canon XH A1
- Thread starter raindog
- Start date
It may be a little daunting for a first timer. I suggest you read the manual, then go on-line and look at presets people have created, then read the manual again. Take the time to get the camera's color settings, gamma, etc. setup exactly the way you want them. It will make a huge difference.
Of course, you can shoot with the camera, as it comes out of the box, but you'll get much more pleasing results if you spend a couple of hours learning and adjusting it's settings. Again, people before you have figured out some great settings for film look, etc.
The second issue with the XH-A1 that is tricky is focus. The camera auto-focuses fine, but I always use manual focus, and manual focusing is difficult at best. There are several focus assist features that you should learn about from the manual and practice using, so they become second nature. By switching the viewfinder to B&W (I set mine up to automatically switch to B&W when I hit "peaking"), turning on peaking, and hitting the magnify, you can get critical focus. You don't always need to magnify, if you can zoom in to focus (which is always a good idea, if you're not shooting live).
None of this will make much sense to you until you get the camera and begin exploring. Did I mention that you should read the manual?
Oh, and there is a neat feature that will transition the focus over a set amount of time, from one focal distance to another, which is great for a follow focus effect. Whatever you do, do not assume your shot is in focus simply by looking at the low resolution viewfinder. You will be sadly disappointed when you look at the image on a high def monitor. You must establish a manual focus discipline that you follow meticulously.
Otherwise, the camera's controls are all easy to locate and a joy to work with. After a few hours of shooting with the camera, I fell in love with it. It is now my favorite camera; especially for its 24f mode ... the video looks very nice.
Oh, one more thing, don't expect too much in low light; especially if you need to zoom in. The lens opens to f1.8, but quickly drops to f3.2 when you zoom in. One way to get a bit more light is to shoot in 24f and use a 1/48 shutter (which is recommended anyway), but f3.2 is not a fast lens in any case, so you should plan on having decent lighting. You can bump up the gain, but HDV is a bit noisy to begin with and increasing the gain just increases the noise.
Is that too much information? The bottom line is that it's a sweet camera, but you can't expect too much if you use it like a point-and-shoot. It performs much better if you spend a day or three reading, experimenting (be sure to capture each test and look at it in full resolution), and practicing.
Doug
Of course, you can shoot with the camera, as it comes out of the box, but you'll get much more pleasing results if you spend a couple of hours learning and adjusting it's settings. Again, people before you have figured out some great settings for film look, etc.
The second issue with the XH-A1 that is tricky is focus. The camera auto-focuses fine, but I always use manual focus, and manual focusing is difficult at best. There are several focus assist features that you should learn about from the manual and practice using, so they become second nature. By switching the viewfinder to B&W (I set mine up to automatically switch to B&W when I hit "peaking"), turning on peaking, and hitting the magnify, you can get critical focus. You don't always need to magnify, if you can zoom in to focus (which is always a good idea, if you're not shooting live).
None of this will make much sense to you until you get the camera and begin exploring. Did I mention that you should read the manual?
Oh, and there is a neat feature that will transition the focus over a set amount of time, from one focal distance to another, which is great for a follow focus effect. Whatever you do, do not assume your shot is in focus simply by looking at the low resolution viewfinder. You will be sadly disappointed when you look at the image on a high def monitor. You must establish a manual focus discipline that you follow meticulously.Otherwise, the camera's controls are all easy to locate and a joy to work with. After a few hours of shooting with the camera, I fell in love with it. It is now my favorite camera; especially for its 24f mode ... the video looks very nice.
Oh, one more thing, don't expect too much in low light; especially if you need to zoom in. The lens opens to f1.8, but quickly drops to f3.2 when you zoom in. One way to get a bit more light is to shoot in 24f and use a 1/48 shutter (which is recommended anyway), but f3.2 is not a fast lens in any case, so you should plan on having decent lighting. You can bump up the gain, but HDV is a bit noisy to begin with and increasing the gain just increases the noise.
Is that too much information? The bottom line is that it's a sweet camera, but you can't expect too much if you use it like a point-and-shoot. It performs much better if you spend a day or three reading, experimenting (be sure to capture each test and look at it in full resolution), and practicing.
Doug
Good write up Doug, but I have to disagree with you on this point:
24p/24f/24pf modes do inherently offer a little better performance in lower lighting levels, but NOT with a 1/48 shutter speed. Typical point & shoot auto cameras shooting dropframe 30, are most likely going to end up using a 1/30 shutter speed more often than not -- especially once light levels begin to dwindle. If that same camera had a setting to allow you to switch over to 24fps, it would likely also drop the shutter speed in accordance.
So, while 24p with a 1/24 shutter offers low light improvement over 29.97 and whatever shutter speed you use there (for the sake of this, lets say 1/30) 1/48 shutter does not offer much noticible difference, and if the settings are correct (ie: no gain) it's likely to be darker.
But you didn't specify the shutter speeds if you weren't shooting 24p, so maybe you were referring to 1/60, in which case a 1/48 shutter at 24p would offer a very slight low light performance increase.. but I think we can agree that adding more light is the right way to shoot in low light.
24p/24f/24pf modes do inherently offer a little better performance in lower lighting levels, but NOT with a 1/48 shutter speed. Typical point & shoot auto cameras shooting dropframe 30, are most likely going to end up using a 1/30 shutter speed more often than not -- especially once light levels begin to dwindle. If that same camera had a setting to allow you to switch over to 24fps, it would likely also drop the shutter speed in accordance.
So, while 24p with a 1/24 shutter offers low light improvement over 29.97 and whatever shutter speed you use there (for the sake of this, lets say 1/30) 1/48 shutter does not offer much noticible difference, and if the settings are correct (ie: no gain) it's likely to be darker.
But you didn't specify the shutter speeds if you weren't shooting 24p, so maybe you were referring to 1/60, in which case a 1/48 shutter at 24p would offer a very slight low light performance increase.. but I think we can agree that adding more light is the right way to shoot in low light.
I've used 1/30 second shutter with 30fps and it produces artifacts and loads of motion blur. Therefore, it's not much better than digital gain. I was comparing 1/60 second shutter speed which is standard for 60 fields/second to 1/48 second which is standard for 24fps. It's only a marginal improvement, but the quality is retained and the shutter speed produces the motion blur that people expect from a film camera with a 50% shutter efficiency.
Regarding adding more light, Will, I did my tests on live band performances where I was not in control of the light. There would definitely be no reason to consider shooting in low light otherwise. I have been disappointed in the video quality from the high school band concerts I tape for the local school, so I experimented with the various ways of bringing in more light. For the band concert, the 1/30 second option was better than digital gain, because there isn't much movement and the camera is pretty much locked down. There is a lot of black in the scene, so the digital gain was pure evil (to be fair, nobody but me could tell the difference, but you know how we are). If I stay zoomed back (wide angle), I can easily shoot with normal settings, but then when I zoom in, the image darkens, which is also pure evil. But, again, nobody notices but me.
Maybe my world is just full of evil. I could tell the high school to get more lights! Actually, they have more lights, but the silly band people want to be able to read their sheet music. It would be a lot easier if they'd just memorize the music for the concert.
Oh, and one more thing about that evil lighting setup ... they have overhead fluorescent lights and 4 tungsten spot lights, 2 on either side. White balance is impossible. If I get the guys in back right, the people in front are red and if I balance for tungsten, the people in back are bluegreenish (I just invented that word, thank you).
Otherwise, I've always got loads of light, and the camera performs like a champ. I've got some shots that I have simply fallen in love with, because the color is so nice and the image looks so clean. The camera definitely does beautiful imagery if you feed it well.
So, for those of you who are scratching your heads as to what the conclusion of all this really is, I say got out and shoot some tests with various settings and judge for yourself. Then, get more lights.
Doug
Maybe my world is just full of evil. I could tell the high school to get more lights! Actually, they have more lights, but the silly band people want to be able to read their sheet music. It would be a lot easier if they'd just memorize the music for the concert.
Oh, and one more thing about that evil lighting setup ... they have overhead fluorescent lights and 4 tungsten spot lights, 2 on either side. White balance is impossible. If I get the guys in back right, the people in front are red and if I balance for tungsten, the people in back are bluegreenish (I just invented that word, thank you).
Otherwise, I've always got loads of light, and the camera performs like a champ. I've got some shots that I have simply fallen in love with, because the color is so nice and the image looks so clean. The camera definitely does beautiful imagery if you feed it well.
So, for those of you who are scratching your heads as to what the conclusion of all this really is, I say got out and shoot some tests with various settings and judge for yourself. Then, get more lights.
Doug
Rain,
You can upload presets into the xh a1 and then select them under custom presets. A preset allows you to change the look of your footage. You do this with your memory card. Check this out: http://www.vimeo.com/846830
Tony
You can upload presets into the xh a1 and then select them under custom presets. A preset allows you to change the look of your footage. You do this with your memory card. Check this out: http://www.vimeo.com/846830
Tony
Rain, I trust Tony's link will lead you to where you want to be. There may also be some presets on this forum. I created my own settings, mostly just for accurate color reproduction, but also with saturation and sharpness to suite my taste.
Doug
Doug
I second oakstreet's review -- I love my A1! Amazing camera for the money.
Couple minor drawbacks I've encountered with it:
No Y/C video output (I'd rather have a Y/C than the composite BNC).
XLR inputs have to either be set at both line level or both mic level -- can't set each individually. When I take a line feed from a house sound system on one channel and set up an external mic on the other, I need a pre-amp on the mic.
As I said, neither one is a huge deal and hardly diminishes the good stuff.
Couple minor drawbacks I've encountered with it:
No Y/C video output (I'd rather have a Y/C than the composite BNC).
XLR inputs have to either be set at both line level or both mic level -- can't set each individually. When I take a line feed from a house sound system on one channel and set up an external mic on the other, I need a pre-amp on the mic.
As I said, neither one is a huge deal and hardly diminishes the good stuff.
Ok, I've been lurking for quite awhile and I figured this thread is as good as any to start posting. So, first off, Hi!
In October I start shooting, so in my haste to procure provisions (maybe a bit preemptive, and a bit eager) I went out and ordered the Canon XH A1. It hasn't arrived, so I haven't gotten my dirty mitts all over it yet. I purchased solely off the reviews I've read. Now reading this thread has gotten me a bit worried - or maybe it's buyer's remorse, I don't know yet.
What's gotten my panties a bit twisted is the fact that I'm shooting primarily outside and at night. I know lighting is key - I've already rounded up a horde of work lights and such, but the previous posting has poked a few holes into my confidence. I'm no scrag that'll be blown over by this, but my endeavor is of the professional nature.
Since we don't start until October I've got some time to familiarize myself with said camera. I'll start looking around for presets that'll suit my needs, but anyone have any other advice for an outdoor shoot with this camera (obviously other than the great suggestions already given)? Like I stated this will be an outdoor shoot, at night, and mostly based in a forest clearing.
Thanks in advance.
Nic
In October I start shooting, so in my haste to procure provisions (maybe a bit preemptive, and a bit eager) I went out and ordered the Canon XH A1. It hasn't arrived, so I haven't gotten my dirty mitts all over it yet. I purchased solely off the reviews I've read. Now reading this thread has gotten me a bit worried - or maybe it's buyer's remorse, I don't know yet.
What's gotten my panties a bit twisted is the fact that I'm shooting primarily outside and at night. I know lighting is key - I've already rounded up a horde of work lights and such, but the previous posting has poked a few holes into my confidence. I'm no scrag that'll be blown over by this, but my endeavor is of the professional nature.
Since we don't start until October I've got some time to familiarize myself with said camera. I'll start looking around for presets that'll suit my needs, but anyone have any other advice for an outdoor shoot with this camera (obviously other than the great suggestions already given)? Like I stated this will be an outdoor shoot, at night, and mostly based in a forest clearing.
Thanks in advance.
Nic
Are you committed to shooting HD? The trouble with these HDV camcorders, as I understand it, is that they're packing more pixels onto the same size sensor, which means the pixels are smaller. Smaller pixels collect less light. I haven't tested this theory, but I'd think you could get better light performance and less noise shooting in standard definition (with the same camera).
You didn't make a mistake with the XH-A1. All of the HDV camcorders are light hungry, or at least a bit noisy in the dark areas. It's partly the high definition and partly the compression.
I don't want to make you more nervous than you are, but I think the bigger problem for you will be contrast. Artificial light outdoors is always difficult; especially if you want it to look like natural light. Personally, I wouldn't attempt a night shot because I've been at the studios in Wilmington NC when they're shooting at night. They probably use 20,000 watts of light (or more) on a huge apparatus. (go ahead and laugh at me, you big time Hollywood guys, my brightest light is a 1K, and my tallest stand is 10 feet ... go, ahead, have yourself a good laugh ... I an take it.)
Here's the cinch; light decreases by the square of the distance. Since the sun is 90 million miles away (give or take a few miles), you'd have to move another 10 million miles away to notice much difference in illumination from the sun. However, your work lights will need to be within 20 feet of your subject, which means that something 20 feet behind your subject will be 1/4 as bright. What you need for a more natural fall off is to have a light that is bright enough that you can position it 50-100 feet away. Then you still need more lights to illuminate anything in the background you don't want to be a lot darker than your foreground.
Thus, to avoid the spotlight effect, you need a rather bright key light a bit of a distance away from the subject and lots of fill lights to illuminate the trees, if you don't want your background to be very dark and grainy.
Having said all of that, I should reiterate that I wouldn't try this, myself, so I don't have a lot of experience this. There are tricks you can play, if you can keep your shots tight (limiting the amount of background you need to illuminate). I don't think you should be as concerned about low light though, as you should be about controlling the difference between those spot-lighted subject items and the barely lighted or unlighted background.
This problem is not unique to a specific camera. That's why "day for night" shooting was invented. It also comes with challenges, but clever shooting and post production can save thousands in lights and generators. I like to shoot "night" scenes about an hour before sunset. Fortunately, my night shots have always been fairly quick and simple.
Don't worry about the camera. For the money, I think its as good as you're going to get.
Doug
You didn't make a mistake with the XH-A1. All of the HDV camcorders are light hungry, or at least a bit noisy in the dark areas. It's partly the high definition and partly the compression.
I don't want to make you more nervous than you are, but I think the bigger problem for you will be contrast. Artificial light outdoors is always difficult; especially if you want it to look like natural light. Personally, I wouldn't attempt a night shot because I've been at the studios in Wilmington NC when they're shooting at night. They probably use 20,000 watts of light (or more) on a huge apparatus. (go ahead and laugh at me, you big time Hollywood guys, my brightest light is a 1K, and my tallest stand is 10 feet ... go, ahead, have yourself a good laugh ... I an take it.)
Here's the cinch; light decreases by the square of the distance. Since the sun is 90 million miles away (give or take a few miles), you'd have to move another 10 million miles away to notice much difference in illumination from the sun. However, your work lights will need to be within 20 feet of your subject, which means that something 20 feet behind your subject will be 1/4 as bright. What you need for a more natural fall off is to have a light that is bright enough that you can position it 50-100 feet away. Then you still need more lights to illuminate anything in the background you don't want to be a lot darker than your foreground.
Thus, to avoid the spotlight effect, you need a rather bright key light a bit of a distance away from the subject and lots of fill lights to illuminate the trees, if you don't want your background to be very dark and grainy.
Having said all of that, I should reiterate that I wouldn't try this, myself, so I don't have a lot of experience this. There are tricks you can play, if you can keep your shots tight (limiting the amount of background you need to illuminate). I don't think you should be as concerned about low light though, as you should be about controlling the difference between those spot-lighted subject items and the barely lighted or unlighted background.
This problem is not unique to a specific camera. That's why "day for night" shooting was invented. It also comes with challenges, but clever shooting and post production can save thousands in lights and generators. I like to shoot "night" scenes about an hour before sunset. Fortunately, my night shots have always been fairly quick and simple.
Don't worry about the camera. For the money, I think its as good as you're going to get.
Doug
Tada!
Thanks Vince. I'm aware of these, but in this day and age it's pretty standard to include a Y/C connector on prosumer equipment, rather than having to pay an extra $250 for a converter.
Besides which, the idea of a Y/C output is to keep luminance and chrominance source signals separate in order to forestall color bleed on NTSC video. The converter just takes a composite signal and splits it back into separate signals, which kinda defeats the whole purpose of having separate Y/C in the first place. I don't gain anything by going that route.
If I was to buy an adapter for this camera, it would be RGB to Y/C (I'd just use RGB if my editor had component inputs).
Actually, yes. Mostly due to my own morbid curiosity.
I've got to type fast, work is almost over, so I'm sorry if this is short. I really appreciate all your advice. My current connundrum is that many years ago while I was in college I shot a student film using the day for night technique - we mostly used blue filters, and in doing so I think I deeply scarred myself. The look just didn't feel right to me. I understand that budget-wise it is the best way to go, but everytime I watch something that uses that technique there's a little spanish voice in the back of my head screaming, "No esta noche", I think that means "it's not night" but only the voice speaks spanish, not me.
So, when I approached this project I was determined to actually shoot at night.
You're killing my dream, Doug.
I think you're completely right, I should just throw in the towel on the night shooting idea. It'll free up more monies, and it should make the actors happy as well - especially since everyone's driving 2.5 hours each way to get to the location.
My question now, since I've never shot in HD, is what kind of results does shooting day for night on HD yield? I'd prefer not to use blue filters, since it takes away from my being able to control the white balance.
My weekend starts.... now. So, thanks again for your help!
Nic
Ok, Nic. I'm typing this from inside my microwave, and it's running, so I'll have to type fast, and you probably won't get this before my head explodes. In a nutshell, I've experimented with day for night, but I've never been stuck doing it. There is probably a lot of better information out there than I can give you (with only 30 seconds remaining). I do know that one of the key elements is sky replacement. If you shoot late in the day (or early), you can also get that dark woods look, and you won't have sunlight streaming down through the openings in the trees and splashing all over everything as if to say "No esta noche". 
Also, you can add a blue tint in post ... I don't think I'd do it in camera. I'd love to brainstorm this more but .
Also, you can add a blue tint in post ... I don't think I'd do it in camera. I'd love to brainstorm this more but .
I heard the microwave "Ping" right after that muchy popping noise... I wonder what that was
Here's some semi-pertinent info:
This is an experiment with a single light source and just adjusting the distance between light and subject and light, diffusion and subject... It's got pictures so OSPV can understand too
http://yafiunderground.com/index.php?page=lighting_distances
As for day for night, you really just need to be careful to hide the tell-tale bits like the sky and too make sure that in the final shot, all the street lights are on + windows lit, etc...
Videocopilot.net has a great day for night posting tutorial for after effects. I love that guy, he's so cool
Here's some semi-pertinent info:
This is an experiment with a single light source and just adjusting the distance between light and subject and light, diffusion and subject... It's got pictures so OSPV can understand too
http://yafiunderground.com/index.php?page=lighting_distances
As for day for night, you really just need to be careful to hide the tell-tale bits like the sky and too make sure that in the final shot, all the street lights are on + windows lit, etc...
Videocopilot.net has a great day for night posting tutorial for after effects. I love that guy, he's so cool
love it!
Doug, you were right. I had a hard time understanding everything you said until i actually bought the camera and starting learning from the manual and exploring different manual settings. I'm like a kid again! Thanks for all your advice so far....yes i will probably be asking more questions. My auditions for the film are this weekend. Wish me luck
Doug, you were right. I had a hard time understanding everything you said until i actually bought the camera and starting learning from the manual and exploring different manual settings. I'm like a kid again! Thanks for all your advice so far....yes i will probably be asking more questions. My auditions for the film are this weekend. Wish me luck
Great! Did you happen to see the short, 9 second clip I posted in the premiere section? I shot that late in the day, when the light is really perfect for video. I had you in mind when I shot it, but I probably linked it to the wrong thread. I encoded it with super high quality settings as an example of the XH-A1 output.
Anyway, it's moot now that you have the camera. The configuration menus can take some getting used to. Once you figure them out, and figure out how to make a configuration active, life is good. I'll bet if I had to do it again, it would still take me a while to remember how to do it.
It still beats configuring SendMail (that's an inside joke for Un*x admins).
Doug
Anyway, it's moot now that you have the camera. The configuration menus can take some getting used to. Once you figure them out, and figure out how to make a configuration active, life is good. I'll bet if I had to do it again, it would still take me a while to remember how to do it.
It still beats configuring SendMail (that's an inside joke for Un*x admins).Doug