Canon XL1 ? for Stedel

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2002 8:56 am

Hello!
With all the auto functions off, with long lens (near full zoom), what auto feature, or CCD gain control or other, etc, would cause the iris to change when zooming in or out? How can this be disabled?
--Rick

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2002 11:07 pm

Dunno.
I'll check it out on mine and get back to you later, probably around Wednesady evening 10.00pm
Eastern Australian time.
Kind regards
Stedel Cool

Posted: Sun Apr 21, 2002 2:02 pm

Quote:

Originally posted by stedel:
I'll check it out on mine and get back to you later, probably around Wednesady evening 10.00pm
Eastern Australian time.

Thank you Stedel, Standing by.
--Rick

Posted: Wed Apr 24, 2002 2:38 am

Hi Rick.
Well damn, I had one of "those" days and didn't get time...but...
We have a public holiday here tomorrow and I've got a couple of days clear. I've got the camera here in my own studio so I'll be running a test on the problem you mentioned.
I've only had it for a couple of weeks, and so far I've used it to film an indoor gig I was promoting with 5 young local bands, and an outdoor Festival -
again with local bands. There were a couple of things I thought huh? But these may be to do with the physical design of the camera, which for me has a "sweet spot" which feels just right, but outside of that... Both events had different extremes - one inside with minimal lighting, and one outside in very very bright Australian sunlight.
Anyway, I'm looking foreward to sitting down with it over the next couple of days, and really having a good sussing out of this thing - so, I'll be back!
Kind regards Cool

Posted: Tue May 14, 2002 3:26 pm

Hi Rick.
Well I finally had a chance to run some tests on the Canon XL camera (sorry to take so long).

Usually I tend to cancel all automatic functions whenever I do any filming, I find the averaging that goes on too frustrating and narrow to deal with, particularly as I do a lot of work using available lighting only.

So here's what I found:...

I mostly use the "Av" setting on the Canon (which gives you aperture control) with all auto functions off. I also tried using the "M" setting to look at the problem you had - again with all auto functions off. Zoomimg in and out I did not notice any compensations switching in. What I did observe however was the following:

(remember I have the first release model with the 16x zoom, not the newer XLS model).

When the XL first came out there was much talk of the picture quality of these camera's ("outstanding" etc.etc.). However, it's not as good as you would think, and I note the new XLS has an "improved" picture quality.
The tolerance between bright and dark is not as good as even something like a Sony DCR-VX700E (which I used as a comparison for the tests on the issue you raised). Also the Sony is much better at
low light - giving much more detail in the shadows, whereas the Canon seems to blank out in a pretty horrible flatness and loss of tone and contrast/depth etc.

Unless you're actually having something switch in
(and perhaps there is a fault with the individual camera if this is occuring) I would say it's more of the lack of tolerance for differing light conditions. I tried shooting comletely outdoors, where the light was consistent, and also zooming in to the bottom of my garden and the zooming back out
into the darker surrounds of my kitchen. No auto switching in, no change in settings - other than a prompt re the F/stop setting, but certainly no actual adjustment.

I do find the ND filter problemmatic, giving a few
???'s when trying to adjust, so if possible I normally switch this filter out. Do you use the ND Filter yourself? It's a pain because the Canon, as I said does not seem to handle extreme's of brightness and/or darkness as well as the Sony, so you get a mass of zebra lines on a normal Aussie day.

It seems you really have to spend time with this model, checking your picture on a monitor to gain an actual understanding of what is really going down with your picture, and noting tolerances etc.

So, there you go. Either ND Filter, lack of tolerance to changing light - or the camera you used has a fault.

Hope this is any use to you.

Kind regards
Stedel

Posted: Thu May 16, 2002 6:05 pm

Thank you Mr. Stedel!
I learned a lot from your post, and did not expect you to do such a time consuming test.
You, and the likes of others on this site have exceptional technical curiosity, and probe, test and explore all things possible. Thanks for your time.
--Rick

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