Nice work Giovanni,

I have one question: why do you recommend the -3dB Gain setting?

If you have enough light, the -3db gain setting reduces the gain of the camera and produces images with even less noise than the 0 db gain setting (as well as all other gain settings.)

Thanks Dan.
I now know what to do for the next version of the custom preset movie.
See, I had some thoughts about how I made it the first time and I wanted to make a new version which is better and if possible with more presets.

There were some questions about the white balance and other stuff like the gain settings.

I did some tests yesterday evening with the Kelvin settings and I think i'm going to do make a new version with a fixed white balance setting. In other words: I'm going to set the camera to a certain color temperature.

Shame I don't have a color temperature meter available. That may help a bit.

Can I compare the GAIN settings of the A1 with the ISO settings on a Digital SLR camera?

Dear Gert,

Yes, they are similar concepts. Gain makes the camera more sensitive, at the cost of increased noise in the image. The same applies to high ISO settings.

Nice! I experimented with my Canon EOS400D last week and made great photo's on ISO100.
It's great weather over here. Blue skies, warm and sunny weather so we leave the house as much as we can. And yes, both camera's are my companion in a backpack so nothing escapes the electronic eyes.

About the presets:

The first movie I made of the CP's I used a Expodisc to set the white balance on the camera each time I changed the CP on my A1. But, I had some doubts about the results. So there are still some open questions:

1: Is there a difference between the white balance setting with a Expodisc and a white surface object like a grey card which also has a white surface side.

2: Do I have to set the white balance each time I change the CP. In other words: Does the CP have influence on the white balance?

3: If I use a certain white balance setting in Kelvin which should represent the light on the moment I start filming, can I then compare all CP's with each other?

Dear Gert,

I have not used an Expodisk.

It would be interesting for you to run some tests comparing the use of the Expodisk to traditional white balance using a white card. I typically use white foam-core board, but there are better white balance cards.

I feel that for your Custom Preset testing, I would use the traditional white balance, using a white card instead of using an Expodisk.

I would white balance after making all of the Custom Preset changes, but I do not know if it would make any difference. I strongly feel that "white balance after" would be best, however.

You should definitely white balance after adding or removing a Neutral Density filter.

I would reserve the use of the Expodisk to situations where you can not use a white balance card due to the event, or nature of the scene.

Hi Dan,

With any luck I will compare five different ways of white balance tomorrow.

1. Automatic
2. Preset with 'Sun'
3. Preset with 'Kelvin'
4. White balance with a greycard (white side)
5. Expodisc

The preset with Kelvin is set with a bit of knowledge about color temperature and my eye in the viewer (is the surface white or does it have a tinted color?)

Should be interesting to see what comes out of this test.

I have not thoroughly tested this, but it seems that:

If you white balance manually, then switch to "Kelvin Mode", it will display the color temperature that it used for the white balance.

Then you can adjust the white balance manuallyto suite your needs.

I highly recommend that you calibrate your viewfinder so that the colors/brightness and contrast are correct. You can search for threads on how to do this.

Unless your viewfinder is calibrated, I would not use the "Kelvin Mode" to adjust for white balance, until I did some testing (and viewing of the footage).

In other words, I would trust the camera's white balance over tweaking it in Kelvin mode, while using the viewfinder to judge the color balance (until you have confidence that the colors in the viewfinder are accurate.)

All of this is easier if you have a calibrated HD monitor.

For what it's worth...according to Bill Pryor:

From http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.ph...ckground+color

"Unfortunately the camera does not provide a color temperature readout. Since it knows what the CT is when it white balances, it should be easy to provide that readout in the viewfinder, but they don't. Very annoying."

Kinda silly, but here goes:
Do you guys ever shoot with NO presets, just the factory settings out of the box?

Dear Steve,

No.

Thanks Dan,
I don't how to take your message, are you being a silly goose or do you really NEVER shoot with factory settings. (I know it was kind of an asinine question :)
-Steve

Hi Steve,

I think that because the Canon XH-A1 has a flexable matrix built in. It can be set to the colors anyone wants it to have. Many first users of the A1 compared the picture with their 'old' camera. Not satisfied with the results they made their 'lookslikeXYZ' preset.

And many customers are not satisfied with the 'straight out of the box' picture quality of the camera. So they started their own journey in making custom presets.

I myself still have a few open questions about custom presets, but still it's all up to you: which setting do you like? Out of the box or any preset available. It's totaly up to you and all other users. Try and experiment, you will love it.

I haven't used the factory settings since I discovered the presets on this forum. Wouldn't have known how or where to start by myself.

Gert - compared with my XM2, the colours on the A1 were wonderful. But my first shoot was water birds in winter - lots of blues, greys and whites. Only when it came to birds in the garden, with a predominance of greens, yellows and reds, I found the colours a little washed out. VIVIDRGB sorted that one out!

Dear Steve,

Please accept my apologies.

I wasn't trying to be silly, I was just trying to answer your question.

I never shoot without a custom preset (unless I accidently hit the button to turn off the custom preset - one should always double check this before shooting).

When I purchased the XL H1, I tried all of the presets available at that time.

I liked Alister Chapman's preset the best, but I made a slight change to it. I found it to be natural and it appears to work under a very wide set of conditions.

So, I always use Alister Chapman's preset (with my slight modification).