I have been lucky enough to get TWO XL 1 (not s) cameras to shoot my independent feature, but the white balances do not match (in any form, M or A or pre-set), is there any way to manually match the white balances. One camera seems a little blue while one is close to perfect.

Trevor Moores

If you balance the cameras manually (follow the directions in the owners manual) and they are in the same quality of light, they should be very close. If not here are your options.

1. Only use one camera

2. Fix white balance in post

3. Send both cameras to Canon service to have them matched.

4. Try white balancing the blue camera to a color other than white (to warm up the picture WB to Cyan).

If you don't have an owners manual, you can down load one from Canon here. (http://www.canondv.com/downloads/manuals.html)

I'd recommend dispensing with manual white balancing and sticking to hardware presets, but if even your hardware presets differ then I suppose that blows that approach.

Jeff--this Canon service camera matching sounds intriguing. Have you had this done before, or know anyone who has? Is it a matter of tweaking firmware constants, or is there other tuning/calibration involved that may sway again over time?

I've matched cameras before (not XL1's) and it really only requires a waveform monitor/vectorscope. Canon service should be able to perform it, if not and independent familiar with the XL1 can do it.