White balance not holding? Is it the Mini35?
 

I did a shoot yesterday with the Mini35 on my XL1s (phenomenal looking stuff), but all day long I was suffering because the camera would not hold the white balance. Every time we went to VTR mode or powered the camera down, when I went back to shooting mode (manual setting) my previous white balance would be gone--all three settings would be gone, in fact.

I replaced the button battery on the handgrip, thinking that might have been the problem--no luck.

The camera should have held the settings in active memory, right? I'm not dreaming? I was wondering if it had something to do with the camera thinking that no lens was present (i.e. the Mini35 was in use). Anyone have the answer to this? It was very time consuming to continually white balance all day.

are you sure the button cell battery you used to replace the dead one with is fresh?

does the loss of white balance occur without the mini35 attached?

- don

didn't get a chance to test it with the standard lens back on. I don't think I've had that problem in the past.

Hard to say about the button cell, but I believe that it held the date/time memory OK, so I don't think that was the problem.

Hey Charles,

I've heard of this issue and i think I have the answer.

The first thing to consider is that at one point in various Canon seminars I've participated in it was mentioned that if you want custom settings, incl. white balance, to be maintained then you have to utilize the standby button to shut the camera down. If you turn the camera "off" or remove the battery without going into standby then custom settigns are lost. Dan or Don might be able to better comment on this, or drop David Castillo a line at dcastillo@cusa.canon.com. I believe it was one of his seminars that I heard this particular tidbit.

The next thing to consider is a little closer to the issue. I have not had the chance to test this, but have learned it from various situations above. As I understand it, the XL1s will not commit custom settings to "permanent" memory without one of the Canon lenses engaged (???don't ask me). And I'm not sure which action necesarily does that. Theoretically you could do your three custom white balances on your Mini35. Then disconnect your XL1s from the Mini35 and attach a stock lens (you could theoretically just back the Mini35 off and rotate it a little, not actally removing from the Mini35 support). Then place the camera in standby (theoretically committing the settings to memory) and then come back out of standby and connect it back to the Mini35, with the settings remainging for the rest of the day.

Hope one of these helps,

mizell

Thanks, Mizell.

I will touch base with Canon on this. I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker per se, but it is an awfully cumbersome workaround. Bummer.

White Balance Memory
 

Charles. I looked in my XL-1 manual under setting the balance and on page 50 it says twice but in different procedures the balance remains in the memory. I don't think Canon had all of these after market accessories in mind when this was printed.

Line 4
When you push the STANDBY button without changing the power dial, the current white balance setting remains in the memory

Last line
When you turn the camera off, the camera remembers the white balance setting