White balance amongst other questions
 

Alo-Ha all,

I have been on a hiatus from the motion picture side of things for a few years with all my energy concentrated in the still photography side of things (mainly editorial and commercial work).

Just the other day I got picked up to shoot a scene for a commercial peace.
The scene is a vehicle haling a trailer down a twisty road with mountain and wilderness scenery.

I will be shooting it with a XL2.
I have never used the XL2 although I have shot quite a bit in the past with a XL1S and GL2 so combined with the research I am doing now I should be fairly fine with figuring out the camera although I have a few questions for all you XL gurus.

For white balance can I set the temperature to a specific temperature (in degrees Kelvin)?

I do this all the time with still photography and I would like to be able to implement it in this shoot, as that would be the easiest for me.

Can someone give me a refresher on the difference between the two 24P modes and how the two different pull downs affect postproduction?
I use to be all up to snuff on this sort of thing. It is amazing how much you forget over two years of having very little to do with it.

Lastly, I have a verity of 77mm filters along with a Cokin P filter holder (equipped with 77mm adaptor ring) that I use with all my Sing Ray grad ND’s.
Will I run into any such problems such as vignetteing by using a 72-77mm step-up ring?
I will be using the lens that ships with the XL2 kit.

Any other useful info would be awesome as well.

First, the manual for the XL2 is available on-line, and I believe here in the XL2 Watchdog. You can download it and read up ahead of time.

http://www.canon-asia.com/index.jsp?...=dv&country=SG

The white balance can be set to daylight, or to indoor, or you can custom balance it manually. The auto setting is very good too.

You said commercial piece, but is that for a commercial or like movie stuff. 24p is great for the movie effect, but may not be usable for TV. I think you would use 50i.

If you use 24p, the 3:2 is for viewing on a TV, and the 2:3:3:2 is for filmout.

The filters should work fine, as far as I know.

Good luck!

Mike

Thanks Mike.
That is to bad about the white balance not being manually adjustable in 100 degree Kelvin steps. I guess I will either have to use warming/cooling filters or trick the manual white balance with different biases of grey cards.

The peace is for commercial usage.
It is a short peace that will be used to promote a service to a verity of potential clients.
The footage also may be cut into a shorter peace for a TV commercial.

I am still doing some consulting with the client regarding the look they are after although I am guessing we will be going with either/both 30P (for slow motion shots) and 24P with the 3:2 pull down.

Thanks again,

30P won't look good slowed down. It will be fuzzy.

30P will look terrific at 80% but anything less it will get jumpy...



ash =o)