Most the time when I give people presets, I include a WB instruction. I dial in the presets, then white balance. I have not done any extensive testing but I doubt you would see a lot of difference either way. I have matched settings over firewire with people who did a WB at a different time than me and everything seemed to match...



ash =o)

Mike--

I know what WB is, and how it works. :) What we're talking about is the extent to which RGB settings in a preset will or will not offset or enhance the effects of warm or cool white balances. For example, if you WB to a light blue card for a warm color temp, and then dial down the red and up the blue in a preset, which takes precedence? Do the two effects even each other out?

I was saying that in my experience, the WB effect seems to overpower any preset color shifting by a pretty substantial margin. This would seem to run counter to what the manual says.

If I can find/time movtivation, I guess I can do a test or two. Nothing real scientific you understand, just white balance then add preset in one instance, and in the other, add preset THEN WB.

White balance defines white so of course it overpowers a preset as it sets color temperature. It should be used in combination with presets to create a look.


ash =o)

Jarrod,

I never meant to imply that you didn't know what white balance was, because I'm sure that you do. It is just that you have to understand the order, or precedence, of settings so to speak.

As I said, "If you use a warmer white balance card it changes what the camera assumes white is and the picture will be warmer." Maybe I should add that if you white balance then change a setting in the camera, then that setting will be different. If you white balance to a color or shade other than straight white, every setting in the camera will be different, as the camera balances it all based on what it thinks white is.

You really can't throw a preset in then white balance to another color, unless that preset was set to the other white in the first place.

Mike

So, then you WOULD add a preset after white balancing, if it alters color, to get your desired look.

YES! I was struggling to word that well, but that is it.

Mike

Ah. There we are then.

Old News
 

I know this may be old news to all of you but I've just ran across a July 25th 2005 thread that directs you to downloadable XL2 Custom Preset files.
Problem is that I can't get download anything. Is this becouse it's closed?
Any new sites I can go to? I've had my XL2 for a year plus now and am looking to get new outside ideas on settings. I should a lot of pre-lit wide stage area projects so I do not have much or any control of lighting.

Thye seemed to work ok about 10 hours ago when I downloaded them. Right click and Save Target As..

Thank you
 

I'll try again when I get home to my PC. Do they have this for MAC? I live in both worlds.

Works Great
 

I downloaded it this evening. It is going to come in very handy.
Thanks

Any tips on shooting 24P inside homes & outside?
 

Ash;

do you recommend any Custom Settings for working indoors(under household flourescent light), as well as outside (filming houses, pool areas). I currently shoot a real estate show with an XL-2, and am having trouble finding the exact best settings to bring out the details, as well as when I pan(stuttered effect of 24P when I watch thru LCD tv). Is the stuttered effect just because I'm looking at it thru a tv, before its edited through VEGAS?
I would love to know the best settings for indoors for b-roll 24P, interviews indoors & out, as well as just filming the houses outdoors.
If I can get the pans to look like the pans in 60I, we plan to shoot everything for the show in 24P.
I want the b-roll footage to have tons of detail, & the interviews to be a little softer in tone.
thanks;

Peter V.

Make sure you OIS is off... make sure your shutter is 1/48th... make sure your pans are smooth and not too fast. If you are doing it for domestic TV, you may consider 30p which will give you nice progressive images but less motion blur.



ash =o)

I'm actually having a problem installing the drivers for the program, sadly. I am running Windows XP x64, and when I am defining the correct folder to locate the drivers for the XL2 (as detailed in the Installation instructions), I receive the message "The Hardware was not installed because the wizard cannot find the necessary software. If a driver was provided, make sure it is designed to work with Windows for x64-based systems."

Is this program and the attached drivers NOT compatible with Windows XP x64 edition?? Thanks for your help!

Vista compatible?
 

The XL2 Presets Manager wouldn't happen to be compatible with Windows Vista would it?
I don't want to DL it if it isn't.

Thanks
Lee

I'm also trying to get the presets manager working (everyone raves about it and it is easier than handwriting everyone's recommended presets), but I also have Vista and got the device drivers working, but I cannot get the program to read preset 1/2/3. Any ideas if they are compatible? Or how to get around this problem?

I have a question for you as another fellow Vegas user.

When you render, do you set your frame rate to 24 (film) or do you leave it at NTSC?

Identity presets
 

Hullo! New XL2 user, here, still getting used to things. My partner and I will be fiddling with the presets to see what we can get out of them, but at the moment we are still trying to figure out what does what. We'll share what we get.

In the meantime, anyone want to give a crack at an Identity preset?
http://us.imdb.com/gallery/ss/030969...hint=nm0000131

At first I thought the colour was a little washed out, but there are some beautiful golden tones, which seem to conflict greatly with the very silver look of the film. I know enough to figure a good wack of it is lighting, but there may be some in camera tricks we can use.

i think one thing i would be interested in finding out is doing HDR with the XL2. Is it possible doing HDR with DV video?

New Presets
 

Hey guys, so maybe its my turn to chip in.

I would use the preset manager, if it dident make a runtime error everytime I try to use it, so I guess I have to do it like in the ole days. If someone can transfer those numbers into a preset file. It would be appreciated.

I got 3 presets for you, that I created for general use.

These presets are intended to setup the XL2 for 3 different light conditions, but without "burning" a specific look into an irreversible state. In other words those presets will not give you the film look, or any other specific look, but instead it will give you the best (well as good as I can tell) footage, before you go in your editing studio to tweak the final look and mood.

Preset1:
Optimal light conditions such as in a studio. For this setting I used a pair of 5000 kelvin daylight bulbs (I think they are called flourecent studio lights)

Gain: -3

Gamma: Cine
Knee: High
Black: press

Color matrix: Cine
Color Gain: 0
Color Phase: 0

R: 0
G: 0
B: 0

V detail: Normal

Sharpness: 0
Coring: 0

Setup Level: -3
Master Ped: -4
Nr: off

This preset could also be used for outdor shooting on a good sunny day.
Remember to use your ND filter tho.


Preset 2:
Good lighting conditions, but not near as controled like preset 1. This should be mainly used for arenas, concert halls, or other indor enviroments where the ligthing is ok.

Gain: 0

Gamma: Cine
Knee: High
Black: Middle

Color matrix: Cine
Color Gain: 0
Color Phase: 0

R: 0
G: 0
B:-2

V detail: Normal

Sharpness: 0
Coring: 0

Setup Level: 0
Master Ped: 0
Nr: low


Preset 3:
This preset is specialized for really dark scenes. I have been shooting quite a lot of event shows at night clubs, where in some instances the only light available is the Video light on my XL2. In other words. If you have to shoot with +12 gain. Use this preset.

Gain: 12

Gamma: Cine
Knee: Middle
Black: Stretch

Color matrix: Cine
Color Gain: 0
Color Phase: 0

R: 0
G: 0
B:-2

V detail: Normal

Sharpness: -2
Coring: 0

Setup Level: -3
Master Ped: 0
Nr: High

Some of you might be asking, why I use the Cine gamma in such a dark enviroment, when the normal mode brightens the overall image.
Thats true, but even tho the image becomes slightly darker with Cine Gamma, it also removes lots of noise from the shadow areas. And you can always brighten the footage in your NLE to compensate if needed. Still you will end up with a more clean result, than if you dident use Cine Gamma.
Overall you might just as well crush the blacks in dark conditions, cause you will not get any detail of them anyways. Just like the spotlight mode.

preset xl2
 

Hi all ,i have sent a pm to Ash but he is a busy man and may not get it in time .
I have been thrown in the deep end with a rush job tomorrow filming racing cars, choppers , boats hi action thing. My thing is doco so has to rethink my presets . The question The sport preset looks to be the goods was wondering if any one could offer advice I shoot Pal its for broadcast TV will 50dpi be okay its a small change from the preset.

I have started using more detail after som lookaround in the forum.

Now using:

Gain: -3

Gamma: Cine
Knee: LOW
Black: STRECH

Color matrix: Cine
Color Gain: +1
Color Phase: +1

R: +1
G: 0
B: 0

V detail: LOW

Sharpness: +3
Coring: 0

Setup Level: -4 / -6
Master Ped: -3
Nr: off

It's nice to see how well the cam uses high detail settings. If I compare to my previous DVX100A the grain would stand out with the Pana cam.
Off cource viewing this on a broadcast monitor makes it look even better. This was shot handheld from the waist. Lens was 16X manual.

Hello,

Great detail with the cat!

I find that when I'm shooting general topics for my corporate work that I have ti soften the sharpness to eliminate shimmer. SD DV has many challenges like stair stepping, bending off lines, etc. although shimmering is not limited to DV, it seems to be more pronounced in DV.

Your cat is organic and the sharpness is great for detail, but non-organic objects such as metal or especially metal grills on cars where you compound the metalic shimer with line complications can drive you crazy.

What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks!

Hey Anthony,

I will try that out, going out sometime soon again. I’m still learning so it will be interesting.

What I have noticed is that organic object, like faces, also often looks better when viewed on a broadcast monitor with lower detail settings, although this is assumptions. These below are with -2 in detail, and it also helps making the focus soften between prime focus and a bit of. With the viewfinder I find if often hard when fining proper focus with moving objects.

I'll post again with something non organic.

Re: A tip on custom settings....
 

Wow, no posts since 2008. Where is everyone?

Re: A tip on custom settings....
 

We all got dSLRs and are out shooting with those... ;-)

Re: A tip on custom settings....
 

These cameras are D-E-A-D.

"Hey Grampa, tell us what it was like shooting HD on tape again?"

"Well, remember kids, this was the mid 2000s so most folks rode horses, and very few had electricity. Now, when you shot tape, you had to digitize in real time -- Johnny, you close that mouth and wipe up that drool -- you had to manually specify capture settings, and then pray to whatever deity you believed in that the camera/deck could communicate properly with your computer, and that the tape captured properly. The most fun we had was trying to figure out why our audio was captured out of sync, or we were getting dropout errors. We loved combing through and hour of digitized tape trying to make sure frames were dropped somewhere along the way that we didn't know about. For all this work you got the privilege of working with HDV.

Shut up and I'll you, Sally. It was a way of shooting highly compressed HD to miniDV tape that lasted a scant few years until the world wised up and began releasing card-based cameras. Then everyone who invested thousands of dollars into the almost-instantly-obsolete technology bruised their foreheads from repeatedly facepalming so hard."

Re: A tip on custom settings....
 

My DSLR shoots video also and I dont like using it. If I got a proper viewfinder I might. I enjoy the XL2

Re: A tip on custom settings....
 

I see there's been a Bass attack... well, no matter. Any camera that works is a good one, and if you're shooting on one of these antiques, then damn the torpedoes and don't let these old-timers get you down. Personally I'm always a bit tickled to read that the old XL cams are still getting used. Good for you!

Re: A tip on custom settings....
 

I was exaggerating.

I have an XL2. It makes wonderful images (in certain conditions!) but I've grown to hate using it compared to the EX1s, the HPXs, etc. The viewfinder is simply awful, and it's unbalanced so horrible for handheld without a rig. Maybe THE worst low light cam out there, as well.

The DSLRs also make beautiful images. . .(I would say objectively superior to the XL2, ESPECIALLY in low light) and I HATE using them! No zebras/waveform/real image monitoring (except with Magic Lantern, which I'm too dumb to use. Have to remember to install EVERY time I turn the cam off and on again? Don't think so). No audio monitoring, no level meter, so have to shoot double system if using sync sound. Have I sort of gotten used to using the 5DM2 for video? Yes. Do I hope the DSLR thing goes away in favor of fleshed out camcorders with the same sensor size? Can't happen soon enough.

But seriously, the more proper large sensor camcorders with XLR inputs, proper image monitoring, etc., and the ENG-style cams (i.e. 1/3" sensor) that are card based are VERY nice (a freaking 30-second buffer that is always recording so that when you "miss" a shot you still have a chance to save it? BRILLIANT!). One day I hope to justify owning one.