Still image recording with EOS lens

[A. J. deLange]

Color space shouldn't be much of a problem. I assume the color space of the video is NTSC and simply translate this to my working space when opening the images in PhotoShop. From there you can go to sRGB or Adobe RGB or whatever space you need for your particular purpose.

[Michael Morcombe]

Newcomer to DVi, perusing old postings, so hope this is not too late to be of any use.
When taking stills on card with suppied 20x zoom, there are momentary interruption as black 'curtains' cover the viewfinder. sort of shutter symbol to show that pic has been recorded. From memory does not happen in suggested method (previous post) of still photo with other lenses, however the pic is there on the card.

With action shooting, this has advantage theres no blackout while trying to follow subject.

But there's other ways of getting stills. On can re-play tape in camera and press still photo button, in which case the camera does show the black curtains which indicate picture recorded. Advantage of this method, is that best instant of still photo can be obtained by replaying that part of video several times over, and make as many still shots until the best moment is captured. One can use the camera's remote to step frame by fram or set to slow replay to pick the precise moment to record the stills, or get a frame-by frame sequence of stills, to the card. To do it while filming just adds another complexity to focussing, zooming etc. To see stills in this case, re-set switch (below photo button) to card, and step thu the stills. But as those stills are copied off tape, a jpeg of tape data thats already compressed, maybe quality is less than if photo was direct to card? (which is jpeg direct from original image?)

My preferred method however is to import parts of tape into computer (imovie on Mac), where one can choose still photo moment by replaying frame by frame the segment of tape, then save frame as a PICT, file, which means, I think, no further compression other than that which occured in recording to tape.

However if recording to external drive via the HD/SDI output, one could presumably (via imovie or other) then save selected still photos as pict or other uncompressed file. I wonder whether anyone has experimented with this.

Even as stills off tape, the results are excellent, suitable for say, up to 1/2 page (say 14 to 20 cm diagonal) book illustrations (especially with a little in-computer sharpening.

[Lauri Kettunen]

Ron, the image of EF-lenses and the standard 20x lens is indeed slightly different. The white balance, constrast and sharpness are not the same. For my own needs, wildlife documents, this is not a real problem.

Originally Posted by Michael Morcombe

However if recording to external drive via the HD/SDI output, one could presumably (via imovie or other) then save selected still photos as pict or other uncompressed file. I wonder whether anyone has experimented with this.

I've stored the signal from HD-SDI output to Cineform Prospect AVI files, and then exported the corresponding frames to Photoshop. Such "still" images appear just wonderful and as good as those taken with the still image option of XL H1.