are limitations on the camera itself in terms of what it can "see" if there is very little light. When auto gain is engaged in a dimly lit space, it will tend to crank the gain up to the max. You may not be able to see the full effect of the noise being added to your picture until you look at it through a TV screen.

Try the presets in a number of different situations (with the AGC off) from brightly sun lit scenes to dimly lit interior night scenes and get a sense of what the camera is capable of doing.

thanks a lot guys i will follow the path you showed might comeback with more problems

Hello Everone,

I am a new XH A1 owner. I've had it for about 2 weeks now and have been experimenting with it and am amazed at the camera. Before this I had (and still have) a Sony RTV900. I spent hours on this site before purchasing my camera and have gotten great info. Great site.

I am going to be shooting a small dance recital using my A1 and borrowing a friends Panasonic PV-GS400. Does anyone have a preset to use as a start that comes close to the PV-GS400. The last recital I shot I used 4 small consumer cameras and spent hours trying to color match them as close as possible. Even after that it was very noticeable when I switched from one camera to the other. I was planning on using the PV-GS400 to shoot the full stage and use my XH A1 to follow the principle dancer or get close ups.

Also, I've read a lot about shooting stage performances. The spotlights pose some interesting challenges in getting good coloring. I was planning on using full manual settings, Shutter speed 1/60th and getting the highest f stop so that I could have a decent DOF. My goal is to be able to set the focus and leave it so the camera doesn't hunt in low light situations. I also wouldl like to set the gain to 0 but am not sure if that will be possible. I may need to use +3. I was planning on using the PV-GS400 to shoot the full stage and use my XH A1 to follow the principle dancer or get close ups.

I would really appreciate any advice or tips you all could give me to get the best possible result.

Thanks and again, great sight.

Thanks to chris and steven i have been able to shoot quite a lot and have learned from you guys a lot might upload some footage later and get your opinion on what you guys think ...i still need a lot to learn........

has a small noise and I can use this setting with +12dB gain with smaller noise
then other settings with +6dB (brightness between them looks closed, but this setting is a little better). Setting has a nice soft look.

GAM 2
CMX1
CGN -4
CPH 0

KNE L
BLK M
PED -3
SET 0

SHP 0
HDF M
DHV 0
COR -2

NR1 0
NR2 0

all rest 0

After playing a lot with the customs found in the library I must say that the ones called AC Pref 1 and Ave Film are pretty amazing. Mr. Chapman, I think you were right on it. Very subtle and refined. Thanks again
Larry

If one wanted to use just one of the custom presets listed, how easy is it to individually change each of the settings listed? How once changed, does the XH-A1 then stick with those settings w/o reverting to the factory settings?

Are you serious? You make your adjustments to the preset... save it... voila!

Bill

Are you serious? You make your adjustments to the preset... save it... voila!

Bill

I don't have the XH-A1 yet - finishing up my comparisons between it and a Sony, and trying to understand how the presets work is part of my research. I think the XH-A1 is the one I will be getting (as soon as I can swing it financially).

Stephen, I suppose my point was, although indirect... what would be the purpose of a "preset" if it wasn't meant or possible to be saved? Don't all presets work like this no matter what the application is?

Good luck on your eventual purchase :)
Bill

Stephen, I suppose my point was, although indirect... what would be the purpose of a "preset" if it wasn't meant or possible to be saved? Don't all presets work like this no matter what the application is?

Good luck on your eventual purchase :)
Bill

Your right. I should have thought that one through a bit more.

Hi - This forum is fantastic! Thanks to everyone who has generously shared their knowledge and helped us newbies with the presets.

Using the presets given here, I've been using them as a base to start experimenting on my own. But I need a littke help with trying to create that lush saturated look of color films from the 1950's.

I'm shooting on the Queen Mary in Long Beach and when I want to cut to a scene that could be in the past, I could go with a sepia look, but I'd like to try using the look I've described as it matches Cunard's (the steamship line's) own publicity shots from that era.

Any thoughts?

Thanks again!

Scott

I may have missed it, but is there a link to sample clips of the presets from the first post that are not so dark?

When you have the SD card in, does it cycle through the presents with the "onboard" ones first (Are there 6 of those total?) and then does it cycle through the ones on the card?

Yes, it cycles through the card and then starts all over again with the on-board settings. I haven't found a way of giving each setting a unique name, this would be a handy feature instead of seeing a set of numbers.

I tried to read through the preset discussion, but it has become a little bit extensive.

A lot of XH A1 users are very interested in this section. Even more: it has become the reference for this subject. Not very surprising: Canon did not a very good job in providing both an true in-depth explanation in the manual and some real examples ready for application in the field!

To CH: I realize it's probably quite some work, isn't it possible to revise the preset library at the beginning of thread, and add all the preset-variants made in this forum, incl. the original spreadsheet containing all param's?

We would be grateful till the end of our XH A1 life (who knows with what Canon will come by that time ;-) )

Steven,
Your VividRGB preset I've noticed skin tone is slightly more on red color, can you guide me which color settings to adjust to tone down reddish skin? Thanks.


Nathan

Hey Nathan, I was just wondering if you managed to figure this out for I have not seen a reply to your post and I have the same question.

Thanks
Domenic

If one wanted to use just one of the custom presets listed, how easy is it to individually change each of the settings listed? How once changed, does the XH-A1 then stick with those settings w/o reverting to the factory settings?

To answer your question, you do not have to save it for it to remain in tact.

But its wise to save it to SD card when you're happy with your results.

To change the setting is a no-brainer, and you'd find more info about this if you check out the A1 manual listed as a sticky up here.

How do i start with changing presets to match my A1 with another camcorder.
At our video club we do some multicam recordings and would like to match the other cam as much as possible.

Thanks in advance for your reply

So I loaded up the B&WJECTA preset because I wanted to film some blacka nd white footage in HDV just to see how it looks. When I select the B&WJECTA preset the display turns to black and white but then when I exit out of the menu it goes right back to color.

What gives? Is it not going to film in B&W now? I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, probably something stupid...

Probably because you haven't selected that particular CP... OR you don't have CP's activated. Is CP flashing?

Bill

When I select the B&WJECTA preset the display turns to black and white but then when I exit out of the menu it goes right back to color. The problem is that you're trying to use the menu to select the active preset, and it doesn't work that way. The menu is there for creating, importing, and adjusting presets -- not for selecting them while you shoot video.

To select the active preset when shooting video, use the CP On/Off and CP Select buttons on the lower left side of the camera and refer to "Activating the Custom Preset Settings" on page 81 of the Canon XH operator's manual.

Yeah that's exactly the problem. I was trying to activate them via the menu and not the CP On/Off toggle button. I get it now. Thanks.

Also, is the first page with the 18 presets and excel sheet the most current list and chart?

I'm wondering how many presets total have been created/released by people on here.

What PRESET would give me a vibrant, yet balanced image? I don't want to spend days trying to make my own...I'll take the word of the pros. Would it be better to shoot it flat and then correct in post? I want to get the full HD glory out of the a1. Also, what is the best preset for low-light?

I've only just started playing with these as well and was wondering if there was a major update lurking somewhere.

I was particularly impressed with Preset02 and what I have loaded as preset20 which is in fact the VividRGBK.

Interestingly the Canon pre - loaded preset 7 isn't bad, but not quite enough ooomph.

Is it me or did anyone else discover that preset 5 is, in reality, the 5296Film and preset 7 the Lowlt12 (not the other way round)?

If anyone has any major improvements to either preset2 or VividRGBK I'd be interested in hearing about it.


Yeah, yeah, I could start actually playing with these in depth myself, but when you're a colour blind as I am, you get into real trouble real quick once you start fiddling with colour values. I have to go on the overall "tone" of the picture, which is fine till someone with decent colour sight sees it and recoils in horror!


CS

Hi, thanks for the preset advice it rocks!
I have been using my XhA1 for coming up to 8 months now (and am very happy with the results so far).

I will be filming a theatre production multi cam shot this week where the other cameras will be the sony Z1P, I would love to dial up a preset to match them as close as possible with my canon.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

Thank you!!!

I probably sound very naive posting this, but do I need an SD card reader to down load the pre-sets to the SD card?
Or can I do it by connecting the camcorder to my PC?
thanks

I probably sound very naive posting this, but do I need an SD card reader to down load the pre-sets to the SD card?
Or can I do it by connecting the camcorder to my PC?
thanks

If you look back in this thread you will see that the reader is available at almost any electronic store, even Walmart for a very reasonable price.

I suggest you read this entire thread. It contains a ton of great information about the PRESETS and how to use them.
Regards,
Steve

Sorry Steve,I did read the whole thread but must have missed that
Thanks for posting a response

Sorry Steve,I did read the whole thread but must have missed that
Thanks for posting a response

There is so much information in here that it's easy to overlook some things. I didn't have a card reader when I got my camera and found that I could use my old HP HX4700 PDA as a card reader. I just uploaded the files to the PDA and then to the SD card.

You would think Canon would make the camera able to connect directly to a computer so we could move files and photos from the SD card. Oh, sorry, prolly off topic.

Enjoy the camera. I am trying to get my videos uploaded to Vimeo to share. So maybe soon you can see my use of VIVIDRGB, etc.

There's a lot of taste and fashion in colour settings. I'm one of the first wave XH A1 users, and no discussion: the out of the box A1 is having too flat colours.

After trying out dozens of presets, I composed myself, downloaded from this website and also from Wolfgang Winne's fxsupport website, there are only two that I retained: preset 2 'ACPREF' and t oa certain extend, preset 10 'DISJECTA' (which I already consided as a bit over the edge regarding the 'colorization').

I tried the VIVIDRGB only once, and it turns the colour balance into a completely unrealistic colour scaling: can be a nice 'oomph' in some cases, but a landscape with GREEN bushes ended up as one with BROWN bushes. The reds are on the limit of color bleeding.

The only thing I want to say is... maybe now we want to proof how good our post looks on plasma's and LCD panels, but making the reality look a bit too colorful, over some years, we may dislike this kind of approach.

Anyone have a good preset for receptions, say around +6 gain for low light.

I am using VividRGB all the time and love the colors.
Thanks Steve.

There's a lot of taste and fashion in colour settings. I'm one of the first wave XH A1 users, and no discussion: the out of the box A1 is having too flat colours.

After trying out dozens of presets, I composed myself, downloaded from this website and also from Wolfgang Winne's fxsupport website, there are only two that I retained: preset 2 'ACPREF' and t oa certain extend, preset 10 'DISJECTA' (which I already consided as a bit over the edge regarding the 'colorization').

I tried the VIVIDRGB only once, and it turns the colour balance into a completely unrealistic colour scaling: can be a nice 'oomph' in some cases, but a landscape with GREEN bushes ended up as one with BROWN bushes. The reds are on the limit of color bleeding.

The only thing I want to say is... maybe now we want to proof how good our post looks on plasma's and LCD panels, but making the reality look a bit too colorful, over some years, we may dislike this kind of approach.

I have played with the presets and stuck to VividRGB because of the "oomph" in the colors (then by time I am done shredding the quality in capture, they look more natural-insert lol) but last night I watched an interesting indie film, Eighteen, shot on video with what seemed to be VividRGB preset. Watching the film I noticed that the colors looked unnatural in the movie, they had too much "oomph." Perhaps this is because we are used to seeing movies shot on film that render color a bit differently.

My question is, what is the best practice? To use presets to alter the image while shooting, or to shoot the original images with VividRGB and make changes in post production?

Steven D., do you do much tweaking to the color when you are editing?

My question is, what is the best practice? To use presets to alter the image while shooting, or to shoot the original images with VividRGB and make changes in post production?

Steven D., do you do much tweaking to the color when you are editing?

I personally think there are two parts in this: the standard A1 setting is not really what you want due to his 'too neutral' nature. To achieve some kind of 'natural standard', you can maintain throughout your workprocess you need to develop/use some kind of preset (from this excellent source?).

On the other hand, let your camera decide how your final post will look like, with the exaggerations of the VIVIDRGB, doesn't look a good idea unless you really know what you're doing. If it really goes wrong, not a lot can help you anymore to get this back on the track in the editing process (my brown bushes will never become green anymore...)

As I'm also thinking, a lot of the high contrast fujichrome-alike colours are just a fashion phenomenon. It has al to do with the plasma/TFT hype to set deeper and deeper colours and contrasts.

Over five years, we might end up with saying "hey guys, look what we were doing in those days" at this type of footage. Again, you won't be able to change this back to a more neutral approach.

So adopt colours in post yes, but this is not an easy, and tedious process.

At the end of the day, everything is going back to find the right compromises, making your workflow as lean and mean as possible.

I was happy with the orginal Canon present when I first got my A1 (compared with the XM2 it was incredible), but after reading this thread, tried a few of the presets before settling on VIVIDRGB. Then last week I was filming red squirrels in Scots Pine forest - a habitat full of reds and mid-dark greens. Everything looked a bit too reddish - so I'll have to be careful, perhaps choose another preset, next time I'm in that habitat.

I actually quit using VIVIDRGB mainly because I found it to be too red. I now use a slightly modified version of my other preset Panalook and am getting much better results, not as vibrant but skin tones are more realistic.

Steven,

Any chance of posting your modified panalook preset?

Jonathan Schwartz
CA Video Productions

I'll try to get to it in the next few days....really busy right now.

Yes I recorded a reception last week and noticed VIVIDRGB is a bit red, so I switched it up a little...didn't modify, just fiddled with some buttons : )
Can't wait to see your update Steve.

Here is the latest preset: TrueColor

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=116993

Thanks Paolo!