Dear Denny,

The more advanced technique that I have been referring to is:

1. Enable the camera to save the "custom preset in use" with each photo taken in the camera.

2. Get a large SD memory card (optional, but desirable)

3. Load, or create a custom preset. Activate it.

4. Take a photo of the scene. This saves the scene image, plus saves the custom preset.

5. When you want to use that specific custom preset again, just find the photo, then reload the custom preset from the photo.

This advanced technique is great for cinema work as it clearly documents what you have done.

You can refer back to your settings at any time. Since the custom preset is attached to the photo, it is easy to find the preset that you used for any given scene.

Now, the less advanced technique of finding a great preset, and then using it for most of your work, works very well.

I like Alister Chapman's preset. I have recommended this to other XL H1 users and many have adopted it as "their" custom preset.

Thanks for that detailed technique, this is what I will do.

Another tip: to make it easier to navigate back and forth among all those presets, assign "CP Select Backward" to Custom Key #2. That gives you a back button in addition to the forward button, on either side of the CP On / Off button.

Menu > System Setup > Custom Key 2 > CP Bkwd Key

I have been using Panalook for a while now to shoot footage in Death Valley. I think it looks GREAT. How does Panalook2 differ from the original? What where the changes?

Thoughts on Panalook2
 

In my opinion, Panalook2 is very similar to Panalook in it's overall cinematic look, but the overall color gain has been reduced (from 4 to -4), while the green gain and sharpness have been only very slightly reduced. Also, the black has changed from middle to stretch. I have my black set to middle rather than stretch only because I prefer the way middle looks a bit more, plus I'm not that good at adjusting things in post. I think that stretch gives more latitude with your blacks though. I got the following from a post by Steven Dempsey that helps explain the black setting: "Black - Press will crush the blacks, Mid is a good average of decent black levels, Stretch will make the blacks a little milkier but you will retain more detail in the recorded image"

Some people have suggested that the sharpening on A1 adds noise, so they keep it set low. (See Trucolor threads for this discussion) While I can't prove this true, I can see the logic behind it and tend to believe it. I like the fact that Panalook2 is in the negative sharpening range and I would rather do light sharpening in post rather than in camera.

I have always thought Panalook had a great look to it, and the updated version seems to make colors seem realistic, but not oversaturated. It is a preset with a lot of range to adjust the overall look in post. Of all the presets out there, Panalook2 is my favorite.

I am using an XLh1 and not the A1 but I like many of the presets created for the A1. The scale for many of the same settings on the H1 is slightly different and at one point someone posted a rough graph showing the relationship between the two. I think it was Chris Hurd actually. I have been searching this forum all morning and cannot find it. Anyone know where this is located or know of a resource for this? I'd really like to try the TrueColor preset but need to adapt it to the H1 as accurately as possible.

Thanks.

The Preset Movie 1.0 by Gert Kracht is great, especially in HD on a big screen! Thanks!

Here it is in PDF format for quick reference.

Marty, was it this?
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...ight=translate

That's it, but results are not guaranteed. It was just an experiment.

The -3dB preset (I think it's made by a gentleman named Wolfgang?)

Does anyone know the post # or thread where I can download the CPF file for the "-3dB" preset? I've been looking through the posts high and low and can't seem to find it. And "-3dB" is a tough search!

Also, I'm new to the whole custom presets thing...

How can I make sure that I don't overwrite the factory defaults, or worse yet, alter them? I want to make sure that when I turn cp off that my factory settings have been untouched in the process of me loading up new presets. Thanks guys!!!

Does anyone know the post # or thread where I can download the CPF file for the "-3dB" preset? I've been looking through the posts high and low and can't seem to find it. And "-3dB" is a tough search!



Look here !

http://66.196.80.202/babelfish/trans...bf-nl&.intl=nl

Thank you so much Arnold! I'm assuming his "PRESET01" is the -3dB preset, correct? Thanks again!

No thanks Deke (y)

Thanks to everyone for the great info here and the presets. As a videophile and home theater journalist, I am very interested in getting the absolute best "3D" Hd image quality from my XH-A1. Over the past several weeks, I have been experimenting and test shooting with what have become my 3 favorite presets - Panalook, VividRGB, and True Color. But with each, I found areas which I felt could stand some improvement. I am shooting mostly outdoors, in sunny settings, but I have done test footage to tweak the presets using both natural subjects and test charts. I'm especially interested in accurate grayscale tracking and reproduction, and true but ever so slightly 'punchy' color.

By the way, I don't know if others here are experiencing this, but I have found that with ANY preset that uses the "N" gamma curve (as opposed to cinema1 or cinema2), including the factory preset, there is excessive blowing out of highlights and whites, and exposure must be manually reduced by at least half a stop to compensate, which hurts shadow detail. I have obtained the best results in all presets by using the Cinema1 gamma curve. Just curious if others see this too (a good way to judge is by turning zebras on, to 95).

I've come up with what I think are some great modifications to these presets, and if there is interest here I will be glad to post them, to give back something that will hopefully be useful to this community, as I have gained very much from following the discussion here. Thanks again to all!

Patrick
home: Florida and Ukraine!

By all means, please post your presets along with some links to examples of footage.

I've been working on tweaking a preset as well. I also like VIVIDRGB, PANLOOK2. Recently I tried the REALITY preset and found it was almost exactly what I was looking for. I've been using that preset as a foundation and making some slight adjustments.... we'll see what happens. If anything good comes out of it, I will post it as well.

I'll have to check out your tip about Gama curves...

Updated Custom Preset List
 

Taking up on Steven Dempey's suggestion, I have updated the Preset list originally posted by Chris Hurd. The new list contains 41 presets, many of which can be seen in Gert Kracht’s Preset Movie 1.0. I have included NOMAGENT2 in the list because it is in Gert’s movie, but I haven’t been able to find a corresponding CPF file for it. Enjoy!

James Lynch

Hi James,

Thanks for the compliment. In case I forgot, the movie is to be found on Vimeo:

http://www.vimeo.com/846830

BUT, I'm busy planning to make a new version: 2.0

I read books and online articles about the techniques of whitebalance and colors on a videocamera and it might change the way of making the whole movie. The main difference is the way how I first set the whitebalance on the camera and then use the preset.

Secondly: The color temperature of the light. It changes with the time of day and because of that you have to change the color temperature on the camera too. And because of that I might make several new presets for the different time of day.
I could do it the other way around: select preset and then do a manual white balance, but I think the other way is better. So I hope this saturday will be a real nice day with great weather so I can compare these two methodes.

Results will be online after that.

Updated Custom Preset List
 

The CPF Files for the above list are as follows. I seem to olny be able to upload them in groups of 8. Here are the first 8.

Updated Custom Preset List
 

The second group of 8:

Updated Custom Preset List
 

...The third group:

Updated Custom Preset List
 

The fourth group:

Updated Custom Preset List
 

Fifth Group

Can you put all the files into a single zip?

It's a pain in the ya-yas to download those individually.

Thanks!

JR

Here it is !

Updated Preset List
 

For those of you that aren’t sure of the definition and use of the 23 preset adjustments and what they do, the attached XL H1 booklet will be useful. While the specifics mentioned in the booklet are related to the H1, and not the A1, the definitions and descriptions are valid for the A1 too.

James

Updated Custom Preset List
 

Arnold,

Thanks for zipping the files!

James

I was wondering if anyone had any particular favorites for a preset when it comes to shooting water scenes, like lighthouses and boats out on the water? Something that may make the water and sky a nice blue and would work in sunny/bright conditions. I've cycled through the presets and there are a couple that seem a lot better than others for this type of shoot, but thought I'd see if anyone here had any suggestions from their experience. Thanks!

Marcel,
As the author of the REALITY preset I'm very curious about the changes you made. Can you please share them?

Kees,

I'll be glad to after I test it. I will hopefully be shooting footage sometime during this long, holiday weekend to test it. It could be that I can't improve on what you've done, then again... As soon as I have anything worthy, I'll post it.

Thanks for doing the work on the Preset in the first place!

I spent a little time working on some presets today and felt TrueColor and Panalook2 were tied for the most accurate presets. TrueColor may have been a little vivid and Panalook2 a little subdued and dim compared to what my eyes saw while shooting the test below:

http://vimeo.com/1060453

I'm trying to do some low light tests to see how I can best get good, dramatic interviews without a lot of "dancing" in the background.

Roger Shealy Video
 

It appears to me that the Canon default and Truecolor are very, very close. Based on your video I really like the true color preset, at least for outdoor video. Thanks Roger

The TrueColor has a little more punch to it, the default Canon is very flat. I like to do most of my color enhancements in the computer at post, but I'd like to get it close to accurate in the camera and work from there.

I'm not in the game to spoil your pleasure, but it is almost impossible to judge settings seen in a compressed Vimeo movie. Simple as colors are completely off in the H.264 flash movs.

It is great to see the settings in a movie next to the other as a 'point of start', but more important is how a setting reflects skin tone. What it does in the shade parts, how it works on a white ball in the sun, the curve, things like that. Color alone is not the critical part and a flash movie can't show you the other elements.

my2ct: how more settings you create (lets go for the 100) how more confused you get.

True Color
 

As I see it, all of the video examples would be off by the approximate same amount and a comparison of one to the other (not the ultimate video viewed on a good monitor or set) would be valid. Tht's all we are saying. I reiterate my comments and thanks again Roger.

My pleasure Phil.

I enjoyed Gerts movie of a fixed background and it helped me get a feel for some of the options. The compression definitely causes some issues but hopefully it's one more data point that is useful.

Kees,

As promised, here is a quick example of footage I shot with the modified REALITY preset. I'm pretty pleased with the results. It's straight out of the camera with no color grading. Let me know what you think.

Update: Here is the complete, edited project using only the preset, no color grading:

http://exposureroom.com/members/mvan...23b13748e8f66/

Marcel,

Very nice footage. In what way did you modify my preset?

I made the following changes:

Color Gain 20

Red Gain 1

Blue Gain 4

Sharpness 0

Black Press

And I renamed it REALSHP so I can keep them separate.

I have a question:

What should be done?: Set the custom preset and then set the right color temperature or do it the other way around?



and...

Thanks for the new CP, Marcel. I will add it to the collection to test it together with all other CP's in Versio 2.0 of the CP Movie.

Marcel,

Would you mind elaborating on what your modifications do for the "look" of the video in relation to the REALITY preset? What were your goals when modifying REALITY?