Probably because you haven't selected that particular CP... OR you don't have CP's activated. Is CP flashing?

Bill

The problem is that you're trying to use the menu to select the active preset, and it doesn't work that way. The menu is there for creating, importing, and adjusting presets -- not for selecting them while you shoot video.

To select the active preset when shooting video, use the CP On/Off and CP Select buttons on the lower left side of the camera and refer to "Activating the Custom Preset Settings" on page 81 of the Canon XH operator's manual.

Yeah that's exactly the problem. I was trying to activate them via the menu and not the CP On/Off toggle button. I get it now. Thanks.

Also, is the first page with the 18 presets and excel sheet the most current list and chart?

I'm wondering how many presets total have been created/released by people on here.

What PRESET would give me a vibrant, yet balanced image? I don't want to spend days trying to make my own...I'll take the word of the pros. Would it be better to shoot it flat and then correct in post? I want to get the full HD glory out of the a1. Also, what is the best preset for low-light?

New or variations to preset library...
 

I've only just started playing with these as well and was wondering if there was a major update lurking somewhere.

I was particularly impressed with Preset02 and what I have loaded as preset20 which is in fact the VividRGBK.

Interestingly the Canon pre - loaded preset 7 isn't bad, but not quite enough ooomph.

Is it me or did anyone else discover that preset 5 is, in reality, the 5296Film and preset 7 the Lowlt12 (not the other way round)?

If anyone has any major improvements to either preset2 or VividRGBK I'd be interested in hearing about it.


Yeah, yeah, I could start actually playing with these in depth myself, but when you're a colour blind as I am, you get into real trouble real quick once you start fiddling with colour values. I have to go on the overall "tone" of the picture, which is fine till someone with decent colour sight sees it and recoils in horror!


CS

Hi, thanks for the preset advice it rocks!
I have been using my XhA1 for coming up to 8 months now (and am very happy with the results so far).

I will be filming a theatre production multi cam shot this week where the other cameras will be the sony Z1P, I would love to dial up a preset to match them as close as possible with my canon.

Has anyone got any suggestions?

Thank you!!!

I probably sound very naive posting this, but do I need an SD card reader to down load the pre-sets to the SD card?
Or can I do it by connecting the camcorder to my PC?
thanks

Yes, you need some sort of device that can read the SD card
 

If you look back in this thread you will see that the reader is available at almost any electronic store, even Walmart for a very reasonable price.

I suggest you read this entire thread. It contains a ton of great information about the PRESETS and how to use them.
Regards,
Steve

Sorry Steve,I did read the whole thread but must have missed that
Thanks for posting a response

Just trying to help
 

There is so much information in here that it's easy to overlook some things. I didn't have a card reader when I got my camera and found that I could use my old HP HX4700 PDA as a card reader. I just uploaded the files to the PDA and then to the SD card.

You would think Canon would make the camera able to connect directly to a computer so we could move files and photos from the SD card. Oh, sorry, prolly off topic.

Enjoy the camera. I am trying to get my videos uploaded to Vimeo to share. So maybe soon you can see my use of VIVIDRGB, etc.

Preset panoply
 

There's a lot of taste and fashion in colour settings. I'm one of the first wave XH A1 users, and no discussion: the out of the box A1 is having too flat colours.

After trying out dozens of presets, I composed myself, downloaded from this website and also from Wolfgang Winne's fxsupport website, there are only two that I retained: preset 2 'ACPREF' and t oa certain extend, preset 10 'DISJECTA' (which I already consided as a bit over the edge regarding the 'colorization').

I tried the VIVIDRGB only once, and it turns the colour balance into a completely unrealistic colour scaling: can be a nice 'oomph' in some cases, but a landscape with GREEN bushes ended up as one with BROWN bushes. The reds are on the limit of color bleeding.

The only thing I want to say is... maybe now we want to proof how good our post looks on plasma's and LCD panels, but making the reality look a bit too colorful, over some years, we may dislike this kind of approach.

Preset for receptions
 

Anyone have a good preset for receptions, say around +6 gain for low light.

I am using VividRGB all the time and love the colors.
Thanks Steve.

What's the best practice?
 

I have played with the presets and stuck to VividRGB because of the "oomph" in the colors (then by time I am done shredding the quality in capture, they look more natural-insert lol) but last night I watched an interesting indie film, Eighteen, shot on video with what seemed to be VividRGB preset. Watching the film I noticed that the colors looked unnatural in the movie, they had too much "oomph." Perhaps this is because we are used to seeing movies shot on film that render color a bit differently.

My question is, what is the best practice? To use presets to alter the image while shooting, or to shoot the original images with VividRGB and make changes in post production?

Steven D., do you do much tweaking to the color when you are editing?

Oomph?
 

I personally think there are two parts in this: the standard A1 setting is not really what you want due to his 'too neutral' nature. To achieve some kind of 'natural standard', you can maintain throughout your workprocess you need to develop/use some kind of preset (from this excellent source?).

On the other hand, let your camera decide how your final post will look like, with the exaggerations of the VIVIDRGB, doesn't look a good idea unless you really know what you're doing. If it really goes wrong, not a lot can help you anymore to get this back on the track in the editing process (my brown bushes will never become green anymore...)

As I'm also thinking, a lot of the high contrast fujichrome-alike colours are just a fashion phenomenon. It has al to do with the plasma/TFT hype to set deeper and deeper colours and contrasts.

Over five years, we might end up with saying "hey guys, look what we were doing in those days" at this type of footage. Again, you won't be able to change this back to a more neutral approach.

So adopt colours in post yes, but this is not an easy, and tedious process.

At the end of the day, everything is going back to find the right compromises, making your workflow as lean and mean as possible.