Canon XC15 driver updates

[KazuT]

The theatre company I'm with bought two XC15. I've noticed that, when zoomed out, the auto exposure tends to blow the highs WAY out, but the auto exposure seems better (if a little hot) when I zoom in. If I manually turn down the auto exposure, the wide end of the lens looks better, but it's too dark when I zoom in. Riding the exposure manually is tricky.

Have any driver or firmware updates come out that fixes this problem?

I've also noticed that the default color profile tends to make everyone a bit purple or magenta. Since our camera operators are not professionals, it offers an easy way to get a vibrant look.

Have any driver or firmware updates come out that correct this problem?

[IamintheUK]

The exposure problem is because you are using auto exposure. Any camera on auto will behave exactly the same. On the wide shot the camera is exposing for the darker portions of the scene, not so when zoomed in. For situations like this you have to use manual exposure and expose for the highlights. When you expose for the wide shot and it gets darker when you zoom in is most likely the fact that cheaper zoom lenses do not have a constant aperture over the whole zoom range. As an example, my Canon EF 18-135mm goes from f3.5 to f5.6 when fully zoomed in.

This is not something that can be magically changed with firmware.

As to the color cast are you doing a manual white balance before shooting? If not, you should.

[KazuT]

"When you expose for the wide shot and it gets darker when you zoom in is most likely the fact that cheaper zoom lenses do not have a constant aperture over the whole zoom range. As an example, my Canon EF 18-135mm goes from f3.5 to f5.6 when fully zoomed in. This is not something that can be magically changed with firmware."

Yeah, this is really frustrating. It's a $2K+ camera, so I realize it isn't one of Canon's higher end cameras; but it isn't super cheap either. 

"As to the color cast are you doing a manual white balance before shooting? If not, you should."

I think I had been and was still getting the color cast, but I'll try again. I think one of the Looks (either Neutral or Color Matrix Off) gets rid of the color cast; but, for the layman, the look is far less vibrant than Standard. I wonder if the mixture of gels used in theatrical lighting are contributing to it.

[IamintheUK]

When you do your white balance use just one of the theatre lights without a gel on it pointed at a white card, and make sure the card covers the whole frame. See if that makes a difference.

[KazuT]

Any idea what to do about the zoom lens not having a constant aperture over the whole zoom range? On the XC15, the lens is built into the camera, so I can't replace it. The auto exposure does really well, for the most part, when zoomed in; but it always blows out about 2 stops or more when zoomed out.