Hello, I'm new to this forum and I glad to have come across it. It's very informative.

I Shot my first film on the XL1s and had a great experience with it. I am now a proud owner of the XL2. I'm curious to hear what shooting modes others out there use and why. I love the creative control of manual, but I've recently read on an old post that someone really enjoyed the TV mode because of the locked shutter speed and the auto fstop. In addition you can use the "Exp Lock" and the "AE Shift" options. It seems a lot more flexible than the M mode. I fooled around a bit with the TV mode and it seemed that it was choosing a slightly brighter iris setting than I would have Chosen. So, I am also wondering if this was common in the TV mode.

Hi Scott. I also feel that the setting in Tv mode is a bit bright, so generally I have my AE adjust set to around -0.5 or -0.75, which helps a lot.

Richard

Scott/Richard

I use both a gl and an xl. I must admit that I feel both request the nd a little to soon.
I shoot mostly in the TV mode and I find i can more Quickly shoot and run with it in this mode and get everything right. The only time I shoot with aperture mode is when i want to control depth of filed a little better. Of course this can be done on manual quite well, i just find tv the most useful for the type of shooting I do. If it is sunny out I almost alwasy shoot with the nd on or a polizer on the lens. In the winter i have to have an exterior nd as well (because of the snow).

It depends on your shooting style, if you do cinematic framing, NONE of the auto ANYTHING modes will work. The problem is that the camera is not making adjustments based on the subject, but on the FRAME. If you have a person framed cinematically to the extreme right and they are lit perfect but the area to the left is dark, the camera will compensate for the entire frame and blow youy subject out. This is true of ALL auto settings be it gain, exposure or shutter.

Learn to master the "M" mode it will give you SO much more control of lighting/framing/etc.



ash =o)

Richard/Dale/ASH...Thanks for all the great feedback. With the XL1s I've only used "M" mode but because it was a documentary at times the shots moved fast into different lighting situations so I would imagine the "TV" mode would have been good then. Richard, thanks for the tip to adjust the AE. I think that will help a lot if I choose to shoot in "TV" mode. Ash I agree with you regarding cinematic framing. In that situation I would want full control all the time. Thanks again.