Frustrated with XA20

[Anthony Lelli]

Have any of you experiencing XA 20 white balance problems actually sent your camcorders to Canon for service?

I called. They have no idea. What I see is that the software in charge of the set1 and set2 will "try" to take some sort of educated guess starting from the last reading. Which looks to me like some kind of idiotic experiment teens usually do for fun or because they are bored or because they have to stay home all day. But I have a question too: to the "testers" , videographers who did the beta tests on this camera: so beta testers what happened? can't you see that this is by far the #1 camera in terms of bad white balance? In fact I don't remember any camera with a white balance that bad. Even my very first digital (toshiba pdr3) had a good WB, and it was a camera of the previous millennium. What do they "test"? if the on-off switch works?

[Rainer Listing]

Originally Posted by Robert Young

Exactly my experience:
At X600K- too Red
at X200K- too Blue
at X400K- a green cast, of all things
Very strange...
Again, I don't recall ever having this problem with the XA 10

Bob, can you provide a bit more information? What light were you shooting? If it's white under 5000K daylight those results are what you'd expect, or are you saying, for example, setting 4000K under 4000K light the white looks greenish? I'm not finding that - just tried it, with 3600K tungsten, AWB looked right, 3600K looked the same. Could be it's not a problem with all cameras, or is it intermittent? Have noticed that footage is not the same as LCD - LCD black looks blue, but the footage is right.

[Richard D. George]

Perhaps there is some variation in batches of cameras. If the reviews on the B&H website are to believed, many people are very pleased with the colors indoors for event shooting.

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Rainer Listing

Bob, can you provide a bit more information? What light were you shooting? If it's white under 5000K daylight those results are what you'd expect, or are you saying, for example, setting 4000K under 4000K light the white looks greenish? I'm not finding that - just tried it, with 3600K tungsten, AWB looked right, 3600K looked the same. Could be it's not a problem with all cameras, or is it intermittent? Have noticed that footage is not the same as LCD - LCD black looks blue, but the footage is right.

the problem is that it's not stable. changes for no reason. I did a reading with 2 cameras (sony ea50 next to the xa20). The ea50 was stable for 50 minutes shooting while the XA20 wasn't. the camera shows "moods" like a pretty girl (I mean changes unpredictably and for absolutely no reason). I can't replicate the reading (it was 5000K I believe) and I apologize for that but believe me when I say that the only way with the XA20 is to forget AWB or readings and set the K value manually: the only way to keep it like that for any footage longer than 30 seconds.
But there is one thing that may help to understand how useless is the AWB and the 2 settings with the XA20. put the camera on a tripod and point to a scene. Don't move the camera and keep the same lights and set the WB (set1 for example). Repeat after 10 seconds, now put on AWB and back to set1 again and repeat the reading (of the set1). See? It changes. same scene, same lighting, same camera. Now a question: do we have to troubleshoot for Canon? don't they know what's wrong? after all that's what they do for a living, every day, all day long. I only need to push the button and do my job (which is NOT to troubleshoot idiotic software made by teens in Japan).. The other thing (involving the 180 degree rule) is the fact that a camera shooting 60p doesn't have 1/120 shutter speed. instead jumps from 1/100 to 1/250. is there some kind of explanation for this? or Canon doesn't believe in the rules at all. But 1/100 is too slow and 1/250 too fast shooting sports at night. And that's our problem, not Canon's.

[Lou Bruno]

That is what I do. Adjust the Kelvin Takes a second out of the day and less color correction in post. For me the weak link with this camera is the contrast ratio of thebsingle chip and blooming. I adjust the black detail and also ride the iris in bright situations. No camera is perfect. None

This auto-correct is killing me.

Originally Posted by Anthony Lelli

James put the temperature yourself: it takes a second. select the K value that you like. ANY camera's interpretation of the white balance is not reliable. The XA20 gets it right only if I put a grey card and zoom in all the way. Not white, grey (12% better than 18%). But I can't do that all the time. So come on guys... to set the K value manually is not such a big deal after all. And it will stay that way until we set it again.

[Anthony Lelli]

Lou
well said. I agree completely. So far the camera that did everything right was the Sony EX1r (in my opinion). No surprises with that camera. honest camera for a lot of money but we have to admit that it gets everything right. That said we have to produce with what we have and make it work. like you do, like I do. But there are "things" so idiotic with the latest cameras to make you think if they did in purpose of just out of plain stupidity.

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Rainer Listing

Bob, can you provide a bit more information? What light were you shooting? If it's white under 5000K daylight those results are what you'd expect, or are you saying, for example, setting 4000K under 4000K light the white looks greenish? I'm not finding that - just tried it, with 3600K tungsten, AWB looked right, 3600K looked the same. Could be it's not a problem with all cameras, or is it intermittent? Have noticed that footage is not the same as LCD - LCD black looks blue, but the footage is right.

As has been stated by others, the problem is intermittent and not easily predictable except that it is almost exclusively in artificial, indoor lighting.
My elaboration (X600K, etc.) was not very clear.
What I meant, as an example of this problem (when it occurs)- in tungsten light, 3600K might be too red, 3200K might be too blue, and 3400K, instead of being right on the money, has a greenish cast.
In other words- no setting works/looks as it should.
Then, next time around the color balance looks good- even AWB looks fine.
To put this in perspective, I think the XA 20 is a very well designed camera with many brilliant features for such a small package. I seldom have any problem getting what I need.
But when this WB problem does occur it is both perplexing and frustrating, and, one suspects, unnecessary. After all, camera WB/AWB is a mature technology that we are all accustomed to.

[Rainer Listing]

Thanks Bob. The XA20 AWB acts the same as my XF100 - flaky. It hasn't been a problem since I've gotten used to not using it. But I haven't noticed problems with manual settings, and I don't think others have found this as well, they're just on about the AWB. Is it possible you have a faulty camera?

[Richard D. George]

Rainer:

When you mention that you have no problems with manual settings, do you mean Custom white balance settings, or picking a setting from the list ? Walk me through your process, please.

[Rainer Listing]

Hi Richard, There's no one correct way. You might have noticed the AWB sometimes giving erratic results (in my case seems mostly to read inconsistently too low) and even if it's correct you may or may not want color changes when a cloud goes over the sun; you definitely don't when shooting greenscreen or disco lights. In constant light the presets are a good starting point - If it's bright daylight you could just use the bright daylight setting, etc. which will help you develop an idea of color temperatures. You have a fair amount of latitude. Or have a guess as the type of light you're dealing with, and use a grey card (or faster, old trick, a polystyrene disposable cup over the lens) to get a custom K reading. If it's in the ballpark of what you guessed, or matches with another camera, or you don't have a clue, use that. The AB settings (which you dial up from custom settings beforehand) are handy when you don't have time to do a custom WB, like from inside the church to the front steps. I suggest just play around with a lot of test footage and see what works for you. One final unrelated hint - don't ever use the BLC, you'll never be able to match it up with anything.

[Terry Dennis]

This explains why sometimes the picture is Incredible and sometimes blown out with green blue red, reason im selling mine unless canon has a firmware fix.... but seeing xf 200 coming out which normally means no firmware updates. so time to jump ship.

[Robert Young]

I have hung on to my XA 20 because of the lack of an alternative in terms of size & functionality- particularly as far as the Sony line-up goes.
It looks like that is about to change with the soon to be released Sony PXW-X70.
Here's some preliminary info & specs:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1072752-REG/sony_pxw_x70_professional_xdcam_compact.html
And here's a hands-on video review of the cam:
http://www.sony.co.uk/pro/article/br...-pxw-x70_video.
No word yet on the price.
It looks like it just might be a really awesome camera, and some pretty brutal competition for the XA 20.

[Dave Baker]

Well I found the PXW-X70 advertised over here as expected in September, for £1590 plus VAT (20%), if that helps.

Dave

[Robert Young]

Interesting...
Around $2,600 USD.
I was expecting it to be more

[Noa Put]

I"m curious if their 4k upgrade will be free once it becomes available.