AMAZING Camera... Screen grab inside
 

Just recieved my camera last night and all i can say is it is amazing. Thanks to b&h for the prompt delivery and canon for the amazing product. As promised i give you guys a screenshot from some video i took last night

http://www.polishdan.com/images/flower.bmp

It was shot at night without any special lighting other then the lights on the ceiling in the room.

P.S- does anyone know how to export a 16:9 movie in premiere pro so it does not display full screen but in widescreen?

Sure...here ya go.

Of course, you will have to have started a widescreen project first, but I'm assuming you new that.

1. Move your work area bar over the area you want to export.

http://www.extremesoundonline.com/forum/wsexport1.jpg

2. Select File - Export Movie.

http://www.extremesoundonline.com/forum/wsexport2.jpg

3. Choose Settings

http://www.extremesoundonline.com/forum/wsexport3.jpg

4. I use a Canopus DVstorm card, so your options may look different, but you should see something like this. Choose NTSC DV widescreen (1.2) under Pixel Aspect Ratio.

http://www.extremesoundonline.com/forum/wsexport4.jpg

Good luck!

thanks a lot for the help

Hi Daniel. Congratulations on your new camera. I agree, it's an amazing camera for being SD and the price it sells for. Be sure to go get the Blue Barn presets software (Windows only), and then you'll be able to create and save a library of custom presets to stick in one of the camera's 3 preset locations. There are already some good preset files graciously shared by other XL2 owners for you to experiment with.

Welcome to DV-INFO,

-gb-

What a fantastic image it is, too.

Hello Daniel,

You say screen shot, but how exactly did you produce it?

Canon can take a "photo" but I never found it to be adequate, however your shot looks good enough to print! Good Job.

I assume you were displaying it on your computer somehow and either hit print screen or had some screen capture software... but how did you do it?

Thanks!

Shoot in 24P or 30P(preferably) using the fastest shutter speed possible. Then it's a matter of using any application such as an NLE to grab a single frame of the video and export it to a still frame format such as BMP or JPG. The Canon XL-2 can not 'take a photo'. That feature was on the XL1 and XL1s as a still image to tape. That's why those two earlier cameras have the connector for connecting a Canon EX Speedlite flash unit. The new XLH1 can do stills to an SD memory card even as it's shooting video.

-gb-

Hey Greg,

thanks for the reply. I have an XL1 and an XL2, I thought that the XL1 had that feature, but I didn't like the results, so I never revisited it. I didn't know that they did away with it on the XL2 because I had no interest in it.

So it sounds like the key may be in the high shutter speed and FPS setting. With my limited testing I would surmise that the shutter speed might be the more important factor. I only say that because I tried "Frame Mode" with the XL1 (it doesn't do 24p as you know) and didn't think the results were very good. I probably used 60th/sec shutter speed, which was probably way to slow for a still, but perfect for what I was shooting (the still photographer never showed up and I had to use frame exports for the artwork... not good). And whereas I would never try to get a video camera to act like a digital still, I think that Daniel's results were far superior to mine, and for a video camera, I could use that quality in a pinch with no problem.

What say you Daniel?

Greg, why do you prefer 30p over 24p, if I might ask?

Thanks !!

At the moment i like 30p over 24p just because it is less choppy. The screen grab i took was all on automatic settings the first day i got my camera. When i imported the footage into adobe premiere i just used file/export/frame feature and it automatically puts it into a bmp file. Mind you not all my footage showed up exactly as well as that i just chose a pic that stood out at me.

Because 30p is the most 'progressive' frames per second you can get which means you'll have better odds of catching what you want to lift a frame from, especially if it involves moving action. Obviously, 60p would be even better but that option isn't available here. Think of it as a faster motor drive on a 35mm still camera.

-gb-

Gotcha... Thanks Guys !!