xl1s like common handycam!!!

I buy my xl1s canon. I was sure that is a semi-professional camera. It isn't true, the images that i rec are very very low-quality.... pheraps i wrong some settings? if someone can tell me the right setting to be better the white(is too strong) or to be real the color.... Thanks.
( sorry for my english)

[Jeff Donald]

What settings are you using? What is wrong with the colors? Can you post any pictures for me to look at? Sorry for some many questions, but I can't really help you until I have a little more to go on.

Jeff

The first problem i have is with "white balance", it's very "fired"....or tall....or strong...
so thank you for the interesting.. I'll give you an image so you can see with your eyes (You are right...it's more simple) Can you geve me your e-mail and tell me if you need "jpg" or "gif" or "tiff"
....Sorry again for my english!!!...


Federico.

[B. Moore]

Just for starters...

If you're shooting useing the green box that may be the problem. You may be shooting in a too well lit area, try using your built in ND filter. Experiment!

Bruce

look the gif and tell me......

[Jeff Donald]

Hi,

The scene you sent me will aid a great deal in helping you better understand the limits of video. I will examine the image in greater detail later today, but initially I see two common limitations of video. Reds tend to become very saturated (at least in NTSC). Video is a higher contrast medium than film. It can not handle as large a range between white (white with no detail) and black (black with no detail). In the scene you sent, you have a large contrast range. Shadows with no detail and blown out (over exposed) high lights. The contrast in the scene exceeds what video can reproduce.

In your particular case the flowers are very prominent in the foreground. The over exposure of the whites is very distracting. If the camera was in a manual exposure mode (not Green Box) the aperture could have been stopped down and detail would have been preserved in the highlights. This would have caused items that are dark, but still have detail, to have gone black with no detail. Why? Because the scene exceeds the limitation of video.

The Zebra Bars or pattern is a useful guide to over exposure and preserving detail in the highlights. Review the sections of your manual that cover exposure modes and zebra bars (pattern).

Please post back with any further questions.

Jeff

[John Klein]

With an xl1S, I always use manual white balance. Just shoot a white card, filling the frame and hit the white balance function. I fully understand the red color of the cam in auto.

I make presets for different scenes. I like +2 sharpness and (+1 to) +2 setup. Too much sharpness will make it too contrasty and make things look "cheap," and the raised setup will open up the shadows (and reduce some contrast) very well.

I set my zebras a little low (90), that way, I can get the feel for how bright the whites are getting, before they've bloomed.

It's all about testing your gear. Once you explore the cam you'll love it!


PS I think that once in a while, I've seen a bad white balance in auto (really bad). After switching to manual white balance, then back to auto, it worked fine.

[Josh Bass]

A couple of things for 1 JoPhoto: I rather like the look the auto white balance gives me, except in flourescent lit rooms. I've tried time and time again manually white balancing, and I find it always give me "cold" look, as opposed to the nice warm tones the auto gives me. That's just a personal preference, I guess.

About the setup levels, I thought we wanted more contrast?

I've found that when outdoors, +3 with the color gain on one of the custom presets makes the footage just as purty as a rainbow.

[Jeff Donald]

The overall WB in his scene is fine. However, the scene contains a figure in a red robe and ithe red is very saturated. The WB is very good actually. The setting has a lot of warm tones (wood). The skin tones look natural and the white lace table cloth is white and shows fair detail. His major complaint is a large floral display that is in the fore ground and occupies about 15 to 20% of the entire picture. The whites in the floral display (a lot of white flowers) are all blown out. The people in the middle ground (subjects - object of interest) are propeerly exposed. The real solution would have been to avoid the whites in the fore ground by zooming in. The wider establishing shot could have been taken from another location avoiding the blown out high lights.


Jeff

[Andrew Petrie]

On the subject of whites, I took shots of 2 swans. In playback however, the upper necks and heads of the swans have a yellow tint. They filled up about 70% of the shot. I do use the zebras, at the default level and remember my viewfinder giving me lots of zebra warning, but I thought I'd try and leave it that way for a more vibrant and elegant white. My shot probably suffered from the same contrast problem, yes? There were greens and dark trees in the background

I'm not concerned about it, I've used 6 hours of tape just experimenting and learning the camera's limitations

[Jeff Donald]

Video can't handle as wide a contrast range as film. The range of exposure from white to black is several stops less than film. It needs to be exposed in a manner similar to slide film. Expose for the high lights. DV has very little latitude for over exposure. Depending on the subject I usually set the zebra bars at 80 to 90% to avoid over exposure.

Jeff

[Mike Butler]

Maybe I'm crazy to be using a "common handycam" like the XL1, but I've made a pretty decent paycheck shooting with nothing but the XL1. I always white balance using the handy white card which comes standard in every Porta Brace bag (image that! something for free from Porta Brace!) And just to be safe, I shoot a couple seconds of footage of the white card, so if I have to I can sample off it in Final Cut Pro to use as a reference with FCP's Color Correction tool. (Yeah, I know, the old cliche about "fix it in post")

[Jon Eriksson]

If the problem in this case are the white flowers in the foreground, I would recommend that when shooting it, you should try to block off any direct sunlight hitting them - it doen't have to be more complicated then a piece of cardboard blocking off the light source.

As already stated, the luminance on video is fairly short, and bright whites will be very distracting and should be avoided if possible, but the flowers will still look white when shadowed out. This way, the composition of the image will not have to be altered, and the exposure will remain the same and cover the skin tones the way it did before.

Jon

[John Klein]

I can tell you there's a lot more people in lighting than in shooting and for good reason. I just shot our choir in a "nice" auditorium. It wasn't set up for us and I've got some shoddy footage.

White and black folks in black robes where the light fell off for anyone beyond the second row. A hyper illuminated background and not lit on the sides where the instrumentalists are located (now side/backlit).

But... at f/5.6 in "light" and f/2.4 on the sides, using my previous settings the xl1S is rocking solid. OK, the black folks are definitely in shadow and the darkest skinned folks are mighty dark, it's looking pretty usable for tighter shots.

The wide shot sucks (pd100a) as the light is all over the place and has no setup settings, but it's going to work (in post). Thanks entirely on the xl1S's raised black level to soften the contrast this nightmare came out pretty good.

If you like to see some heavy zebras, you have to knock the setting back. When the colored areas go too hot it loses detail and looks like it was colored in with crayons. Sounds like the robe problem. Contrast and where things blow out depend not only on the evenness of lighting, but on the sharpness and other variable settings as well.

Only in a blue moon and with absolutely perfect settings will nearly ANY sub $4k cam outdo the 1S when used well.

Speaks a lot for knowing how to use any cam, let alone "the king" of user presetability.

Just wondering, you say the camera cant handle the white flowers very well in his picture....is there a certain filter that could be used in this case?