No doubt many of you are familiar with David Eubank's pCam http://www.davideubank.com/ software for the Palm handheld device. It's quite a handy calculator of sorts that lets you determine depth of field, field of view and other stuff. The software comes with a bunch of presets for common film formats in 35mm 16mm and 70mm formats and an HD pack is also available.

So my question is, has anyone figured out the appropriate settings for the XL2? I've found that Chris Hurd's assessment of the camera http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article04.php? is somewhat helpful. I think you could fake the field of view results if you configured the lens as if you were shooting on 35mm, but obviously this would still leave you out to lunch when it comes to depth of field. It looks like I'd need accurate measurements of the XL2's CCD, but from what I've discovered through a little research, nobody knows that info. So has anyone made any calculations empircally that would lead to an accurate CCD assment? I'd try to myself, but the production I'm working for will only rent the camera for shooting days.


Thanks for any help!

Ive tried to compare the depth of my XL2 to anyother formats, and in 4:3 it looks to be the same as 16mm.

I set up my krasnogorsk (4:3) and my XL2 (4:3) right next to eachother, zoomed in the same amount and focused on the same thing. both aperatures were wide open. the krasnogorsk's max aperature is 1.9 f-stops, not sure wut the xl2's is off hand, i would look at the lense but i dont feel like opening up my case. They looked as if they both had the same depth. i didnt go to check the 16:9 comparison.

hope that helps some what, i believe the CCD is 1/4"x1/3" at 16:9... or something.... someone please correct me.