I got my XH- A1 yesterday (Friday). I am still trying to work out exactly what the Skin and Sky detail does. When I try to set this up most of the screen turns to a flashing white with zebra stripes. Ignoring this and turning up the Hue, Chroma values etc, seems to lessen the amount of flashing white area, but once you have exited the menu nothing seems to have changed. (Yes, I have set the effect to either High or Low)

Any ideas anyone.

The flashing stripes indicate how broad of an image area that the particular correction affects. The change is subtle and hardly if at all visible in either of the two viewfinders on the XH camcorder. You'll need to cable out to an HDTV to see the difference.

I am still trying to work out exactly what the Skin and Sky detail does.

It lowers the amount of detail in the skin or sky areas. Really... ;)

More seriously though; the zebras indicate the area which will be corrected. For the skin, the correction makes little skin imperfections, like wrinkles or pimples less obvious. For the sky, the idea if more like getting the perfect blue sky, like in the travel advertisements...

The effect is indeed hard to see in the viewfinder. Try a full HD screen instead.

Thank you both for your replies. I will have a go, although from the answers you have both given I would suspect that any skin or sky enhancements can be made in Premiere or Final cut - at least you can accurately control the effect.

Thanks

I'd be interested in hearing anyone's opinions on the quality of job 'sky/skin detail' within camera settings does with the A1. Having not tried it out, and having spent many hours in after effects using track mattes and guassian blurs to get the same effect, I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on how good a job this preset does. Thanks.