I dont have time to go thru every potential setting (maybe someday soon)...
The number of preset possibilities with the XL2 is 10,604,499,373. That's ten billion, six hundred four million, four hundred ninety-nine thousand, three hundred seventy three possible picture adjustments!

That does not take into account the variables of gamma, color matrix, knee, black, NR, and vert. detail.

You'd better get busy, times'a wastin'.

;o)

I think it's awfully nice of Ash to offer create presets for others, but personally I think it'd be cooler if people posted settings they've come up with for <whatever the situation> and asked the community for feedback or ways that it could be improved. Not trying to be judgemental, just thinking about the whole 'give a man a fish...' thing.

Regards,

~J

Ash:

Do you have a good custom preset when shooting in 30P at night or in very low light? My main interest is as little to no noise as possible in the blacks (dark areas).

Would love to see your settings. Thanks!


There is a low light setting floatin around, I am on a remote shoot so I dont have access to my stuff at home. Main thing when you have to gain up in low light is to boost the saturation a little, turn UP the coring, turn down the sharpness and turn the NR on LOW (high usually ghosts too much). You can control the blacks in several ways with the MP and setup level as well as the black level settings.



ash =o)

Thanks Ash, your input, again, if very helpful. I will search for the low light settings again.

Ash,
Did you get my PM?
In case you did not, could you or anyone here please tell me why after using the BlueBarn software to change the custom presets and all of that, I then turned the knob of my xl2 back to Manual, it seems the cam. is not picking any of those custom presets.
I am trying to imitate Devon's low light and all of that but I am getting this darkish color and whenever I turned the knob to Ext. control, the camcorder gives me this crips colorful view based on the presets Ash and you other guys provided?

What am I not clicking?

Hi Everyone,

I have a couple question about presets for the XL2. I hope it doesnt sound too stupid but.....Should I white balance for each shot before applying a certain preset or would that basically change the settings of the preset? Also the same for using warm cards....I would assume that the preset might do the warming for me but Im sure there would be instances that I would want to warm. I will experiment this weekend but thought an answer from you guys would set me down the right path. Thanks for all your help.

Tom

That's not a stupid question. . .I'm actually interested in knowing the same thing.

I know that when the rental house I used to hang out at would set up their cameras to chip charts, the idea was that you were supposed to use the preset for 3200 and 5600, 'cause white balancing would undo all the work of the setup. Then again, we're talking about cameras with much more intricate and sophisticated adjustment posssibilities than the XL2.

Maybe balance with the custom presets turned off (on the camera's factory settings), and then apply them? Sorry if that's the same thing you meant/said.

Hi Josh,

Yes thats kind of what I was trying to figure out. I run a Mac so I have to input these presets manually and wouldnt want all that effort to go to waste if I did the white balance/warm balance wrong. I am going to shoot some test footage this weekend to find out, but I figured if someone like Ash could answer this question for me then I can cross that off my ever growing list of things to do. LOL.

Tom

It's not really wasted time. . .you just go back to the preset after white balancing, if that's what you're supposed to do. You don't have to reenter the settings every time you turn the preset off.

Hey Tom,
I too have a Mac and I can't even get the preset files to open so I can read them . Can I ask you how you did it?

Hey Hunter,

I have not done it yet. I have an Imac 2.0 Core Duo that I purchased about 2 months ago when they were having the special on Final Cut Pro Studio where you would get $300 off Final Cut when you purchased a new computer so I did and it has worked wonderfully for me. I was going to run boot camp and put the Blue Barn software on the XP side but I have been avoiding doing that and trying to hold out for the Mac version of the software. I have just been taking peoples presets that they have listed on here and enter them into the camera manually for now. A bit tedious but I may just break down and install boot camp and do it that way, probably going to have to do that anyway so that I can run Adobe CS2 properly.

Tom

So . . .did we find out whether the order of white balance/activation of presets matters?

Hey Josh,

On my testing this weekend I found out that a good white balance before the application of the presets gave good results, but not so with the warm balancing. Which I had figured would be the case, as some of the presets are made to do the warming anyways. Again more experimenting is needed because as is usual, I was busier than I thought I was going to be this weekend and was only able to run a few tests....funny how that happens isnt it? Seems to be since we are all ingrained to white balance before a shot we should keep doing so but I would advise everyone to test their favorite custom settings. A good rule of thumb anyways. Now if I could just get Blue Barn software to work on a Mac.....LOL

Tom

Well, logically, to me, it seems the presets' effects would be negated by a white balance, at least where color is concerned (not so much saturation, black/knee settings)

Example: Let's say your preset adds +2 red, -2 green, etc. If you turn the preset on, THEN white balance, it seems the camera would see that extra red and lack of green as white, and remove it, taking you back to a totally neutral balance. Whereas if you have no extra red/lack of green, you'd add those TO a neutral white balance, which is how the preset was intended.

Right? Wrong?

hey, guys. have been reading over this site a lot recently. have been learning a lot. invaluable. really appreciate it.

here's my question. i downloaded the blue barn presets manager, but am having problems using it. when i connect my camera to the computer and open up the blue barn file, the usual window pops up letting me know the "device is connected". after that though, when i try to build a custom setting (or whatever really), there's a short delay before the computer tells me there's been an error. then, the whole site shuts down. i thought i'd downloaded everything properly as the directions were pretty easy to follow. anyone else had a problem like this?

quote #28 (i believe) on this thread mentioned that he had to allow the blue barn driver to install to his camera to solve this issue. have no idea how to do this.

any ideas? thanks.

PD

Hi Peter,

Not sure how much help this will be, but here goes.

I installed the pre-sets manager on my lap top pc and had the same issue yet it worked fine on my desk top PC. I also tried installing the Canon Console software on the laptop pc which told me I didn't have Windows XP Service Pack 2 installed. I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 and since then, all of my IEEE1394 (Firewire) issues have gone away. My XL2 now works nicely with the pre-sets manager and the Canon Console software.

I don't know what your operating system is, but if it is Windows XP, are you running service pack 2 ?

Just a thought. Good luck.

Allan

hey, allan.

i do have windows XP, but i don't even know what this service pack 2 is. could you elaborate? it could also be a firewire problem perhaps, but i doubt it. fire wire IEEE1394 keeps coming up. i don't know if that's what i'm using. i had assumed a standard firewire cable would do the trick.

Hi Peter,

The cable you connect the XL2 camcorder to the PC with is an IEEE1394 cable which is also more commonly known as a firewire cable. They're the same thing. Windows XP comes in various versions and as technolgy develops and more and more interfaces become available to connect to the outside world, the software and hardware world have to update accordingly.

USB and firewire technology is no exception and to keep up to date, Windows XP have a patch for their software, the latest being service pack 2. Service pack 2 was released to overcome many, many interface/software issues.

To check to see what version of XP you are running, go to the control panel on your pc (i.e. start, control panel) and select "System". Under the General tab at the top, it will display the operating system information (i.e. Windows XP Professional, Version 2002, Service Pack 2). If it doesn't state service pack 2, then you'll need to go to Microsofts web site and install service pack 2).

I'm assuming you have the camcorder connected to the pc with a firewire cable as depicted in the user manual. Normally, when you connect the cable and then turn the camera on, the pc will detect it and open up a window asking which software you want to use. Are you able to use your camcorder with anything else on your pc ? I'm just trying to establish whether you actually have a good connection.

Allan

yes, i'm able to use the camera for other functions so the connection appears to be a-okay. also, i checked my system and it's windows xp w/ service pack 2. hmmm....

on this very thread, under quote #28, someone mentioned they were having the same issue. they fixed it by letting the blue barns driver install on the xl-2. does this mean anything to you? would love to let the driver do just that, but i didn't realize i wasn't letting it do that, ya know.

thanks for the info, allan. at least i've filtered out a couple of things i know aren't the problem now.

Sorry Peter, I don't know anything about installing the Blue Barns Driver onto the XL2. That's new to me.

Hope someone else on the forum can chip in with some other things to try. If you're running XP service pack 2 and are able to connect your camera to other software on your pc, everything seems to be in order.

Have you tried un-installing and re-installing the pre-sets manager ?

Allan

no, haven't tried that yet. will do. thanks.

White balance the last thing before you start shooting... that has always worked for me...



ash =o)

Is this before or after you apply the preset?

I dial in a preset, then white balance. In my case I pretty much already know what every combination looks like, there are times I do some adjustments on the fly as well. Dont over think it =o)



ash =o)

But it seems that if you add preset that makes color changes, white balancing would negate those changes, know what I mean? If you add red with a preset, and then white balance, wouldn't it take away your added red? Am I wrong?


Also, it seems you'd white balance, if you were in a controlled environment/artificial lighting situation, after you set up your key light. Cause if you do all this lighting and gelling lights, and then white balance, wouldn't it negate those effects? Assuming you gelled your key, or whatever you're using to light the surface you're white balancing to.

FILTERS: If the user has an 812 filter or other warming or color correction filter on the camera, WB must occur BEFORE placing the filter on the lens. When the filter is placed on the lens, then the light is effected which will alter the color rendition.


ELECTRONIC PRESETS: The WB never alters the color or parameters set electronically. Anything in PRESET is already committed to memory and the circuitry is already pre-programmed for the PRESET. Think of it as the motherboard on your computer. The electronic preset and the WB work together. The WB will not change the colors, saturation etc.

But it seems that if you add preset that makes color changes, white balancing would negate those changes, know what I mean? If you add red with a preset, and then white balance, wouldn't it take away your added red? Am I wrong?


Also, it seems you'd white balance, if you were in a controlled environment/artificial lighting situation, after you set up your key light. Cause if you do all this lighting and gelling lights, and then white balance, wouldn't it negate those effects? Assuming you gelled your key, or whatever you're using to light the surface you're white balancing to.

The WB will not change the colors, saturation etc.This isn't true in my experience. A preset I often use is shifted toward the blue, and yet a warm white balance will still warm the picture considerably.

So you're saying if I white balance, but have a preset that adds +2 blue, -2 red, etc., the camera knows this and applies these changes to the picture AFTER the white balance, EVEN if the preset was on when I white balanced?

I'm still not really sure how the chain of image manipulations works out myself; maybe Ash will chime in soon with a detailed explanation of how all these pieces fit together.

Josh, I should probably add that in the situation I was talking about earlier, I use a preset WB... I have a preset WB for warm outdoor shooting on sunny days, and that WB preset was set with the cam's RGB values at default.

OK, I'm just getting more confused now.

This isn't true in my experience. A preset I often use is shifted toward the blue, and yet a warm white balance will still warm the picture considerably.

Of course it does! All of the settings in the camera are based on or adjusted to what it thinks white is. If you use a warmer white balance card it changes what the camera assumes white is and the picture will be warmer.

Put in all of your presets, set up all of the lights you need, then white balance just before you shoot.

Mike

Most the time when I give people presets, I include a WB instruction. I dial in the presets, then white balance. I have not done any extensive testing but I doubt you would see a lot of difference either way. I have matched settings over firewire with people who did a WB at a different time than me and everything seemed to match...



ash =o)

Mike--

I know what WB is, and how it works. :) What we're talking about is the extent to which RGB settings in a preset will or will not offset or enhance the effects of warm or cool white balances. For example, if you WB to a light blue card for a warm color temp, and then dial down the red and up the blue in a preset, which takes precedence? Do the two effects even each other out?

I was saying that in my experience, the WB effect seems to overpower any preset color shifting by a pretty substantial margin. This would seem to run counter to what the manual says.

If I can find/time movtivation, I guess I can do a test or two. Nothing real scientific you understand, just white balance then add preset in one instance, and in the other, add preset THEN WB.

White balance defines white so of course it overpowers a preset as it sets color temperature. It should be used in combination with presets to create a look.


ash =o)

Mike--

I know what WB is, and how it works. :) What we're talking about is the extent to which RGB settings in a preset will or will not offset or enhance the effects of warm or cool white balances. For example, if you WB to a light blue card for a warm color temp, and then dial down the red and up the blue in a preset, which takes precedence? Do the two effects even each other out?

I was saying that in my experience, the WB effect seems to overpower any preset color shifting by a pretty substantial margin. This would seem to run counter to what the manual says.

Jarrod,

I never meant to imply that you didn't know what white balance was, because I'm sure that you do. It is just that you have to understand the order, or precedence, of settings so to speak.

As I said, "If you use a warmer white balance card it changes what the camera assumes white is and the picture will be warmer." Maybe I should add that if you white balance then change a setting in the camera, then that setting will be different. If you white balance to a color or shade other than straight white, every setting in the camera will be different, as the camera balances it all based on what it thinks white is.

You really can't throw a preset in then white balance to another color, unless that preset was set to the other white in the first place.

Mike

So, then you WOULD add a preset after white balancing, if it alters color, to get your desired look.

So, then you WOULD add a preset after white balancing, if it alters color, to get your desired look.

YES! I was struggling to word that well, but that is it.

Mike

Ah. There we are then.

I know this may be old news to all of you but I've just ran across a July 25th 2005 thread that directs you to downloadable XL2 Custom Preset files.
Problem is that I can't get download anything. Is this becouse it's closed?
Any new sites I can go to? I've had my XL2 for a year plus now and am looking to get new outside ideas on settings. I should a lot of pre-lit wide stage area projects so I do not have much or any control of lighting.

Thye seemed to work ok about 10 hours ago when I downloaded them. Right click and Save Target As..

I'll try again when I get home to my PC. Do they have this for MAC? I live in both worlds.

I downloaded it this evening. It is going to come in very handy.
Thanks

Ash;

do you recommend any Custom Settings for working indoors(under household flourescent light), as well as outside (filming houses, pool areas). I currently shoot a real estate show with an XL-2, and am having trouble finding the exact best settings to bring out the details, as well as when I pan(stuttered effect of 24P when I watch thru LCD tv). Is the stuttered effect just because I'm looking at it thru a tv, before its edited through VEGAS?
I would love to know the best settings for indoors for b-roll 24P, interviews indoors & out, as well as just filming the houses outdoors.
If I can get the pans to look like the pans in 60I, we plan to shoot everything for the show in 24P.
I want the b-roll footage to have tons of detail, & the interviews to be a little softer in tone.
thanks;

Peter V.

Make sure you OIS is off... make sure your shutter is 1/48th... make sure your pans are smooth and not too fast. If you are doing it for domestic TV, you may consider 30p which will give you nice progressive images but less motion blur.



ash =o)

I'm actually having a problem installing the drivers for the program, sadly. I am running Windows XP x64, and when I am defining the correct folder to locate the drivers for the XL2 (as detailed in the Installation instructions), I receive the message "The Hardware was not installed because the wizard cannot find the necessary software. If a driver was provided, make sure it is designed to work with Windows for x64-based systems."

Is this program and the attached drivers NOT compatible with Windows XP x64 edition?? Thanks for your help!

The XL2 Presets Manager wouldn't happen to be compatible with Windows Vista would it?
I don't want to DL it if it isn't.

Thanks
Lee

I'm also trying to get the presets manager working (everyone raves about it and it is easier than handwriting everyone's recommended presets), but I also have Vista and got the device drivers working, but I cannot get the program to read preset 1/2/3. Any ideas if they are compatible? Or how to get around this problem?

Ash;

do you recommend any Custom Settings for working indoors(under household flourescent light), as well as outside (filming houses, pool areas). I currently shoot a real estate show with an XL-2, and am having trouble finding the exact best settings to bring out the details, as well as when I pan(stuttered effect of 24P when I watch thru LCD tv). Is the stuttered effect just because I'm looking at it thru a tv, before its edited through VEGAS?
I would love to know the best settings for indoors for b-roll 24P, interviews indoors & out, as well as just filming the houses outdoors.
If I can get the pans to look like the pans in 60I, we plan to shoot everything for the show in 24P.
I want the b-roll footage to have tons of detail, & the interviews to be a little softer in tone.
thanks;

Peter V.I have a question for you as another fellow Vegas user.

When you render, do you set your frame rate to 24 (film) or do you leave it at NTSC?

Hullo! New XL2 user, here, still getting used to things. My partner and I will be fiddling with the presets to see what we can get out of them, but at the moment we are still trying to figure out what does what. We'll share what we get.

In the meantime, anyone want to give a crack at an Identity preset?
http://us.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0309698/Ss/0309698/C75-19.jpg.html?hint=nm0000131

At first I thought the colour was a little washed out, but there are some beautiful golden tones, which seem to conflict greatly with the very silver look of the film. I know enough to figure a good wack of it is lighting, but there may be some in camera tricks we can use.

i think one thing i would be interested in finding out is doing HDR with the XL2. Is it possible doing HDR with DV video?