Does anyone know how to eliminate the green vertical bars that appear when the XL1 is aimed at a light source or reflective surface?? I love this camera so much...but I find it impossible to work around this.

I believe you are talking about zebra lines. You must go into the XL1 menu and turn off Zebra lines. If I am wrong, someone please correct me.

A green vertical bar sound more like a light flare than zebra bars. Zebra bars are black and if I remember well, diagonal. If you are using a UV filter, try to remove it. There is filters that introduce some flares.

These are strong vertical lines...always green. I seem to get them the most when shooting at very high shutter speeds. If I am shooting water on a bright day...these lines are all over the place. I have even encountered them on everything from white shirts during outdoor interviews, and even from sweat beading on my interview's forehead. The sun and it's reflected light tend to do it the most. I am sure the obvious means of avoiding this would be to bump my shutter down, but I always shoot with high shutters to help my subject stand out from the background. I know for a fact that it is not a problem with just my camera, because the same thing occurs with my cousin's XL1....and now with his XL1s. No UV filters are being used. Now that I am using the monochrome viewfinder, it is sometimes difficult to detect while shooting. The lines are often subtle if the light is only reflected. Thank you for your input.

It is a CCD phenomena and can't really be avoided if you shoot into a bright light source. It is covered in the XL1 manual. Certain types of CCD's (FIT) are less prone to the vertical bands, but are typically used on more expensive cameras.

That's what I was afraid of. Thank you for putting that to rest for me.

Unrelated....you have really nice bird shots. I too am a wildlife photographer. You pictures really make me miss the Everglades. I used to work at WSVN (FOX affiliate) in Miami. I loved getting out of the city and into the 'glades. Anyway...great shots. Feel free to keep me posted as you update your site.

Chris, r u using the 3x lens? I had similer problems when i used my 3x lens and it seemed to go away at different shutter speeds. It didnt happin at all with the 16x. and yes it wasnt just at light sources, but anything that was white...even if it wasnt in direct sun light. Anyway, not to long after a gear in the lens busted and had to be replaced, and it seemed fine after that.

I am not using the 3x. I use the 14x manual lens, as well as the stock lens. Like you, white surfaces kill me too. That's really an annoying drawback to this camera. I can live with it, work around it, etc......but I really wish I didn't have to.