Advice on getting the best Canon XL2

[horsenburger]

I'd really appreciate some help using my XL2. I run a film making club at a lower school and I am having probelms getting the most from my XL2, does anyone know of anywhere I can get some advice on how to get the best from the camera? I'm just not happy with colours, reds come out as pinks and the picture is just never clean.

You can see our films here where you can get the idea of what is wrong http://www.thehillslowerschool.co.uk/bl ... our-movies

Many thanks

Steve

[Dave Watterson]

People may remember BIAFF 2011's School of the Dead and BIAFF 2012's Stay With Me and The Door which were all products of this group.

Dave

[tom hardwick]

Steve, you're using an XL2 and shooting standard-def 16:9?
What lens do you have fitted?
What NLE system are you using?
Does the camera work well when simply shooting outdoors in auto on a sunny day?
Must say that I don't understand your 'unclean' picture description - can you expand on that at all?

A lot of your filming appears to be indoors and I wonder if you're using the manual settings - for exposure and especially for white balancing. Both these can greatly affect the colours you're getting.

tom.

[horsenburger]

Hi Tom

I always film with 25p and 16:9 and normally using the Auto settings as I find the viewfinder isn’t that accurate to adjust the image manually. I have just bought a larger Lilliput 7" monitor and hopefully this will allow me to adjust the settings more accurately. I use the Canon Wide-Angle Lens for the majority of filming (it does have some markings on the lens as I bought it off eBay second hand, this can cause a problem when shooting into light) and over the last few years I have been using Premiere Pro (CS3, 5 and now CS6) to edit.

I find that the video image is never clear or crisp or clean, when I say that I mean it is always grainy. I suppose that could be down to the poor lighting in school and we never seem to have good lighting outdoors in the evening when we finally can get outside to film.

I will have a look at if the standard lens gives a better image and also try to find some suitable lighting to film on Friday and see how it goes, I’ll report back then.

The more I think about it the more I wonder if it is all down to the lighting, if it is it won't be easy to fix with 15 under 9's working on the films!

[tom hardwick]

Sounds to me like high gain settings are indeed adding to the graininess of your images, which is why I suggest you shoot outside in good light. Shoot in manual so that you can be sure you're set at 0dB gain. Or shoot indoors at a slow shutter speed to make 0dB possible. Why do you shoot 25p? Don't you find movement (of camera and subject) gives horribly jerky footage?

I'd distrust the wide-angle Canon lens until I'd done some tests on it. It's a very expensive lens, but ebayists can drop it and then get rid of it.

Your last line says it all. Photography is *ALL* down to the lighting.

tom.