Matching a Canon XH-A1s

I

Ian Stark

Active member
Hi. I'm a newbie at dvxuser (although I've been active on other forums and have lurked here for years) and I'm a complete newbie on the AF-101, having come from many years of Canon XL1, XL2 and XH-A1s.

My normal area of work is business to business video (case studies, demos, promos, training etc.) but I recently released my first full length documentary (to good reviews, I'm pleased to say). It was during the shooting of numerous interviews with the Canon XH-A1s that I realised how much I wanted the AF-101, but sadly I couldn't afford it at the time. That all changed with the success of the DVD and I'm now a proud and very pleased owner. The day after I bought it, the AF100A was announced, but hey ho, what are you gonna do? I looked at the Sony FX offerings, and also the new Canon, but there is something that kept drawing me back to the Panasonic.

Anyway, occasionally I am asked to shoot corporate events - not my favourite way to spend time behind a camera but it pays the bills. When I have needed more than one camera I have either rented or hired a freelancer. Now I have the AF-101 I would obviously like to use it in two/three camera set-ups.

I wonder if someone could suggest a scene file that would enable me to match the AF-101 to the XH-AS1? I'm slowly learning through experimentation, but I have an event on Wednesday where I'd like to try it out.

A related (and possibly naive) question: do you white balance AFTER you've selected a scene file or does it make no difference?

Thanks for any advice.
 
Matching the AF to the Canon XH-A1 will be a mess since the AF-100 is so much sharper and overall a better camera it would pop out as different in a good way but make the XH-A1 look bad. I still have my XH-A1 but haven't used it for anything other than a live web stream lately.
Either way to mach color you have to experiment but will end up adjusting the shots in post to match the color.

White balance after you have the camera setup and ready to shoot.
 
Damn! I was hoping the Canon would look as good as the AF-101 ;-)

Seriously, I was expecting to have to degrade the Panasonic image to match the Canon and knew it was not going to show the AF in its best light. I was hoping someone had already gone through that experience and might have a scene file I could try out.

Thanks for the advice re white balancing.
 
They both have a very different look and it will be difficult to match precisely. You can get close though. In terms of sharpness I can tell you first hand in regular and decent lighting the XHA1 is still sharper then the AF100. When you get into lowlight scenario they're about even as you have noise that degrades both image resolution and quality. Try to get the WB as close as possible on both and in the end you'll just need a bit of color correcting. If you can shoot both to where it tends to look a bit flatter even easier in the end. Good luck.
 
Thanks Gents. Erik, I use a Firestore FS5 with the Canon (with tape as backup). It's firewire out of the camera, of course, not component.
 
Well that should be much cleaner than the HDV recording. You should setup the two cameras and shoot a little test ans see how different they are. I'm curious now.
 
Not doubting what you're saying, but I'm curious as to why it would be any cleaner - is it not the same signal that goes to the firestore as to the tape? I've never noticed any difference to be honest.

Hopefully I will have a little time before the event starts tomorrow to do a couple of tests. The event itself is extremely, shall we say 'sensitive', so I won't be allowed to publish any clips I'm afraid. I'll certainly report back though. I have another less paranoid event next week so with luck I will learn enough from tomorrow's experience to come up with a formula for getting the best match. I'll post clips at that time.
 
Ian Stark said:
...is it not the same signal that goes to the firestore as to the tape? I've never noticed any difference to be honest.
Click to expand...
It's the exact same signal. The only difference is you are by passing capturing realtime to your editing suite. You will not notice any difference at all as there's none.
 
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No difference? HDV recordings are highly compressed so the signal from the camera should be much cleaner before it hits the HDV tape. Is the firewire out HD? or is it DV only. I can't remember. I know the component out is HD.
 
Erik Naso said:
No difference? HDV recordings are highly compressed so the signal from the camera should be much cleaner before it hits the HDV tape. Is the firewire out HD? or is it DV only. I can't remember. I know the component out is HD.
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Firewire out is HDV from the canon as well. The exact same codec that is recorded to tape. There is no difference in the way it is recorded, it's all digital. The only difference is not having to capture realtime.
 
Erik, you may be thinking of the XH-G1s which has the ability to output uncompressed HD over HD-SDI - that's not a feature of the A1s.
 
I agree with Babu that in terms of sharpness you wouldn't have a problem with the A1 being softer. I don't think it will be. I think apart from the colors which will be difficult to match, the other aspect that will jump out is the shallow DOF of the AF100. Keeping things on the end of the barrel with the A1 will help but it will still be there.
 
I see where you are coming from now Erik. The signal that comes out of the XHA1 firewire port is a HDV (Mpeg2) signal 4:2:0 whether it's recorded to tape or to a firestore device it's still the same type of codec and signal. The Kipro you're talking about takes the signal from the component output of the camcorder which in the end will yield a better image. The OP doesn't have that one, he has a firewire device which is mpeg2 4:2:0 HDV the same that is recorded to tape.
 
Babu said:
I see where you are coming from now Erik. The signal that comes out of the XHA1 firewire port is a HDV (Mpeg2) signal 4:2:0 whether it's recorded to tape or to a firestore device it's still the same type of codec and signal. The Kipro you're talking about takes the signal from the component output of the camcorder which in the end will yield a better image. The OP doesn't have that one, he has a firewire device which is mpeg2 4:2:0 HDV the same that is recorded to tape.
Click to expand...
Thats exactly it. I almost bought the KiPro for my XH-A1 but it was huge!
 
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