Action stills ... I wish ...
 

I do wish I could get my video images as sharp as these ... but at least I know now that that's like wishing for the Mediterranean Sea where my tiny garden pond is. Anyone disagree, please, please ??

Brendan,

According to the EXIF details all these shots were taken on a Canon Digital Rebel, so doubt any video camera could match the resolution.

Bob

Would someone show me how Bob is wrong (without referring to NASA or Google Earth), please ?

How is Bob wrong?

I'm working on it, Kevin.

There must be a way of getting sharp smooth big bird flight using, say, f8 and 1/1000. My lack of imagination has up to now condemned a dozen tapes of vulture flight to 1/50 since I got XM2 2.5 years ago ... there must be room for improvement there.

I think what Bob was talking about is you're never going to get the resolution of a 12MP still camera on a video camera. Shutter speed and aperture don't have anything to do with pure resolving power.

But the thing is... you rarely want truly 'crisp' shutter with video... it leads to a stuttery appearance when you play back. For slow motion, sure, but with video the image itself is one of many factors on the quality - your framing & DOF are important, yes, but smoothness, tracking ability, shutter setting, etc are also important. I mention shutter differently because it's a whole different ballgame with video. Your goal is not to capture a frame, but a whole lot of them that look good together when played back. If your main objective is good frame grabs, you should be shooting with a DSLR.

C

I would like to second all that Carl has said.

Sometimes it is a matter of upgrading ones viewing monitor. For example years ago I used to view video's using composite video input and when I upgraded to a component monitor I could not believe I was watching the same video's.

Bob

Bob, thank you for thinking about my hopeless expectations.

I would like to think that my video clips would be noticeably improved if I saw them on a component monitor. However I do not know what "composite video input" means or what a "component monitor" is? Specific brand names and models would be helpful, please? No recommendations intended, of course.

Brendan,
You only have 2 choices to view your footage from your XM2 to a TV, and that is "composite" out (yellow RCA plug), and S-Video out. These are the only choices with the XM2. There are LCD computer type monitors that do have S-Video inputs, but I don't think you are going to see any great improvement. Just do a Google search on composite video and component video, and you will see the difference. You have expectations that are never going to be completely satisfied with the XM2, so just push your equipment as far as it will go, and if your still not satisfied, better start looking at another camera.

It seems nobody has raised so far the issue of color space. Say, you have the XL H1, set the progressive/frame mode and shutter speed to 1/12000s. Still, you will notice the expoted frames did not appear as sharp as those from DSLR.

The problem is in the 4:2:0 color space of HDV and DV cameras (in addition to bit depth). Download some sample images of RED One from the RedUserNet, and then you'll find out that the 12-bit images in 4:4:4 color space appear like those taken with Canon DSLRs. That is, they are sharp and look like still photos. However, as Carl already said, if you are making a film, you don't necessarily want to have as sharp images in each frame.

Brendan,

I bought a large screen plasma tv and i watch my gl and xl footage on it. It is truly amazing how nice the footage is compared to a monitor.

I have not tried to use the s video plugs, just the standard yellow white red plugs.

Some friends were watching some small bird fotage I shot a couple days ago and their comment was, Its better than regular tv. I do not know what they had for a tv however!!

So after all that I got a Samsung SyncMaster T220HD monitor and the improvement in picture quality of video or stills (over my pc monitor) is just as amazing as you all said it would be.
It does mean it's taking me a lot longer to edit clips to the standard that my new monitor demands, but anything that pushes me to improve my standards must be OK.

Thank you all for your help and here are a few recent stills ...