Xl1S Stills Posted
 

Hello everyone....

.... seems like there's alot of interest in the "stills' capabilities of the Xl1S (and XL).....I've made a simple website showing the XL's abilities in low light at the American Museum of Natural History...anyone who's visited this museum in NYC can attest to the very subdued lighting they employ- I think the XL1S did an admiral job considering most of the photos shown were shot through 1 inch thick glass under very dim lighting...I'll let you guys decide on how well it did (or didn't do).

The photos were acquired via Final Cut Pro and were exported as jpegs- I used slightly more compression than I would have liked as the tif versions are significantly better- but the compressed jpegs should give a "feel" of what to expect from the XL- best results will be achieved when saved as tifs.

I used the standard IS II lens and shot manually only leaving on auto "gain"- all shot handheld....hope it gives you a feeling for the expected photo capabilities of the XL's.

Here's the url:
http://www.bronxpowersports.com/XL1Sphotos/FrameSet.htm

soft?
 

The pictures looked a little soft. I know this is the XL section, but would the VX2000 do a better job? Since it has higher resolution?

see below

The VX is supposedly a sharper cam and would likely yeild sharper pix as well....but considering the ambient lighting I think the XL did a fairly good job.
The aggressive compression didn't help much either- the tifs are sharper.
The photos were also shot through thick glass which doesn't hlp much with regards to sharpness....

I believe an EOS lens when used with the EF adapter will yeild the sharpest pics and video. It was my 1st attempt at using the XL with the "Photo Mode"...I'll play around with it a bit more and post more pix soon.

First off I'd like to say that I prefer the XL1 to the VX2000 for all of my video work. But without further ado I'd like you all to check out some comparison picks I did. I took screen grabs of the same thing from the XL1 AND VX2000 at various settings in fairly low light. Check it out here:

http:/207.168.10.82/pics/pics.html

Enjoy.

Isn't there a Photoshop action that can be used to make DV images appear more photograph-like? I think I read something about that long ago, but I'm not 100% sure.

If I remember correctly, you can supposedly take a shot made in Frame mode, import it into Photoshop, run the action, and get a crystal clear photo. Anybody know if that's true and, if so, where to get the action?

There are many "sharpen" filters available, my favorite being in Ulead's PhotoViewer. Nonetheless, Photoshop also has several, and some freeware plugins called "unsharp masks". They all add edge sharpness in the same manner as the "sharpness" control on the XL1s. As you know, this control functions moderately well, but, adds considerable noise if turned up too hi. My standard procedure is to shoot with the sharpness at the Canon factory nominal setting and turn up the sharpness in post. That way, I can see the level of noise I'm adding and return to a softer image if I wish.

Images are too compressed for analysis
 

Hi Steve,

I suggest you repost the pictures in a raw format like TIFF or BMP; the DCT encoding of JPEG compression introduces artifacts (such as macroblock borders and mosquito noise) that are not at all due to the XL1S.

Your pictures are 600 x 400, which to me suggests they have either been resampled or cropped. If they've been resampled, you're defeating the entire purpose of posting sample images. There's quite a bit of moire in the images; this distortion could result from your resampling.

Each image is roughly 50 kB, but uncompressed, a 24 bit 600 x 400 image should be 704 kB.

I think you're compressing your images way too much to be a useful guide for folks who want to understand what kind of stills the XL1S can give them.

These pictures where made with an XL1... Not XL1-S.
The -S will do better in low-light!

The pictures were shot with an XL1S.
I didn't post them in original size because of needed time to download them- I will delete those pages soon and repost with a few select samples straight from camera.

Confusion here... I was talking about Joe's URL ... ehehehe..
sorry!

more pixels = better resolution = sharper image
 

Let me preface by saying I own a XL1s. Does more pixels = better camera? No, because you have to weigh the other options that make a camera better. Now does more pixels = better resolution? YES, if the pixels are the same size. Now, is the resolution of the VX better than the XL, in certain low light conditions, YES. I went the to Canon website and found this...

The three CCD image sensors in the XL1S, each with 270,000 pixels, were specifically designed to capture as much image detail as possible and for shooting under extremely low light conditions. The size of each pixel is 72 square microns - 150% larger than the pixel-size on comparable DV models. The result is an approximate 4 dB improvement in sensitivity. This improved sensitivity means that each CCD can capture more information at all light ranges. In super low light, the XL1S still captures crisp and clear digital data.

OK now, if a pixel is BIGGER than the normal pixel ALREADY, the resolution is downgraded, but Canon uses an algorithm, PIXEL Shift, to probably smooth out the Jags from a bigger pixel, they use a similar technology in their bubble jet printers. But so does HP.

Oh by the way, EVERY CCD is designed to capture as much image detail as possible.

Anyway, I still love my XL1s. But if someone says the image is too sharp? You must be smoking something but to remedy that you adjust the focus manually.

Oh one more thing, I didn't buy this camera to take stills! I bought it to film action!

Thanks for taking the time to post the VX2000 / XL1 comparison shots, Joe. Very interesting differences. Which of the shots most accurately represented the scene to your eye?

It would be interesting to see a similar set of existing / low light stills taken from one of the 2/3" cams such as Sony's DSR-500. Does anyone have access to one of these?

Re: more pixels = better resolution = sharper image
 

<<<-- Originally posted by ja135321 : Anyway, I still love my XL1s. But if someone says the image is too sharp? You must be smoking something but to remedy that you adjust the focus manually.

Oh one more thing, I didn't buy this camera to take stills! I bought it to film action! -->>>


well, there ya go!! I agree JA. Everyone here spends BIG BUCKS to get high resolution lenses, and complains bitterly about the poor focusability of the stock Canon lens, then they turn around and want that FILM look. Go figure...LOL.

Ken-

The XL1 looked closest to the way the real scene did with my eyeballs. Mainly because of the color. The only difference is that it seemed a bit dimmer, but that's to be expected. The XL1s will do better in low light? Great! Despite manual white balancing, the Sony seemed to have a slight "yellowish" tint to it vs. real life.

Another thing I would like to point out is that the XL1 shots were done handlheld. The Sony shots were on a tripod. When I first did the XL1 shots, they were on a tripod as well. But I didn't get the 16x lens in focus (didn't have it hooked up to an extrenal monitor) and had to redo it. The current XL1 shots used the wide 3X lens with the camera being closer. Also, notice that the XL1 60i and XL1 Frame modes. The Frame mode really doesn't lose much resolution at all from the XL160i. It is a teeny tiny bit softer, but not much. Maybe it was motion blur, I tried to pick a still from when the camera was not moving, so maybe not.

Making sharper DV still photos
 

I've uprezzed and sharpened numerous still frame grabs taken with my XL1 in Frame Movie Mode. You capture your footage. Make your "freeze frame" still. Export it as a QuickTime still photo. Here's where the magic begins. If you do not already have it, get Genuine Fractals 2.0, a Photoshop plugin. Open your still photo in Photoshop. Crop it to the size you want. Save it as a Genuine Fractals file. Open that file and decide what size and resolution you want the photo to be. You check this off in the Genuine Fractals dialogue box that appears. Then open the image as a Genuine Fractals/Photoshop document. The image can be as large as your want. Your only limitation is the amount of RAM you have. If you have less than 256 megs of RAM, forget it! You want at least 256+ megs of RAM. More RAM = bigger possible image. Do your image tweaking till you get just what you want. If you use layers, it's no longer Genuine Fractals. To save it as "fractals" you must flatten the image. You can make giant blow ups from your mini DV camera stills, if you wish. I've made some amazing prints on my old Epson Photo 1200. You could make composites of still shots, uprezz them, then import them in your video editing program for pan and scan. The possibilities are unlimited. It does blow people's minds to see a sharp 8x11 still photo you took with your XL1. they'll think you took it with a Nikon35 mm SLR (heh, heh)!

great lead, Don. Thanx, I'll give it a try.....*very interested*

Don-

Do you think it would be possible to post a before (XL1 original) and after (processed with Genuine Fractals) shots for us to study? I'd love to see the results.

Joe...

Check out this site for images.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/fractals.htm

This article doesn't really concur with Don's view of
things. Perhaps it would be interesting to see some
stills from him indeed.

As a long time user of Genuine Fractals and heavy into digital photography with a pro SLR (Kodak DCS620/ Digital Nikon F5) I feel right at home in this area of discussion.......

..the problem with Genuine Fractals is that the Altimira Group (the people who designed GF) designed it to perform interpolation logs with the available pixel information and res the image up using a very good "averaging" technique...problem is, it's really optiized for images with large file sizes (hi-res) and doesn't work well for the small res images that the XL produces....it's great with digital cameras such as the D30 (Canon) that have 3+ megapixel ccd's.....even the DCS series of cameras that were 2mp didn't see much benefit running GF as opposed to Photoshop's own bi-cubic interpolation......a good alternative is an action in PS that's available from Steve's-Digicam's (he reviewed it) that upsampled images (works great with smaller files)- it was called "Stair's Interpolation- something like that.....

GF was designed to increase image dimensions primarily for print use.....it will work on XL images but not any better than PS's own bicubic interpolation method.

I think the XL does a good job at capturing small photos for web use- but even a $259 digital camera will outperform it.....hey- Canon could have not put a "Photo" option on it- but it's cool that they did!

(by the way- alot of digital cameras these days have avi capabilities- but no one expects to shoot real footage with them- just there for kicks and added sales literature advertisement.)

Have fun- you only live once.

Thanks for the interesting replies. It's true. Genuine Fractals is primarily for print use, or, as I mentioned, for uprezzing images you might want to pan and scan in a video editor like Final Cut Pro. It can't add detail to the photo that was never there. But it doesn't just add pixels. It also shapes them naturalistically. When you enlarge a Genuine Fractals modified image, you don't get blocky pixels but smooth gradations, much like an artist's brush on an oil painting. I am not aware Photoshop can do that! I use it to enlarge photos I scan for a documentary/educational video project I am doing. I can scan a snapshot size photo in at 1200 (or greater) dpi. I then fractalize it. I can uprezz it more if desired. Then I reduce the size of the image from, say, 5"x7" to less than 1/2 that size so the file isn't too large. I can then export it as a medium quality JPEG for pan and scan in FCP. I've done beautiful pans and zooms on snapshots that look great, even on a large screen TV. We're talking Ken Burns documentary quality here, except for the fact that he uses 16 mm film, which is technically better than DV video (and much more expensive to shoot). At present, I don't have a web site for posting sample photos. Though I could email one. On your computer monitor you're only going to get 72 dpi.

I own the XL-1S and a GL-1. For stills I prefer the GL-1 for its' sharpness and contrast. Have compared it to other cameras and IMO it is one of the best for digital images...barring using and actuall digital camera.

As for compression and such. The general grabs I have used were similar in softness to those in the link. Not so much compression, but more the way the XL-1S shoots. Now, agreed that if one was looking at the XL-1S for still images then you would want to post full resolution, full size images for comparison.

I can grab some frames of different situations if anyone is interested. Near, far, high contrast, bright, dark. Let me know.