ISO rating for the canon XL1s
 

I am interested to know if anyone has any information or has done any tests on an ISO rating for the XL1s I will be working on a project in which the grip and electric dept have no previous video experience and if I could give the Gaffer some reference I would be able to have them light sets ahead of time and not wait til the camera is set up and light to the monitor. if anyone can help please let me know Thank you in advance.

There are two long, detailed articles on the XL1 Watchdog for ASA / exposure index ratings for the XL1, I suppose we need to update them for the XL1S, if anybody has any input on that, it would be most welcome.

So I've heard anything from 100 to 160asa.

I'm going to get a gray card tomorrow and see what I come up with.

I used to think about 160/200. Now that I'm bumping up my setup, it's gonna be even better!

JoPhoto:

I believe the XL1s is "faster". I don't really know why. Anyone else?

Because of the cleaner CCD block? 4db improvement over the old, giving better low-light performance and therefore increased ASA?

In tests I've run on my XL1s, the ASA rating is 160. Be aware that the photo-response of the CCD light meter is not truly linear, however. That is to say, it will vary from ASA160 during over/under exposure. So, you may not care, and, indeed it will not matter when using the on board light meter. Beware of relying on an external light meter for setup, however.

Thanks Bill,

In the ASA rating articles on the Watchdog, Bill Farnsworth calls the video camera "the world's most expensive light meter" anyway. I tend to let the camera tell me what level of light it's reading, and try to adjust things so that I can get the iris to f/5.6 or f/4.8 or thereabouts.