[Jim Tuchschmidt]

Thanks for the comments. I never heard from HighPoint. I will follow the advice and never again purchase their products. Bad support. AJA, on the other hand, responded right away. I pulled the Kona card, rebooted and uninstalled the drivers and all AJA software. Rebooted and, as advised reinstalled the Rocket Raid drivers. Rebooted and the RAID worked. Reinstalled Kona drivers and then the card and everything seems to be working at this point. Thanks.

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

I have not heard back from them, but did email tech support at HighPoint and AJA.

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

Without seeing exactly what you see, I suspect the most probable cause is the sunshade. If you open the lens wide, you may get dark corners because the very edge of the sunshade is in your frame. This is why Canon supplies a special sunshade with the wide angle lens for the XL1.

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

Thanks, I understand. I appreciate your help.

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

Thanks. Is the fact that the bias voltage powers the mic any clue here? I wrote Sanken to ask them about this arrangement. Jim

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

I do not have a suggestion for lighting, exactly. I assume some of the lighting technique depends on the mood you are going after and set considerations that might motivate the lighting. But, I might suggest you try a warm black pro mist filter. This will bring out the skin tones and soften detail. These come in various strengths. I have found a 1/2 to 1 to be more than enough. If you look at Tiffen’s web site, you can see before and after pictures.

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

While there is no substitution for knowing your equipment, and this would be my first consideration, the advantage of tghe RED camera is that the images are all captured in uncompressed RAW. So, all the color correction is done in post and you have a huge amount of data to do that. I have only seen demo’s of RED and never used it, but the images are awesome. I do use the XL-H1 regularly and it also captures great images. As Jon points out, you have a fair amount of latitude over image processing in post.

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

Contact LaCie. They have great customer service. I had a drive that was failing and they repaired it under warranty. Jim

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

Thanks Todd. This is very helpful. I do not think we would want to use a manual mode in this setting as I suspect the camera will be a better cinematographer than our subjects (but I probably should not sell them short). We know that what they shoot will look more “home video” and that is OK. The biggest concern I have was the quality of what is shot, given the difference in the glass on the two cameras. Thanks for sharing your experience. I am going to pick one up and try it out first hand. Jim

Jim

[Jim Tuchschmidt]

The camera records HDV in 4:2:0 color space to tape, but outputs uncompressed HD in 4:2:2 through the HD-SDI connector (video only, no embedded audio). You could record to DVCPro HD as you shoot through the HD-SDI port. Once recorded to tape, you may get uncompressed HD 4:2:2 out the HD-SDI prot, but the compressed HDV (in 4:2:0) will be your weakest link. I have never shot green screen with the XL-H1 and others may have experience with how well this might work.

Jim