Here is some stuff I shot when I took my little girl to the zoo 2 weeks ago. It's all handheld and unscripted but it gave me a chance to shoot something more interesting than the trees in my yard or the cars at the park.. I know everyone is looking for "scripted" stuff that is controlled and lit. But I decided to post it anyway just to see what you think. I already linked to it on DVXuser.com so I figure I'd post it here also as this is where I normally frequent.

www.iciclestudios.com/images/xl2/xl2zoo.wmvx (11 MB)

Download and remove the x from the file extension to view it. My webserver doesn't do streaming well and this forces a download to play it.

Thanks! This is mostly to help those that haven't purchased see the potential of the Xl2, not the potential of this videographer!

Very nice indeed.

yes... nice!

I note you already had the *ahem* seal of approval in it. ;-)

--Ralph

Yes Ralph. Nice one. I was going to try and tell everyone it was shot on location on several continents but I couldn't "sea Lion" about that.

that last one is sorta hard to bear, Marty ;-)

but, seriously, I was impressed on how the lens gets you up close and personal with the lions, etc.

--Ralph

Hi Marty,

In Media Player 10, your very nice shots appeared to be 2.5:1 rather than 16:9, yet the images appear perfect -- not at all "stretched." I looked at the properties and they showed an odd aspect ratio of 9:5 (1.80, close enough to widescreen 1.78 to be a rounding error; not at all close to 2.5).

So I imported the file into Premiere Pro 1.5 and it reports a normal widescreen pixel aspect ratio of 1.2 for a 720x480 clip and in the source window it looks like 16:9 footage masked across the top and bottom with black letterbox bars to achieve the Big Wide Cinema look? Or is a custom export setting tricking me? Just curious.

Beautiful shots!

You are indeed correct.

Just for the hell of it I cropped the top and bottom to achieve a more "epic" aspect ratio. I prefer that look so I just did it. The file is indeed 16x9 or 720x480 with 1.2 pixel aspect ratio. The black bars are part of the image.

I guess I was trying to convey the film look more. Hoping to get some feedback on that aspect. I frequent the DVXuser boards and the crew over there is still stating that the XL2 looks like video and the DVX give a more filmic look. I agree to an extent that the DVX has a different built in curve that lends to that illusion. But this test was to prove to myself as much as anybody else that footage shot on the XL2 can look just as filmic or even better. It's hard to judge shots of cars or the inside of our houses. But animals, wild animals.....we've seen them on celluloid in movies and on the discovery channel. that we have a pint of reference to.

It's hard to tell in the compressed file but I believe the qualiity of this footage stands up to what I see filmed on the Discovery channel of wild animals. At least Discovery non-HD. The cinematography is weak as I had no tripod and couldn't compose the shots like I'd have liked to.

Looks nice Marty, thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the info Marty. Even compressed to a 1MB/sec stream, it looked entirely "filmic" to me. Or maybe "epic" is the better word here! ;-) Nice work for "handheld and unscripted!"

Cheers,

Marty:

I liked your footage a lot!

Was it shot at 24p? if so what pulldown scheme?

Any particular custom program setting?

what software do you use for editing?

Thanks for sharing!

WOW - I'm jealous... and I own an XL2 too!

Great footage, love the soundtrack too... the colors are extremely vivid!

XL-nt footage. =).

i think it's pretty clear that XL2 is an awesome cam to have. i'm curious... what lens were you using? 20x?

Marty,

Great, clear footage. If you don't mind I would like to try a streaming experiment with it on my server. If it works (streams fine) then I can share the URL in this thread. What do you think?

<<<-- Originally posted by Tony Cruz : Marty,

Great, clear footage. If you don't mind I would like to try a streaming experiment with it on my server. If it works (streams fine) then I can share the URL in this thread. What do you think? -->>>

Go right ahead.

By the way it was the stock 20x lens on this footage. I am not lucky enough to have a 16x or 14x manual lens.

The colors are very vivid. It looked like a post coloring effect was added

Marty I am curious...

Was it shot at 24p? if so what pulldown scheme?

Any particular custom program setting?

what software do you use for editing?

Thanks again!

<<<-- Originally posted by Carlos Porras : Marty I am curious...

Was it shot at 24p? if so what pulldown scheme?

Any particular custom program setting?

what software do you use for editing?

Thanks again! -->>>

IT was shot 2:3:3:2 pulldown or 24PA for short (uh oh...panasonics coming after me!)

White balanced using the default outdoor setting.

Custom settings:

Cinnegamma On
Cine Colors ON
Color gain +2 or 3 (can't remember)
everything else at default

Thrown together in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 using the panasonic 24PA presets.

Two minor tweaks in software. Increase the saturation a little and increased the contrast a little. Like +10 on each or something.

Very little done but it brings out the colors and darkens the blacks.

I figured even real 35mm gets color corrected and timed to have a certain look. I am not afraid to touch stuff up in post. In my mind this makes the XL2 film look just as good or better than the DVX. The DVX has these type of settings in the camera....just not as tight. I always had to color correct everything I shot with the DVX as it often would go too far into the oversaturated look anyway. So doing a minor tweak to the XL2 is no biggy for me.

<<<-- Originally posted by Marty Hudzik : <<<-- Originally posted by Tony Cruz : Marty,

Great, clear footage. If you don't mind I would like to try a streaming experiment with it on my server. If it works (streams fine) then I can share the URL in this thread. What do you think? -->>>

Go right ahead.

By the way it was the stock 20x lens on this footage. I am not lucky enough to have a 16x or 14x manual lens. -->>>

Marty, finally have 'xl2zoo.wmv' streaming on my server. Please check it out at http://www.tlcmediacom.com/14908/14935.html -- there is no loss in the clarity of your original file. Lookin' good!

Tony,
2 things I noticed.

1> The aspect ratio seems to be off. It looks like it is streaming in a 4x3 window. It should be 16x9. THe black bars further crop it to around 2.35:1.

2>The frame rate seems odd. Did you change it from the original 24P framrate? Cause its looks jumpy or something.

Let me know!
Martty

Marty,

You're correct. The aspect ratio is off ~0.378 overall, due to the streaming conversion. The fps was at 18 and I was able to reset it to 24.