New XL2! SHOOTING THE OCEAN
 

Hello,

I just bought an XL2 3 weeks ago. I am producing films on billfishing. The first day out we did a cruise on a river, and I was very impressed with the camera. Yesterday we filmed on the boat (fishing yacht) I had a hard time finding a shutter speed and F-stop because the boat is soo white, and the foam from the water as well tends to white out certain shots. But does anyone know or use a good shutter speed/custom preset combo for this type of work... If I'm pioneering this, than I will be glad to post or email or both my findings here in a couple of days. After reviewing the tapes tonight... I'm in 30p... and shooting 1/60 seems to be best. Any suggestions? or questions? thanks!

on a sunny day with a white boat Id think youll definitely need to use your ND filters. They cut light by a few stops..not sure exactly (4 & 8 stops maybe??)

yea, I have the ND filters built into the lens, and I use those...maybe that's all I need. I'm definitely going to stay in 1/60 and maybe go up to 1/75, but no more than that. I think the preset I had on had something to do with it as well.

It might be a lot of nuisance value to fit and constantly adjust but a polariser might not do to much harm especially in the way of being able to see the fish under the water and cutting a lot of the reflected glare.

If you are going to get a breaching fish flying up and tossing water all over the place, I would be tempted to use a higher shutter speed, say 1/150th sec to get sharper water speckles but overall I agree with not overdiong high shutter speeds and keeping the look more natural at 1/60th sec.

1/150th sec is going to look better if you want to slow the frame rate by half in post. Don't take my word for this however as I am by no means a qualified practitioner in the filmic (ok video) arts.

first - thanks so much for the input

I do have a polarized filter that I will put on tomorrow... that might help a lot... my only concern is the color, but we shall see, and I'll report back

My thinking was to use a higher shutter speed, as well, because I do want clear slow motion shots, but it was really dark and grainy... maybe adjust the gain manually? of course I was at like 1/400... way to much huh?

Okay, tomorrow I'll try the polarized filter and 1/150... and report back... also I'm going to work on a nice preset

For anyone who is interested...

Spent the last 3 days shooting again... and used 1/60 mostly, as high as 1/150, and the ND filter, as well as a Polarized filter on the lens... Everything looks great... even when you pan through the wash of the boat, or the sunglare... Still tinkering around with a preset...

thanks!
Matt

Matthew, definintely DO NOT leave the gain set to AUTO. In outdoor bright sun, use -3 for the cleanest image. Come up to 0 db if the high shutter won't let you get good exposure even after taking out the ND filters. Try to hold your iris around 4.5 ~ 8.0. The lens gives nice images at these stops.

The problem with AUTO gain is that's the first 'knob' the camera reaches for when it senses underexposure which is a big no-no.

-gb-