Okay so how do these two affect your video quality? Other than allowing more light in? I have noticed it gets grainy when I adjust them too much. What's the best setting for a film look on a Canon XL1? Thanks.

You should have the "film mode" option on your camera there Prez. If you set the XL1 to that mode you will get a great film look, one of the best the video word has to offer.

As for gain I would leave it as low as possible unless you have to get more light into your camera. Although, sometimes gain gives you a nice film look, but you can always play it safe and add grain in post while editing. Most films have very high contrast and if you play with the aperture then sometimes it makes it easier to add contrast in post too. So "film mode", "low grain" to play it safe and "aperture" is up to you. Peace

Lets hope this thing ends quick...enough said

film mode on xl1 looks like crap.

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Originally posted by video_filmmaker:
film mode on xl1 looks like crap.

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It looks a hell of a lot more like film then regular 29.97 video. Just not quite as nice as it does on the AG-DVX100 with true 24p. Still, better to shoot in movie mode, than not at all.
R. Michael

And you shall know us by the trail of dead.

Gain does not let more light in the camera. It is an artificial boost of the light that it's already recieving. It's sort of a poor man's version of switching to a faster film stock.

Aperture does effect the amount of light that is let in the camera, but doesn't really effect contrast unless you're exceptionally over/under exposed. Film actually has much better over/under exposure latitude and is therefore typically much less contrasty than video. Therefore one of the keys to more film-like images on video is staying withing the thin latitude gap that it affords (Probablly about 4.5 stops total on the Xl-1). If you do this and tweak the gamma in post you can get a more film-like image (In many cases at least). I think this is actually what the The Mind was referring to, but it was a little unclear in the post.

You can use the zebra stripes to figure out when your camera is getting close to, and is clipping on over-exposed parts of the image.

I would agree that the progressive scan on the Xl-1 is one of the better versions available in the pro-sumer line of cameras (I can never remember which companies call it "Movie-mode" or "Frame-mode"). The AGDVX-100 has the best in this bracket.

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"aperture" is up to you.

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In a perfect world this is true. However for students, and the low-budgeted, it's usually not the case. Unless you have the full gammut of ND filters and the necessary grip/electric materials aperture often has to bow to other factors.

Nota "At the center of the circle of confusion" Mono

I was kinda referring to that Mono, but you cleared it up, thanks. Yeah I meant aperture lets light in...I think...I hope, lol. Well something I should have known by now at least.

Mono...know of any white balance tricks? I hear sometimes you can white balance off of different colors of paper to add hints of colors to shots. Know anything about this? Let me know! Thanks

Lets hope this WAR ends quick...enough said

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know of any white balance tricks?

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I keep a gel swatch book in my bag of goodies. You can get them for free at many camera shops or lighting retailers (I got mine at Studio Depot in L.A.). If you white balance to a normal white card, but through one of these gels, you can bias your image to the opposite color on the wheel.


Nota "Spectral Education" Mono

I'd shoot in non-film mode and then if you want to deinterlace. do it in post. because the XL-1 uses a 60i CCD, you won't gain nything by deinterlacing before recording to tape. It's better to keep the upper field on tape (in case you don't want to deinterlace) and throw it way later if you deem it necessary. It's all about having options in the editing room.

As far as gain and aperture, the only thing I'll add is aperture controls the depth of field (the "z" distance in front of the camera that is in focus). Films often use shallower depth of fields compared to video because the 35 mm medium makes it a lot easier to get a shallow DoF compared to the 1/3" CCDs in the XL-1. So for me, keeping the aperture as open as possible to get a shallow DoF is part of my "video-as-film" treatment.

-joren

Joren- when you say to open the aperature, does that mean to reaise the f-stop or exposure or shutter speed? I still don't get if all 3 of these are the same or different. I thought lowering the shutter speed decreases depth of feild, and gives more of a "film look" with only the foreground objects in focus. Also, I've heard that for doing slow motion, it's best to lower the shutter speed. What are your thoughts and answares?

Shutter speed does not effect depth of field. Aperture refers to the F-stop or T-stop and does effect DOF. The more you open up (Which would mean having a lower f-stop number) the thinner your focal plane becomes. As Joren said, this is also effected by the size of the image area (It's hard to throw anything out of focus when using a 1/3" ccd).

Opening up one full stop will double the amount of light that enters the camera. For example, an f-stop or f5.6 allows in twice as much light as f8.0. However, f5.6 does have a thinner focal plane.

The reason slower shutter speeds results in a more "Film like" look is because film is most commonly exposed at ~1/48th of a second whereas video rarely is exposed longer than ~1/60th of a second. Therefore objects in motion tend to blur more on film than on video.

Nota "And ya don't f-stop, and ya don't f-quit" Mono

BTW, exposure is a dance between aperture, shutter speed and ISO/ASA/whatever (The speed at which the medium records the image). Therein lies the difficulty in giving video a film look (Particularly under bright circumstances) in that you want a thin focal plane AND a slow shutter. Both of which will increase light levels, which is why we can't always have our cake and eat it too.

Nota "Will trade cake for pie" Mono

Definately do NOT shoot in Film mode. Joren is right. If you are interested in a deinterlaced final cut, there is a great article about in one of the summer 2002 issues of Mac Design.

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Originally posted by Cyos:
Definately do NOT shoot in Film mode. Joren is right. If you are interested in a deinterlaced final cut, there is a great article about in one of the summer 2002 issues of Mac Design.

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It might just be psychological, but doing it in post seems to result in more aliasing etc., although in theory I agree.

Definately don't wait for post for the AGDVX-100's 24p mode though. There's nothing you can do in final cut, or any other program to mimic that. I think Sony's progressive scan mode does it differently as well (Although only at a choppy 15fps).

Nota "Loves the Film Rec. mode on the Varicam" Mono

Don't shoot in "movie mode"? Keep in mind that if you have a slow MAC, like myself, you are going to be stuck with hours of rendering if you decide to de-interlaced in post editing. I did this once and it took a few hours and a couple of crashes before I had my final film done.

Plus, I find that the GL1's "movie mode" looks better than Final Cut's de-interlaced video effect. The "movie mode" just seems a little smoother and graceful if you will. Maybe I'm wrong though, just how my eyes see it. Good Luck!

Lets hope this thing ends quick...enough said

Screenwriter, Nato "got it again" Mono said it well. The f-stop is a ratio of the amount of light going into the camera compared to the amount of light the CCD or film plane would be exposed to w/o a lens. Basically, the lower the number, the more light is passed through with 1:1 being the theoretical lowest you can get (although as far as I know, 1.2 is the lowest any lens has been able to achieve). Each lens is different. You control the f-stop with the aperture.
Shutter speed affects how motion is perceived (i.e. race car speeding by). A lower shutter speed will blur the race car giving the impression it's going faster than if you were at, say 1/1000th sec where the race car wouldn't be as blurred. Films usually capture at 1/48th sec (24 fps, 180 degree shutter). So, in trying to replicate film, you'd want a shutter speed as close to that as possible. For those of us with 60i CCDs that is 1/60th sec.

As for faking slomo in post, I guess it's depending on what kind of look you want. If you plan to use frame blending, that will give a blurring affect also so you might not want too much motion blur in the original footage. On the other hand, motion blur might hide the frame blending if you're going extreme slomo so it might be better. Keep in mind, motion blur is very subtle. Most people won't notice a difference (although subconsciously they might). I know I haven't directly answered the question, but know you know how shutter speed might affect fake slomo.

Re: deinterlacing. I don't know why it would look aliased or more choppy to do it in post. I've experimented with putting the lower field in v1, upper field in v2 and doing a 30% or so transparency. Yeah, it's more work, but it did look a little better. Now, I use Magic Bullet so I haven't messed around with this stuff in a while.

[This message was edited by joren on April 04, 2003 at 11:33 AM.]

I happen to prefer the look of frame mode to normal mode. The DV "artifacting" mentioned above is more probably due to bad lighting than anything else.

Shoot normal mode for video only projects, but if you are thinking of blowing up to 16mm or even 35mm then use frame mode so that you avoid most of the 3:2 pulldown problems when converting from video running at 29.97fps (or 25fps PAL) to film running at 24fps.

Richard Purves
One Man Band
omb@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.omb.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

There are still lenses capable of f(1.0) and there is the fabled f(0.7) converted Zeiss lens that was made for Barry Lyndon.

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Originally posted by rjpurves:
Shoot normal mode for video only projects, but if you are thinking of blowing up to 16mm or even 35mm then use frame mode so that you avoid most of the 3:2 pulldown problems when converting from video running at 29.97fps (or 25fps PAL) to film running at 24fps.

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Labs disagree (At least in the case of NTSC). The motion artifacts from converting 30 progressive frames into 24 are far worse than the image artifacts from creating 24 progressive frames out of 60 half-frames. Or so the logic goes. Obviously doesn't apply to 24p, and I think PAL is just slowed down to fit, so you may be right in that case.

Nota "Doesn't always get it " Mono

[This message was edited by NotaMono on April 07, 2003 at 02:16 PM.]

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Originally posted by NotaMono:
There is the fabled f(0.7) converted Zeiss lens that was made for Barry Lyndon.

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I just found this:
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

Wow, that's crazy! The lens was 4mm from the film plane. ...talk about small tolerances.
When Kubrick and NASA get together, of course. It all makes sense, now.

joren