Calling All Canon XL-2 Users!!

Hey guys, I just bought a Canon XL-2 yesterday ( My first 3 CCD cam!!) and I have been playing around with some settings to get a feel for the camera as well as the best film look I can achieve. I have very little experience with this type of camera and was wondering what settings you guys use? I want to test a variety of configurations to see what I like best. So any advice on fps, shutter speeds, white balance, gain and any other manual controls would be appreciated. I have done some searching and reading on the forums but it's hard to track down some exact settings.

I was also wondering if there are any "rules of thumb" that one should know when working with DV. If I remember correctly I read on a post that your shutter speed should be roughly double your fps? Ex. If I'm shotting at 24fps, my shutter speed should be at 48. Is there any truth in that or did I misunderstand something.

Thanks for your help.
 
I shoot 1/60th (I have the XL1s). Some (e.g. "Jedi" Knightly) use the frame mode (he also has an XL1s). Film look is more about lighting and camera movement during production, and then there are several post production techniques and plug-ins (e.g. Magic Bullet) to get a close image approximation. More and more people tell me that if you want a film look, shoot with a film camera. So now you have that tidbit as well. There just isn't a high enough dynamic range in DV to get it in-camera.

A recent gem from Knightly regarding white balance was to use the automatic settings (indoor, outdoor) and adjust the on-set lighting to get the look you want. This is a better approximation of how film cameras work. You can always change it in post if you want a different look.

Are you planning to transfer your work to film? That would be the only reason I could think of for using the 24p mode. Consumer DVD players (and most televisions) don't use it. It's all 60i (or 50i PAL). HDTV can run 24p, but you'll get "judder" if the television doesn't have a multiple of 24fps in its supported refresh rates, e.g. 120Hz. The majority of them don't. There's much more to a film look than frame rate. Your playback medium really needs to support it for best results.

"The XL 2 offers 2 modes of 24-frame capture: 24p Normal and 24p Advanced. Simply stated, the Normal mode is appropriate for shooters where video is the final product and the elements will be edited on a conventional 30-frame video (or 25-frame PAL) edit platform. 24-frame Advanced mode is applicable to the producer who will eventually be transferring the footage to film. It also produces a smoother look when panning and tilting moves are made. The technical information the about the 24p from 60i conversion is fairly technical. The process that differentiates the Normal 24 from the Advanced mode is also pretty complicated."

Based on this, the XL2's (like the XL1s) CCDs are still interlaced and it is using software algorithms to sample the data progressively. So you are at the mercy of the Canon software developers as to how good that conversion looks. You can achieve similar results by shooting 60i and deinterlacing it and performing the frame rate conversion in post. Of course, I have to look at it this way because my XL1s doesn't do it in-camera. :)

EDIT: Here is some useful sensitivity data for you:

XL2 with the standard kit 20X lens (measured at Wide Angle) in Auto Mode with a Gain 18dB:

60i, 1/60 shutter speed = 5.5 lux
24P, 1/48 shutter speed = 10 lux
30P, 1/30 shutter speed = 6.5 lux
 
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Is the canon XL2 a pretty good camera? I had a Canon GL2 about 3 years ago. Best camera I've ever owned. Ended up selling it though. I'm still kicking myself in the but for that because I'm just using a Sony DCRTRV280 Gigital 8 Handycam :(
 
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