Yet another preset sample
 

Hi folks,

I'm still trying to pick my favorite custom presets and have made some images to help: A1 videos, A1 stills and a still from a still camera (Panasonic DMC-KZ7).

I picked a scene with a mix of grays, natural colors and paint. Each preset in the video lasts for two seconds. There are labels to identify them (and no audio).

http://www.singularproductions.com/presets.wmv

The stills are here:

http://www.singularproductions.com/presets_stills.zip

Bruce

Bruce, thanks for posting the samples. I am a newbie and i'll tell ya I would be lost with my a1 if it wasn't for this site and all of the awesome people here willing to share their info with us. I can't wait to get home and load these presets and get to playing around filming my 6 yr olds birthday party today. Thanks to everyone for all the hard work. This site is awesome.
chuck

2 Presets if anyone cares....
 

Revisions of my two presets if anyone cares...

JCDVday1 - Matches the color of my Sony HC1 cameras. Tweaked from the old one I posted a while back. Now its good in low light with addition of camera light or stage lights.
www.jcdv.com/PRESET/PRESET02.CPF

JCDVlow1 - My best attempt at a really low light preset. I have to tweak some in post such as contrast, levels and/or some saturation... but its a good base. I constructed this in a room with only a computer monitor with white background (like dvinfo site) as the only light source.
www.jcdv.com/PRESET/PRESET03.CPF

so..if I don't have a card reader...am I out of luck for loading these presets on to my card until I get a card reader? or is there a way to hook the camera up to the computer with the card in the camera.....?

Hi Jeremiah, there's bad news and good news. The bad news is yes you must have an SD card reader, there's no other way (except for Canon's $600 Console software). The good news is that SD card readers are dirt cheap ($10 to $20) and are available anywhere (Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, Best Buy, maybe even Walgreens)... there's no excuse not to have one for your XH camcorder.

saweet!!!...thanks for the good news chris...on my way to the 24hr. walmart!

A card reader is just a lot more convienient & a must have... but it IS possible to access any downloaded preset by using either one of the two tweaking programs mentioned here in the forums (the two freebies... not Console) without having a reader.

Just open them from your hard drive using one of the programs & it will show you the settings. You'll just have to spend time "copying" the settings manually in the Custom Preset menu, which can take some time.

Bill

hey jerome, thanks for posting. i've been meaning to get around to tweaking a low light setting but it's currently about #1,048,479 on my to-do list. this should be fun to play with, thanks.

How To Put Presets On Sd Card Without Reader
 

Since I usually am retrieving information from an SD card instead of putting info in, I do not own a card reader, i.e., I always use the device to read the card. So, to make it very simple. Go into your A1 custom preset screen and copy the first Default preset from camera to SD card. Once you do that, the camera will automatically create the "PRESET" folder. After this, simply turn your A1 dial to "Ext Control". Have it hooked to your firewire first of course, then download all the presets to your desktop. Open "My computer" and you will see "Canon Camera device" as another drive (something like that anyway). Click on this to open it. You will see a Folder....mine didn't show the name PRESET, but it was the PRESET folder, I just seen a picture of a folder. I then right click on the preset I downloaded from the desk top and COPY that file. I then right click on that folder PRESET. Choose "Paste into this folder"...and there you go..your preset is added. You CANNOT drag and drop for some reason. But if you copy and paste, it works perfectly. Did all presets within about 8 minutes.

preset for indoor
 

Need a little help again. I am going to be filming in a musical studio with good indoor lighting and wanted an opinion on a custom preset for indoors. I have been using the vivid and panalook for outdoor shots and they are awesome. I have not been to the studio yet but was told lighting should not be a problem at all. I appreciate all the help.

Just a daft question - maybe!
 

I have just been experimenting with some of the custom presets posted here, and some are very good - others can be safely left out.

My question is, what adavantage do the presets offer?. Surely wouldn't it be better to make any adjustments in your NLE app. Using Premiere and a Matrox RTX2 card I can save any permutation and apply it to any clip. In stills photography we shoot in RAW and apply post production to the images, shouldn't we do the same with SD/HD video?

Or am I missing some vital point.

Thanks

It's basically a time-saver, to avoid having to do this process in post... for example, same-day edits in wedding videography.

Thanks Chris,

The point I was trying to bring to the fore is, once you have made your corrections to the actual video, would it affect any future post production work.

As I mentioned in my post, for stills photography we shoot in RAW format, this means nothing has been added to the file (sharpening, colour boost, jpeg compression etc.) so we have a open file on which we can apply all the corrections.

Going back to the video question, if we apply any custom presets to the video, have we in effect taken the quality off track should we want to apply any other adjustment in post. For example, if I sharpen the movie in a preset, then surely that has been applied to the file (video) and my options in post are therefore limited as far as sharpening are concerned.

From your answer, it would seem that a custom preset is a handy quick fix solution, but may limit future post production tweaks. Or have I got this wrong.

Thanks

In my opinion it is better to get as close to your desired look while shooting with the A1 rather than adding effects in post. Why? Well for one, rendering time is already stretched when rendering HDV, adding effects will only add to this time, and I believe canon's color adjustments are very good in the camera, so why wait and do it in post? You can still make those same changes in post with a little work if you are not satisfied with what you have shot. Unless you are shooting some kind of preset that is extremely unusual and maybe hard to duplicate, I would certainly recommend using a preset over the NLE, especially with the wonderful presets provided by some darn fine users here on DVinfo.net. One example would be Steven Dempsey's presets..They are great. But, I find them all unique and could see me using any of them at one time or another. Just my 2 cents. J

Pda
 

Here's a quick suggestion if you don't have a card reader and it's past closing time for any store that might sell one. Most of us have PDAs around that we use for other things and most PDAs use SD cards or at least have a slot for them. I used my HP Ipaq PDA by connecting it with the sync cord and dragging the preset files to the SD Card in the Ipaq using file explorer. Then just transfer the card to the camera and bam you have PRESET!

Lately I have used Steve Dempsey's Vivid preset finding the colors vivid and life like, though I do enjoy the Bleach Bypass preset as well. Just got back from a week trip and my new Vegas 7 was waiting for me. Soon I will actually have some samples to post. Weeeee....

Some of the presets from the DVInfo library are raising some questions for me.

"AC PREF1" - Who is Alister Chapman and what about his preferred settings make them good for everyone else?

"5248FILM", "5296FILM" - What about these film stocks makes them discernable? I mean, what films or scenes have a look characteristic of these stocks?

"AVGFILM" - Define the "average" film stock.

"TERRA1" - Described as a "soft" image. Is this the kind of look one could use for a vintage look, or for something more surreal? (Such as the restroom scene in Casino Royale when Bond is poisoned. Could that be done with a preset, or would a lens filter be the way to go on that one? Kind of looks like AfterEffects to me.)

I apologize if any of this sounds trivial.

Doesn't sound trivial; just sounds like you haven't done your homework. As I've explained here many times before, these presets are *translations* of existing XL H1 presets (and very rough translations at that).

Alister Chapman is a DV Info Net regular and an XL H1 owner who created a series of XL H1 presets for his own personal use, and graciously chose to share them with his fellow DV Info Net members. As to what he meant by "average" film stock, or for that matter any of his other presets, you're better off asking him directly. You'll find him in our XL H1 forum.

Same thing for the author of the Terra 1 and 2 presets -- Luis de la Cerda has an entire thread dedicated to those presets, it's located at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=66581

The whole point of sharing these roughly translated XL H1 presets with the XH crowd is just to give a little idea of what's possible through some experimentation. They were never intended to be anything more than that. If you're thinking, what should I use these for, then the answer is that you shouldn't be using them for anything because they were never created for the XH camcorders to begin with.

They're intended only to motivate XH owners to create their *own* custom presets.

Hope this helps,

An even better answer than I had hoped for. Thanks, Chris.

I've been using the presets on my A1 with great results, as I think others on the boards have been doing. Is that bad, or am I just too lazy to make my own?

Nothing wrong with that, Ben -- those three included presets were put there for a reason!

I didn't have any trouble getting the 18 initial presets onto my SD card a few months ago, but I put PRESET25 (VIVIDRGB) on there today (in the PRESET folder) and it's not showing up in my camera. They still just go to 18. Did I do something wrong?

Valid preset names go from PRESET01.CPF on up to PRESET20.CPF so you need to re-name that file.

So is there any way to open Excel and dial in a preset, and then save it as a .CPF and put it on my SD card? I haven't been able to find a thread that describes this process yet.

EDIT: Disregard that. I'm using XHTuner instead.

Bleach Bypass Preset
 

Hey there,

So after a couple of requests, here is a CPF file of my bleach bypass preset, called simply "BleachBP".

In case you can't read CPF files, I'm also including the settings in Excel format and a link to the original post.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=86026

Enjoy.

HC1 settings
 

Hi Jerome.
Thanks for sharing HC1 preset(JCDVday) and I used it indoor, good skin tone comparable to my PD170, outdoor I haven't tried. For your HC1 settings(color, contrast etc), can you share me those for my friend's HC1? We're planning to shoot short film using both cameras.

Thanks,
Nathan

No problem... on the HC1, set the camera color to +2 and sharpness to +2...

Presets for low light
 

I currently film hunting videos and as the light changes from high to low light or vise-versa I would like to have presets that would make it easier for my wife to push so her video stays corrected. Does anyone have presets that would make this easier for her to use the camera with less adjusting? I would really appreciate any help here.

Steven,

On your VividRGB preset you use the Cine 1 gama and on the Panalook, Cine 2. Should the frame rate for the camera be set at 30f and 24 respectively when using these presets?

James

James, the frame rate has no influence on the preset. It is only changing the "look", not the cadence.

Wow! That was a fast answer! I appreciate your advice and your wonderful "leadership" in the area of presets. Also, congratulations on the beautiful movies on your site - now I have someting to shoot for.... Thanks.

DVInfo... Custome Presets Lifesavers..
 

Newbie to videography and I did a bit of research before I bought the Canon XH A1. A lot of people told me to go for the Sony FX1 which is now obsolete or the newer FX7. I wanted to be in a position of having a camera that would enable me to experiment with HD, give me the XLR inputs and provide me with great results.

Having owned the camers for a month now (and comparing the shots with my mates Sony VX2000) I was becoming concerned. The colours were not rich enough and the shots looked saturated.

Spent ages reading the manual, no luck... went on the net and hey presto DVInfo told me everything I needed to know. Brilliant!

Now I get the shots with the XH A1 with what I believe to be a good colour balance... especially when it comes to the capturing the rich colour of Asian clothing!
:o)

Keep up the good work and this site is firmly positioned on my favourites as number 2 (Number one being my beloved Liverpool Football Club - :o).

VividRGB preset
 

Steven,
Your VividRGB preset I've noticed skin tone is slightly more on red color, can you guide me which color settings to adjust to tone down reddish skin? Thanks.


Nathan

Which Preset?
 

Munaf,

Which preset do you use for best colour in Asian clothing? I too am a new purchaser of the XHA1 (2 weeks) but have not had much of an opportunity to play with it so far.

Regards,

Brendan

"Now I get the shots with the XH A1 with what I believe to be a good colour balance... especially when it comes to the capturing the rich colour of Asian clothing!
:o)"

I've been using the VividRGB. This one's my favorite, it gives great results.

Mark

Help!
 

I'm trying to load these presets, but I can only load up to 9 and the last three are taken. Is there a way to load all 18? This is driving me nuts. I see these other preset functions and those are up to 20, but it looks like something different than the custom preset...Help?

Thanks Mark (Rook). I've now loaded VIVIDRGB on to the camera and had a test fly. Looks good.

Regards,

Brendan

i am ameture with xha1 have a stupid question have been trying with the presets but have noticed that if i put the camera in manual mode with AGC on auto and AWB on auto at night during indoor all the preset looks great but if i put the AGC to gain 3 the picture still looks quite dark..... so my question is do i have to have them on auto while using the presets ??
sorry about this stupid question but everyone starts somewhere rite.........

I am Pretty sure that if you want more you have to store them on your SD memory card and use them from there.

Yes, just keep an SD card in the camera at all times, and you've got 20 more preset file slots that way. It doesn't have to be a high-capacity card. If you have an older 256MB or 128MB card, that's just fine. A high-capacity card will let you record more still photos though, and you can have the camera write the current Custom Preset file along with the photo, so the number of CP files you can have on hand is practically unlimited with a 1GB or 2GB Secure Digital flash memory card left in the camera. As inexpensive as they are, there's no reason not to have one.

Hi Mickey, the only stupid question around here is the one which isn't asked. First, make sure your viewfinders are properly set up. The might not be bright enough. Use the Display menu to make those changes by comparing their images to your best video monitor or an HDTV. Then keep AGC switched off, and try a higher Gain setting. You can use +6 or +12 without degrading the image too much. The Gain values for the L-M-H Gain switch are found in the Camera menu. Hope this helps,