losing white balance setting
 

Is there some way to avoid losing GL1 w/b setting when cam shuts down from pause or when going to vcr mode to check footage? Does the XL1s have the same issue or can settings be saved?

Interesting Puzzle: The GL1 Sees (Infra)Red
 

While preparing my GL1 for an upcoming outing I was testing its infrared controller. I noticed that while holding the controller directly in front of the lens and pressing a command button (ex: zoom) the emitter's signal was clearly visible through the viewfinder as a pulsing red dot. It was, however, invisible to the naked eye.

This makes me wonder two things:
1. Can the camera (or, for that matter, any video camera) "see" infrared wavelengths?

2. If so, why does the emitter appear as red? Why not as a greenish/white?

Just idle curiosity. But if the camera can pick up IR, wouldn't that have implications for normal shooting situations?

Just about all video camcorder CCD can see IR, especilly if it is a bright point source as with the remote control. It appears red with the GL1 because the red CCD sees it clearly while the green and blue do not see it anywhere near as well due to the filters in the prism blocking something like 98% if the IR light.

It probably looks green in other (mostly 1-CCD consumer) camcorders because that is how Sony chose to display it when in hight shot mode. Could be any color they wanted. Maybe green because that is the color used in many night vision displays (which are monochrome, not color).

Is it a problem for normal shooting, no. Visible light dominates

That's really interesting. Thanks very much for the info.

You may recall a few years ago when Sony first brought out the 'zero-lux' consumer camcorder thing there was a tendency to "see through" garments. Apparently some synthetic fabrics and dyes were relatively transparent to long IR, and in short under certain circumstance you could see underwear outlines and so forth on people. After this brief (no pun intended) flurry interest, Sony apparently modified the systems (perhaop by changing an internal filter) to mitigate this unexpected capability.

XL1S saves three presets plus manual incand. and DayLight settings.

Can you check to see if your internal battery is OK? I would have thought the GL1 saves the setting until the next resetting of the WB. But??

Believe that the GL1 saves setting if you go into standby/lock, preview with REC Search, but not if you turn off thw power. Switching from Camera to VCR mode does turn off the power briefly.

2X for GL1
 

I use the Century Optics 2X and give it very high marks. I bought a cheaper tele-converter for an earlier cam (VX-1000) and the results were poor. In my case I got what I paid for . . . both times!

I shot wolves at 1.5 miles (2.4k) with GL1
 

Well, I wound up buying a Sony 1.7X High Grade Teleconverter. It seems to be an excellent lens. Just a thought, since it is rated at 1.7X for Sony which has 1/3" CCD's and my Canon has a smaller 1/4" CCD's, I wonder how much more magnification I get using it on my Canon over the Sony. It's probably closer to 2X on my Canon because of the smaller CCD.

Having said that, I received my lens on Friday just before I went to Yellowstone National Park. I caught up with a group of wolf watchers from the Yellowstone Institute. The wolves were on the other side of a valley (Hellroaring overlook)and not visible with the naked eye and barely visible with 20X binoculars. I put on the adapter which gave me 34X magnification, but the wolves were still to small and I couldn't tell them from the sage brush in the LCD. I switched to 40X digital zoom which gave me 64X total magnification. The wolves were still very small in the view finder, but I could see them gather in the center. Then they ran out of view. I found out later that they were four juvenile wolves that were roughing up the alpha male and the behavior could possibly be the formation of a new pack. When I got home and played it back on my big screen TV I could distictly see each wolf and the alpha male was not being "roughed up", but was being severly punished! When he ran out of frame, he was running for his life. Was the video broadcast quality? No, definitely too small and lacking detail, but it did record wolf behavior so anyone could interpret it for him/herself.Also, I checked the distance on a topo map and 1.5 miles(2.4k)is the minimum distance I filmed from. The air was very clear needless to say.

I also shot Trumpeter Swans from about 150 ft. (45m)The swans were a little less than 1/2 frame and you could see details in their feathers as well as a subtle golden color on their upper necks.

I was filming a coyote beside the road from about 25 ft. (7.6m). I was trying for an "Anima Mundi" look (just the eyes, actually could do that too.) when he whirled around and pounced on a ground squirrel. So now I have extreme closeup of him crunching up the ground squirrel and swallowing him whole.

As you can tell, I am very pleased with the teleconverter and I can't wait to go out again.

White balance seems to stay for me.
 

When I turn the camera off and on again, I cycle through the "Select" button and when it gets to the manual white balance graphic, it appears to have retained the last setting I used.

Live Web Cast Using Canon GL1
 

I am looking for information (hardware and software) on how to use a Canon GL1 as a live web cam. Any thoughts/suggestions will be appreciated.

Beleive the adapter is still 1.7x on the GL1 as it is a multiplier applied to the basic camcorder lens.

I don't know of a way to get video live through firewire, but if you use the RCA analog video out to a video capture card like an ATI All-In-Wonder, it should be possible.

Gl1s
 

I have heard from a dealer today that Canon is coming out with an 's' model version of the GL1 - does anyone know how the camera is being improved?

16:9 Mode
 

Does anyone have any comments about shooting with the built in 16:9 mode or using an anamorphic lens?

You'll get better overall quality using the anamorphic adapter, I believe. It's a bit expensive. Plus if you're going to view this video on a normal 4x3 monitor, you'll still have to add a letterbox matte in post-production.

Can you say exactly who you heard this from? Any speculation about new features will be just that -- speculation -- until such a camera actually becomes a reality (i.e., available to the public).

Yes the dealer at BestBuyDV - he said they were going to announce it this week at the Las Vegas tradeshow. He said Canon was offering a discount on the GL1 now that the 's' version is coming out.

Well, there is no DV-oriented trade show in Las Vegas this week. There's a big one called NAB in April, and if there were to be any sort of new product announcement, it would most likely happen at that show, at that time. And... I have a *feeling* that any successor to the GL1 most likely will not be called the GL1S.

Again, in my opinion it may be fun but ultimately rather pointless to speculate on new camera features until such a thing is announced and made available, which ain't happening yet. Hope this helps,

No press releases from Canon on a Gl1 successor so far. If there is a significant rebate on the GL1 (and not matching rebates on other models) then look for an announcement shortly after the end of the rebate period.

Well, Chris could be right about it only being a rumor. But the dealer I talked to said the scramble was on for dealers to buy up the GL1 at a reduced cost to finish up Canon's inventory on that model. That being said, and despite the verification of events to prove it - it was enough for me to hold off buying the GL1. So, instead I just bought a XL1s from Zotz thanks to this excellent site. (I was considering going the JVC route). I will buy the improved GL1 when it arrives - i.e., whenever! ;-)

BTW - I love this camera!

Accessories
 

Hey, anybody know a good website for buying accessories specifically for the GL1? Can you pass it on. Thanks.

gl1/xm1 color problem, need help.
 

i've bought new canon xm1 and had a problem with red colour - so i changed the camcoder but the problem is the same:

filming red colour plain shapes - things get blurred and pixellated - i've put some examples here:

www.uho.iq.pl/canon/canon.html

is it a problem of all xm1s or just my lack of luck?

lukas

Lukas,
Your photos certainly suggest a red bloom. While the GL1 leans towards a warmer (i.e. reddish) image it's not normally as heavy as your photos suggest. Other than making sure that you manually adjust white balance and experimenting a bit with menu and ae (try a notch lower) settings I'm at a loss. I've not seen such a marked bloom with my GL1 or XL1 (NTSC) cams.

BTW, the pixellation phenomenon you show appears to be due, at least in the photos, to your use of the JPEG compression algorithm for the photos. Try grabbing the pics in an uncompressed format such as TIF to get an accurate representation of the situation.

Thank You for your answer.

White balance doesn't help and it's not a matter of JPEG compression (just used it for internet, orginally I'm capturing to TIFs).

So I think it's a matter of a XM1 camcoder. I'm just curious if the same problem exits with other DV camcoders (in Canons it's especially visible with zoomed black text on red background - the edges are always blurred).

Lukas

I must agree with Ken that in all of the times I've shot with a GL1, I've never seen a problem as severe as your examples. Can you go into the camera menu, select C. PHASE (for color phase) and dial out some of that red. If you've already done this, then the camera probably needs adjustment at a Canon service center. XL1's and GL1's lean a bit towards the red but they're not supposed to do what your images show. Be sure to include your sample images if you send the camera in for service.

Yes, see my site sponsor ZGC at www.zgc.com -- hope this helps,

stop motion animation
 

The GL-1 doesn't specifically say this is a feature (frame-by-frame)...but to all you people that already own a GL-1...is it possible to do stop motion animation somehow?

Anamorphic Adapter Question
 

This thread is concerning the types of anamorphic widescreen adapters out there for the GL-1. I know there are at least 2 types out there right now.

My question has to do with the actual anamorphic widescreen ratio. Can somebody tell me what the actual widescreen ratio is for a certain adapter?

As you know 16x9 widescreen TV's are in 1.78:1 aspect ratio. But I'm guessing the anamorphic adapter will create either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 widescreen video since that's the most common. Anybody know for sure? I couldn't tell from the sites that sell these adapters.

I'm hoping it's 1.85:1 just because I can use the full height and width on my widescreen TV. If it's 2.35:1 I still have small black bars on the top and bottom.

By "stop motion animation" what exactly do you mean?

It's also called Frame-by-Frame recording sometimes.

Basically, on cameras that support it you can press the record button and it only records a single frame. The recording turns on then off really quick.

This feature is used mainly for animating objects.

For example, you can animate a toy action figure. By capturing one frame of him standing. Then move an arm, capture another frame, move the arm some more, capture another frame, and so forth. When you play back the recorded footage...it's played back smoothly so it seems as though the action figure is moving his arm by himself.

Aha, that's what I thought you meant. No, the GL1 can't do this. The XL1s has a pretty cool time-lapse shooting function. Perhaps that would work for your needs.

A solution to your problem might be lying inside your
computer! I recently did a test run and as long as my
XL1S is in a recording program (WITHOUT ACTUALLY
RECORDING!!) it will pass the signal down the firewire
cable. So I could record what the camera sees in
Adobe Premiere without the camera actually recording.

Now I have not checked my programs for the following
feature or any other programs. But I assume there must
be a capture program available that can also grab a
single frame from this stream instead of a whole movie.

This way you have it digital directly, without stressing
out your tape heads and you can do it without needing
to resort to expensive stop motion cameras! Since you
will probably not be moving the camera alot around your
set it might be possible to bring your computer (or perhaps
laptop as I have).

I just checked my Adobe Premiere 6.01 editing package
and it has a Stop Motion option under his File -> Capture
menu!!! What you think this will do?

Hope this helped you out

Thanks for the replies! Sounds like software is the way to go. I'll try it out and see what I can do.

cool, just read over some of the documentation on adobe premiere...and looks like it does exactly what we were talking about. Don't know how good it is but I'll find out soon.

You can also adjust how many frames of the still image you would like to capture.

For instance:
If you plan to shoot an animation, which you want to be nice and smooth, then you can capture at 1 frame per image (saved as *.BMP)

Or

You can ask it to capture as many frames as you wish to determine the length of the Image in premiere. 25fps would capture 1second worth of image.

This is done via the Edit menu> Preferences >> General and still image...

Hope this helps,

Ed Smith

Thanks! Been fooling around with this since I got my camera and it's working great.

You can do time lapse which will allow you to capture frames at certain times.

You can specify how many frames to capture.

OR you can do everything manual...which is pure stop motion animation which is what I like. When in this mode, you just press the step button each time you want to capture a single frame. It automatically puts all the frames together into movie format. Once you press 'done' then you have your finished clip of stop motion animation.

anamorphic
 

the most common is the 16x9 somewhere around the 1:77 or 1:78 .. there is NO 1:85 anamorphic ... the true 16x9 CCD's camera out there when transferred to film are projected at 1:85 ( projector gates cuts a little off top / bottom

there is a 2:35 anamorphic which i believe you have come across and it is always 2:35 ..can\'t change it ...

i think the confusion you are having concerning 16x9/1:78/2;35 is that if you use the 16x9 anamorphic PLUS use the camera\'s fake 16x9 the use of BOTH will equal 2:35 ....

Battery Usage
 

Battery usage on the GL1 seems kinda low. Only 1 hour with the standard battery that comes with it.

How does that compare to the XL1s and the Sony cameras

**Heads up note concerning Canon rebates
 

Clever, those Canon market types- Was weeding out the junk mail and a nondescript letter from the Advertising Checking Bureau contained- my $100 rebate. Same deal with my Apple G4- the rebate looked like junk mail- How many folk\'s checks ended up in the round file no one will ever know.