Polarizer ordered
 

Well after reading the posts and looking around the web I have finally ordered a Hoya Moose Polarizer. It is a combination of circular polarizer and 81A warming filter. I think that will meet my needs.
Thanks for all the responses.

Colin

The Moose filter can provide a cast to some scenes, so be careful with it. I do use one for some of my still photography work, but tend to prefer a straight B/W or Hoya/Tiffin circular polarizer for the XL2 and then use in-camera settings to bump up the warm colour.

Thanks Tony,

I will keep an eye out for any problems with a color cast.

Colin

I tend to capture everything clean and effect it in post. I feel this gives me more options later, but some would argue that it adds time to post that is cumbersome.

I am still in the "Wow, this is so much better than my old camcorder phase" so I am still trying all the in camera/during shooting possibilities. I am sure that down the road I will settle into a way of working that will give me the best results.

There is no way that images or footage of a lot of my work done with a Polarizer, especially around water, could have possibly been done simply by filming straight and using affects in post.

My polarizer is part of catching the footage clean...I use that on the camera always...except at night, and even then if there's enough ambient light to catch the image with it on...after that I have clean footage to play with:

careful frame/light composition

polarizer to dial out glings and enrich colors

ND to bring light levels down as needed to keep iris open as far as possible

zebras at 90 til they dial out of subject and one more click down on the iris (so underexposed slightly)

minimize reds and whites in frame

edge enhancement turned off (down if your camera softens the image)

slight desaturation to let the camera compress the image more cleanly

Then I bring the footage in and post as necessary to get the look I want.

That is interesting about the compression being cleaner if the image is desaturated slightly. How much of a decrease would you call slight? One step? Two? Also why do you underexpose?

Colin

From what I understand of the compression, gradients are compressed mathematically horizontally for each line of the frame that is in motion between keyframes (someone correct me if I'm wrong). By desaturating, the algorithm will allow more detail to be captured to tape in the color regions as it is able to concern itself less with reproducing the full dynamic range of the colors and spend the tapespace on capturing more subtleties. Color can always be pulled up in post (I' a big fan of post being considered as part of the image gathering phase - besides, you'll be coloring any way...right?).

I turn the saturation slider down on my XL1s 1 or 2 notches...depends on the scene, more saturated color scene, 2 notches, reds, 2 notches, fairly flat scene, 1 notch. It's slight either way.

I underexpose due to the fact that whites clip in digital whereas blacks compress. It's easier to recover slightly dark footage than missing footage as the 101% and up whites get cut off and made 100%. It's analogous to film grain being washed away. In digital, we protect our whites the same way that film folks protect their blacks.

Is the difference really that noticeable? I can understand the exposure making a difference more than the saturation.
I think it is about time that there was an equivalent to shooting in RAW format on a DSLR in the DV world. That way you can get the best image possible in post. Obviously there would have to be a way to convert the RAW footage to some default NTSC/PAL settings for direct viewing on a TV/monitor.
Going the RAW route would allow for more details to be saved as the data saved would be at a higher bit depth. I think this is kind of what is happening with the uncompressed BNC output from the XL H1. Correct me if I am wrong.

Colin

You tell me:

http://www.yafiunderground.com/Video/Reel.mov

shot w/ canon XL1s using budget lighting (Home Depot) and natural light with white foam core reflectors for the exteriors. This is all uncorrected footage. I don't have permission for this music, I'll be replacing it.

To be honest I don't know that I could. Maybe in a side by side comparison. I am by no means an expert in filmmaking so some of the subtleties will bypass me.
I do like your results.

Colin

just received my Hoya Pro-1 Circula polarizer (from China, about one week for delivery), as advertised. Nice piece of glass for cheap (90$).
fit exactly into the sunshade of the FX1.

Could you post some screen shots of with/without footage for people reading this thread so they can see the difference?

I've been doing a lot of photography / Photoshop lately and this is what will bum me out when I get back into video. "Ohnoes, where is all the data?" heh

Problem is that my 10D produces 6+ megabyte raws, if it ran 24p somehow then that's over eight gig a minute. If a DV tape could spin that fast, it would be full in a minute and a half. Since the XL2 has smaller sensors then the 10D, the numbers wouldn't be all that bad, but it's still a lot of data.
It'd be something else though, huge bandwidth and you wouldn't have to white balance anymore. Plus there already are certain groups that do reverse engineer video cameras and record the CCD data raw instead of compressing it, problem is you need like a data silo or fileserver to store it in the field.