I am shooting in a church environment and the choir is right in front of a very large window. This side of the church happens to be the bright side of the church. The last time I shot there the choir shots came out dark and some siloutted(sp?) . How do I correct this with the xl1s.
I guess my question goes back to the various functions and uses of the buttons and adjustments. so what do I do in that situation. From what I remember I believe the camera was on automatic.

Either you turn on your fill light (on or off camera) to compensate for the bright light behind the choir.
Or open up your exposure but this will wash out the background and the windows. what a waste if it is painted glass.
Or use a reflector in front of the choir to bounce the light to their faces.

Under all these conditions you have to go Manual , AV and TV settings.

Happy shooting!

The only way to do this and still retain detail in the window is to light up the choir. It'll take some fairly bright lights to balance it all out. If you can get your hands on a pair of 1000-watt video lights that would help.

Be aware that the color balance of the tungsten lights won't match the bluish daylight from the window behind.

Another option is to take window tint film and temporarily attach it outside the window. You'll still have to balance it with lights indoors but at least they won't have to be as bright.

Good luck!

A couple other thoughts

If this is a staged event,can you take the choir shots at night, or dusk, when the window may be lit to a lower level? And perhaps cut them in later.

If a wedding or similar event, use manual exposure and avoid pans from the backlit window to darker sections of the church unless you have a cutaway available to cover the exposure changes/adjustments.