Color Gain
 

For some reason cannon says here:

"http://www.canondv.com/gl2/f_color_gain.html"

That if u turn GAIN down, u will capture black and white film. But it doesn't show that in the view finder when i turn it all the way down. IS there something else im missing? Doesn it capture it to tape and i wont see it till i capture to PC?

I just checked it with my Canon XL1s and yes, it should also
appear in your viewfinder.... BUT, it doesn't seem to work when
you are in AUTOMATIC (GREEN) mode [weirdly you can change the
setting but it doesn't seem to do anything]. When I was in
manual mode I could change the setting and see everything
turn black & white.

Indeed, dialing-down color gain on both the GL2 and XL1s is the way you would shoot in b&w. Green box mode on the GL2 disables the Custom Preset controls, thereby disabling the color gain controls.

Question
 

When u say " Green box mode". DO u mean the guides for the 16:9 layout so u can see them on screen or the automatic mode vs manual mode?

No, I mean full-auto mode, as signified by the green box on the switch.

Jason,

He is refering to the Fully Automatic mode (switch in towards the little green box).

Is there any reason why you would want to shoot BW vs. make it BW in post? Seems like that would leave more options available.

Hmmmm, with my GL2 adjusting the color gain up and down does adjust the color gain some but it doesn't get even close to B&W or heavily saturated at the maximum adjustments.

SAME HERE!
 

EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Jason

I don't have my camera in front of me to check, but I'm pretty sure that the color gain on the gl2, unlike the xl1s and gl1, does NOT take the camera's color gain to -off-- as in the quote from the gl2 website...I'd never read this statement before, so I was surprised when you posted it. I'll check my camera tonite, but I'm pretty sure your observation, (and brian's) are correct.

However, Is there not a black and white setting in the special effects section?

Barry

???
 

no matter what i do, nothing does it. I think Cannon should be contacted!

Post here we come!

Jason

I'll check this out when I get home, but try the digital effects menu

http://www.canondv.com/gl2/f_digital_effects.html

There should be a black and white setting you can use there...you have to use the menu to select the effect, then I think there is a button on the camera body to turn it on and off.

Barry

Acht! Indeed, Barry is correct! B&W is a digital effect on the GL2 (p.65 of the manual, for reference). Sorry to mislead you. I never shoot in b&w and should have kept my darn yap shut. Thank you for your correction, Barry.

??
 

I thought the digital effects were just for fading in or fading out? Can u actually set it to B&W mode for shooting all video??

Well that's some good news I was gonna be fairly disappointed if my B&W wasn't working!

Jason, here's how to enable the B&W setting:

Set camera to Auto mode (digital effects don't do anything in the green box/easy mode)

Press the 'select' button in just in front of the LCD and under the audio meter

Use the 'select' wheel on by the battery on the back to scroll down to 'EFFECT'

Then press the 'select' button in front of the LCD and under the audio meter (or you can press in the wheel and the press it again when you find the effect you want, b&w is the first one, but you have to press the select button or the D. Effects On/Off button to exit the menu)

BLK&WHT should now flash on the screen. Press the 'On/Off' button under the audio meter to turn on and off black and white!

Hope that does it for yah.

Thank-you !!
 

It is so good to have this place as a resource to help learn this Camera. I am grateful. The manual is so hard to understand how to use and why and when exactly to use. This place speeds up the learning process bigtime!

Thanks so much again! Me and my sister loved the effects. Do u know of any drawbacks to using these functions that i shoul dbe aware of other then i should get good film and do it all in post?

Im in the process currently of learning after effects 5.5 for all the cool stuff.