For some reason cannon says here:

"http://www.canondv.com/gl2/f_color_gain.html"

That if u turn GAIN down, u will capture black and white film. But it doesn't show that in the view finder when i turn it all the way down. IS there something else im missing? Doesn it capture it to tape and i wont see it till i capture to PC?

I just checked it with my Canon XL1s and yes, it should also
appear in your viewfinder.... BUT, it doesn't seem to work when
you are in AUTOMATIC (GREEN) mode [weirdly you can change the
setting but it doesn't seem to do anything]. When I was in
manual mode I could change the setting and see everything
turn black & white.

Indeed, dialing-down color gain on both the GL2 and XL1s is the way you would shoot in b&w. Green box mode on the GL2 disables the Custom Preset controls, thereby disabling the color gain controls.

When u say " Green box mode". DO u mean the guides for the 16:9 layout so u can see them on screen or the automatic mode vs manual mode?

No, I mean full-auto mode, as signified by the green box on the switch.

Jason,

He is refering to the Fully Automatic mode (switch in towards the little green box).

Is there any reason why you would want to shoot BW vs. make it BW in post? Seems like that would leave more options available.

Hmmmm, with my GL2 adjusting the color gain up and down does adjust the color gain some but it doesn't get even close to B&W or heavily saturated at the maximum adjustments.

EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Jason

I don't have my camera in front of me to check, but I'm pretty sure that the color gain on the gl2, unlike the xl1s and gl1, does NOT take the camera's color gain to -off-- as in the quote from the gl2 website...I'd never read this statement before, so I was surprised when you posted it. I'll check my camera tonite, but I'm pretty sure your observation, (and brian's) are correct.

However, Is there not a black and white setting in the special effects section?

Barry

no matter what i do, nothing does it. I think Cannon should be contacted!

Post here we come!

Jason

I'll check this out when I get home, but try the digital effects menu

http://www.canondv.com/gl2/f_digital_effects.html

There should be a black and white setting you can use there...you have to use the menu to select the effect, then I think there is a button on the camera body to turn it on and off.

Barry

Acht! Indeed, Barry is correct! B&W is a digital effect on the GL2 (p.65 of the manual, for reference). Sorry to mislead you. I never shoot in b&w and should have kept my darn yap shut. Thank you for your correction, Barry.

I thought the digital effects were just for fading in or fading out? Can u actually set it to B&W mode for shooting all video??

Well that's some good news I was gonna be fairly disappointed if my B&W wasn't working!

Jason, here's how to enable the B&W setting:

Set camera to Auto mode (digital effects don't do anything in the green box/easy mode)

Press the 'select' button in just in front of the LCD and under the audio meter

Use the 'select' wheel on by the battery on the back to scroll down to 'EFFECT'

Then press the 'select' button in front of the LCD and under the audio meter (or you can press in the wheel and the press it again when you find the effect you want, b&w is the first one, but you have to press the select button or the D. Effects On/Off button to exit the menu)

BLK&WHT should now flash on the screen. Press the 'On/Off' button under the audio meter to turn on and off black and white!

Hope that does it for yah.

It is so good to have this place as a resource to help learn this Camera. I am grateful. The manual is so hard to understand how to use and why and when exactly to use. This place speeds up the learning process bigtime!

Thanks so much again! Me and my sister loved the effects. Do u know of any drawbacks to using these functions that i shoul dbe aware of other then i should get good film and do it all in post?

Im in the process currently of learning after effects 5.5 for all the cool stuff.

Jason,
The only drawback to shooting in b&w -may- be that it leaves you a bit less wiggle room in post. I know that many folks who want to do a b&w piece choose to shoot in color and then use their editor's color correction tools to produce the monochrome version. Not having done this myself I am only passing along what I've learned from others' experiences.

Okay now that this mystery is solved, what does the color gain
on the GL2 do? Or does it just do it much less than my XL1s does?

The color gain works but just some small increments. I didn't know canon states that this is the way to go for B/W! Very strange!

Here we go!!! -lol-

Honestly, i have had my GL2 for over a month now and found that this color gain ads like a crispness to the pixels for getting lower light shots. It makes it possible, btu you have to handle artifacts like crisp anti-aliasing edging. Maybe up the softness to over come?

Whats your ideas on this color gain. And lets watch out for color phase!!

What is your definition of color phase?

My view on color phase from recent NLE problems with weird color tones in my captures is that "color phase" is for fixing weird Hue shifts when shooting to get it more in the zone that looks realistic. Sometimes u get realy red shots indoors under natural light. SO u can shift this to fix it up. I think the GL2 is powerful with color enhancements and causes real imbalances in the color spectrum unless u manually work with these controls. Get into them. My Compositing with Premiere to music has improved greatly with playing around with these controls.

Ohh' You know a great way i've found to figure this stuff out..is to actually say what setting you have adjested right at the beginning of shooting at a particular setting. then when u switch anything..say it again and when u edit on PC. You can tell what u did right or wrong.

Just sharing :)

I think you are referring to color shifts. This mainly happens
when the camera is incorrectly white-balanced or when you
have some odd temperature lights in the room. When you
change this in the editing or post you are simply adjusting
the colors (color correction/timing) and/or changing the levels/
hue's.

Color phase is what i am talking about.

Go read here. Color correction is onboard.

Have a read.

http://www.canondv.com/gl2/f_color_phase.html

:) I'm a post guy also. But it is nice when u can get what u want with this camera with alittle fiddling. You were speaking of color correction. What program do u use for it? I mainly use discreet combustion 2.0

Ah, I didn't know the GL2 had that function! Thanks for pointing
that out to me.

I have been doing some CC work in After Effects but I'm currently
looking (slowly) at Vegas 4 and Avid to see what they have to
offer all in one package. Basically if I can get a good editor with
good color correction tools and some animation capabilities (to
move footage under my blackbars) then I'm likely to stay with
one package. A friend of mine had AE so I checked that one out
there.

The color part in a video image signal is being defined by 3 (main) parameters:
1. White balance: the ratio between the RGB components, affecting all colors.
2. Saturation: the ratio of the U/V levels vs the luma level
3. Hue the ratio between U and V (or R-Y and B-Y). This can be optained in component form (NLE) by changing this ratio, or in NTSC encoded signals by changing the burst phase relative to the chroma phase, resulting in the U/V ratio change when those signals are being decoded into components.