View Full Version : Best settings


Olav Aamodt
November 17th, 2005, 12:31 PM
Hi
I’m a proud owner of an XL2. I have been playing around for about two month.
But I can’t get the settings right (I am very new In this “game”).

A friend of mine is going to sell his house and asked me to make a movie of his home. (Video Home Tour)

I have practice on my own house, but I’m not satisfied with the picture. It is very noisy…
I will like to have very clear pictures.

Is there somebody here that a nice custom preset setting for indoor filming in daylight? And good settings for outdoor.

I have the PAL version of the camera.

Hope some one will help me…

Best regards

Olav

Mathieu Ghekiere
November 17th, 2005, 01:03 PM
With noise, you mean if you are shooting in low-light situations, right?
You have to set your GAIN level at manual, 0db. Or -3db. But not at Automatic or anything else.

Olav Aamodt
November 17th, 2005, 01:29 PM
Tanks for the answer!
Yes, I had the gain to Automatic – I will try this out to morrow (in the daylight).

Are there some custom presets some one will recommend? Or are the default Custom Presets okay to use…?

Another question about the Gain: In what situations are the gain control used?

Wes Coughlin
November 17th, 2005, 01:51 PM
go to dvcreators.net and watch the canon exclusive video, it tells you all about manual settings.

http://dvcreators.net/media/demos/xl2featuretour/xl2featuretour.html

Olav Aamodt
November 17th, 2005, 02:18 PM
Thanks :-)

Miguel Lombana
November 17th, 2005, 02:22 PM
Hi
I’m a proud owner of an XL2. I have been playing around for about two month.
But I can’t get the settings right (I am very new In this “game”).

A friend of mine is going to sell his house and asked me to make a movie of his home. (Video Home Tour)

I have practice on my own house, but I’m not satisfied with the picture. It is very noisy…
I will like to have very clear pictures.

Is there somebody here that a nice custom preset setting for indoor filming in daylight? And good settings for outdoor.

I have the PAL version of the camera.

Hope some one will help me…

Best regards

Olav


If you're shooting a home for sale the same rule applies to showing a home to people while they are their, ALL LIGHTS ON and ALL LIGHTS ON FULL. Next you're going to get better results if you can light the room with your own lighting if you don't have any get creative.

As for the camera settings, don't gain up past 3db, with all the lights on you shouldn't have to anyway. Check your white balances, sometimes outside looks better than inside and finally you can add some master ped and setup to about +2 to get a little bit more detail in the blacks.

Try this out and let us know how you did. Best of luck.
MIGUEL

Mathieu Ghekiere
November 17th, 2005, 06:30 PM
Tanks for the answer!
Yes, I had the gain to Automatic – I will try this out to morrow (in the daylight).

Are there some custom presets some one will recommend? Or are the default Custom Presets okay to use…?

Another question about the Gain: In what situations are the gain control used?

I can't help you with the custom presets because I don't have the XL2, but I can help you another way: do a search in this XL2 boards with Custom Presets. I think you'll find at least one thread with people mentioning their custom presets.

The gain... well people who want to work professional will never let it on automatic or higher then 0db I think, but that's when you mostly are working with controlled lightening (like for a short film you are shooting).
When should you use automatic or go up? When you REALLY REALLY have to shoot something in the dark and you REALLY need it (like the absolute proof that one of your neighbours is actually an alien or something). But else, it looks really noisy and that's really ugly.
With strong daylight you can use -3db, others 0db will do fine.

Olav Aamodt
December 3rd, 2005, 04:26 PM
I must say – Thanks!
The noise is gone :-) and this is very good!

But now I have another problem… I was taking some shoots to day on a house. And on the footage it seems like the wall outside is “alive” if you know what I mean... And the same thing on for example pictures hanging on the wall (inside the house). The frame on the pictures was also “alive”. How can this happen..?

Regards

Olav

Olav Aamodt
December 3rd, 2005, 05:06 PM
I must say – Thanks!
The noise is gone :-) and this is very good!

But now I have another problem… I was taking some shoots to day on a house. And on the footage it seems like the wall outside is “alive” if you know what I mean... And the same thing on for example pictures hanging on the wall (inside the house). The frame on the pictures was also “alive”. How can this happen..?

Regards

Olav

Here is an example: http://www.lille-bill.com/alivewalls.wmv

It Is the "lines" on the house that are "moving"...

Jeremy Harrington
December 3rd, 2005, 06:35 PM
This is my exact same problem

Miguel Lombana
December 3rd, 2005, 07:29 PM
Here is an example: http://www.lille-bill.com/alivewalls.wmv

It Is the "lines" on the house that are "moving"...

Run that clip back on youur camera and turn on the screen displays, see what shutter speed you were at, were you by chance shooting 24p?

Olav Aamodt
December 3rd, 2005, 11:56 PM
I am shooting in 25p. (Have the PAL version of the camera) - and the shutter speed was 1/50.

Ash Greyson
December 4th, 2005, 02:47 AM
You can try several things... turning down the sharpness... turning up the coring and adjusting the vertical detail... In many cases footage will look different on TV than on a computer monitor... check it on both.



ash =o)

Olav Aamodt
December 4th, 2005, 03:17 AM
You can try several things... turning down the sharpness... turning up the coring and adjusting the vertical detail... In many cases footage will look different on TV than on a computer monitor... check it on both.



ash =o)

I will try this out. The vertical detail should it be set to “low”?

Ash Greyson
December 4th, 2005, 03:43 AM
Just something to try...


ash =o)

Olav Aamodt
December 4th, 2005, 04:36 AM
I haven’t tried the settings yet, but I connected my camera to the TV.
On the TV it looked the same as on my computer.
I hope there is nothing wrong with my camera!

Jeremy Harrington
December 4th, 2005, 11:24 AM
I have the same problem when shooting, things seem to come alive.

Not only with exteriors of buildings, but with labels on coffee cans and edges of tables.

They jiggle around like crazy. I have tried lots of things, but i cant seem to get away from the flickers. So I am in the same boat as you

Jeremy Harrington
December 4th, 2005, 04:00 PM
jeez, i have another problem now.

This is only in 24p.

I was testing out some settings and noticed that under some lights the color seems to shift from red to blue-red-blue-red-blue forever. I counted it, every 4 seconds it changes color. this doesnt happen in 30p or 60i. Anyone else have this weird problem. it diddnt matter what I did, nothing changed it. It has happend maybe 4-5 times now.

EDIT: sorry this was supposed to be its own thread