Various GL1 / XM1 questions

[Ed Smith]

You can also adjust how many frames of the still image you would like to capture.

For instance:
If you plan to shoot an animation, which you want to be nice and smooth, then you can capture at 1 frame per image (saved as *.BMP)

Or

You can ask it to capture as many frames as you wish to determine the length of the Image in premiere. 25fps would capture 1second worth of image.

This is done via the Edit menu> Preferences >> General and still image...

Hope this helps,

Ed Smith

[mdreyes23]

Thanks! Been fooling around with this since I got my camera and it's working great.

You can do time lapse which will allow you to capture frames at certain times.

You can specify how many frames to capture.

OR you can do everything manual...which is pure stop motion animation which is what I like. When in this mode, you just press the step button each time you want to capture a single frame. It automatically puts all the frames together into movie format. Once you press 'done' then you have your finished clip of stop motion animation.

[Don Donatello]

the most common is the 16x9 somewhere around the 1:77 or 1:78 .. there is NO 1:85 anamorphic ... the true 16x9 CCD's camera out there when transferred to film are projected at 1:85 ( projector gates cuts a little off top / bottom

there is a 2:35 anamorphic which i believe you have come across and it is always 2:35 ..can't change it ...

i think the confusion you are having concerning 16x9/1:78/2;35 is that if you use the 16x9 anamorphic PLUS use the camera's fake 16x9 the use of BOTH will equal 2:35 ....

[mdreyes23]

Battery usage on the GL1 seems kinda low. Only 1 hour with the standard battery that comes with it.

How does that compare to the XL1s and the Sony cameras

[Henry Czuprinski]

Clever, those Canon market types- Was weeding out the junk mail and a nondescript letter from the Advertising Checking Bureau contained- my $100 rebate. Same deal with my Apple G4- the rebate looked like junk mail- How many folk's checks ended up in the round file no one will ever know.

[Ken Tanaka]

That's about right for the BP930 battery in the GL1. Your manual should tell you what to expect. It really depends on how much you zoom, how much you rewind, whether you use the lcd screen or viewfinder, etc. All of these functions draw power. If you plan to do quite a bit of shooting I'd recommend getting a couple of the BP941 high-capacity batteries (or its Lenmar equivalent).

[bokkus37]

hi all, very soon i'll be buying a canon gl-1. i plan on making a dv feature in my hometown back in georgia (i just found out they have electricity there now). i would much rather get an xl-1 but if i get a gl-1 i can get many other things with it (bogen tripod, sennheiser shotgun mic). what i want to do is get the best picture out of the tiny camera. i'll be doing this with filters and such. i would like to get a wide angle attachment. this means that i cannot use an anamorphic attachment i assume. because they both screw in the front of the lens. what i plan to do is tape off my monitor to 16:9. that way i can keep letterbox composition and simply crop off in editing. now i'm hearing that an anamorphic attachment is a better idea, but i don't want to go without a wide angle adapter. what am i to do?

[mdreyes23]

There might be a way to have both...you should research on that. I'd like to find out myself. Does anybody know for sure?

From what I understand there are three ways of creating widescreen footage to be played back on a widescreen TV.

1) Simply film in 4:3, leaving the most important aspects of the video in the middle. Then crop the footage later in Post-Production. Then on playback, you would have to blow this up on a widescreen TV.

2) Use the Electronic 16x9 squeeze mode on your GL-1. This electronic stretches the image, which can then be unsqueezed in regular widescreen mode on a widescreen tv. OR it can be unstretched in Post-production with bars added if needed.

3) Use an anamorphic attachment

You get better resolution going from 1 to 3 with 3 being the best with no resolution loss. 2 is better than 1 but you still get some resolution loss because it's not a true anamorphic effect.

If you want to have both 16x9 and the wide angle adapter (and you can't have both the anamorphic adapter and then wide angle adapter), I would go with number 2 and the wide angle adapter.

By the way, let us know how things go. I just bought a GL-1 myself and so far things are going great.

[mdreyes23]

Cute!

How long did it take for your rebate to arrive. I think I sent mine in about a week ago.

[bokkus37]

yeah, but i've heard that the 16:9 mode on the camera is something not to be used for some reason. it's a cheesey effect, not a true one. or something like that.

[Ken Tanaka]

Congratulations on getting a GL-1. It's really a fine camera and I'm sure you'll get alot out of it. For ad-hoc shooting its small size makes it handier than an XL1 and, since it uses basically the same imaging technology as an XL1 you can get very ccomparable footage from it.

Canon's wide-angle adapter for the GL-1 is a very good piece of glass. I think you'll want it regardless of your 16:9 plans. It's very handy for shooting in tight environments and, by nature, can tend to smooth-out some of the normal jitters associated with handheld shooting. As you noted, however, you cannot mount anything in front of it.

But optical anamorphic adapters are, by nature, wide-angle adapters in themselves. So you really wouldn't need to use an additional wide-angle adapter with them. But these gizmos are not inexpensive; Century's weighs in at nearly $900.

My suggestion: Get Canon's wide-angle adapter and play around with the in-camera 16:9 feature while you're learning the camera's basic handling and while you're still discovering/collecting the many incidentals of your kit. The built-in 16:9 facility does indeed basically mask-out and squish the image to the wider aspect ratio. But with a wide-angle adapter you can come reasonably close (for non-professional and less expensive purposes) to the effect that you might see with an optical anamorphic adapter. Yoo can always pop for the 16:9 adapter later if your needs really dictate it.

Have fun!

[mdreyes23]

bokkus, you can use the in-camera 16x9 mode if you want. People are probably saying not to use it because it's not a true anamorphic stretch...which is absolutely true. No consumer/prosumer level dv camera has a true 16x9 anamorphic in-camera effect...yet!

BUT...the built in 16x9 mode still gives a slightly better resolution than cropping.

Go to this guys website who might be able to explain it better than me.

http://members.macconnect.com/users/b/ben/index.html

[Henry Czuprinski]

Been so long I forget- think I sent it in around Christmas

[bokkus37]

much thanks to you guys. i just got word that my gl-1 will have to wait a little longer but when i get it, i'm shooting a digital feature. i'm on the verge of graduating from fullsail down in florida. so i'm not exactly an amateur. the gl-1 is all i can afford right now but i want to get the most film image possible.

[Ken Tanaka]

What's "fullsail"?