Canon XF300 / XF305 Camcorder Review (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/camcorders/canon-xf300.shtml)

Thanks. It is a very good review. Makes me want one all the more.

Except the color shift that occurs w/ the Canon when moving up from 0db gain is a HUGE PROBLEM, IMHO.


http://www.luminous-landscape.com/videos/xf300-ex1.shtml


I hope this gets addressed--or maybe it was just the operator not being entirely familiar with the camera.

Yeah, I noticed the color shift. The Canon went from a nice warm tone to a cold blue. I hope it was operator error. How does adding gain change a white balance?

That's almost certainly a user white balance error. If you notice in the first video example of the bottles, going from -6db to +6db does not produce any color shift.

On the XF/EX comparison video, it looks like the XF camera was accidentally put into a tungsten WB.

Not to mention there haven't been any reports of a color shift from any users, and I go between -6db and all the way up to +12db frequently and have never seen anything like that. I would venture to guess that the cameras were set on AWB, and this may account for the shift in the Canon - but neither look particularly accurate.

According to the VO, "the only thing that changed was the dialing in of neutral density as the color temperature was locked off at 4k"

Hi Guys,

I'm very interested to know how the LCD compares outdoors to the EX1?

Also are you able to assign the Push-Auto-Iris to the Assign button 6 (MAGN)?

Cheers,
Mark

Mark,

I find the XF305 LCD to me quite a bit harder, if not impossible to see in bright sunlight. Much harder than the EX1 and EX1R. In those shooting situations, the viewfinder is really the only option. For someone that prefers to shoot handheld with the LCD, I don't know how they'd manage on a sunny day.

However, on overcast days or indoors, I prefer the XF305. It really has a very nice picture. The EX1 LCD seems so much smaller when I'm using that camera, but even if they were the same size, the Canon just looks better. And I always thought the EX1 looked great.

To answer your second question, no, PUSH-AUTO is not one of the functions that can be given to any of the assign buttons.

I imagine you could buy or make a shade for the LCD. I made one for my HV-20 out of black foamcore. It works quite well. Not ideal, but it seems like it would be possible w/ the XF's.

I made one out of thin cardboard (FedEx envelope) covered in gaff tape and attached with velcro. Improvised it on set one day about a month ago, and it works fantastic. Been on every shoot since then...

There are a number of camcorder lcd hoods (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=camcorder+lcd+hoods&N=0&InitialSearch=yes) available.

For the A1/S I use a Hoodman H-400 with an extra piece of black cardboard fitted to the top to extend the hood and the LCD contrast turned up on bright sunny days. IMO you've got to make it as pro looking as possible to fend off the clients brother.

Also a Hoodskin fitted to the LCD screen, I can mark it up and it protects the screen from crap. A few years ago mine came in a packet of 10 and they just peel off with no residual tack.

Cheers.

Yeah, a hood will help a little, but that won't solve the whole problem. I'm not talking about direct sunlight striking the screen, I'm talking about not being able to see the screen in bright ambient light. The EX1R doesn't have a hood either, yet I can see it much better than the XF305 in bright ambient light.

Hey, Doug - Perhaps you should try setting your LCD backlight from "Normal" to "Bright" when you're in bright ambient conditions and I think that will help a lot. It's in the LCD Setup menu.

Brian, thanks for the suggestion, but I already set the LCD to bright the first day I got it. Believe me, I know the camera inside and out and there is no magic setting that is going make the LCD perform in bright ambient light like the one on the EX1.