New Owner's First Impressions:
Aaron Frick from December 14, 2000

The African Edventure was an eleven-month educational expedition from South Africa to England in a 30 year old Land Rover. The expedition was based on the Interent for schools to use as an educational tool. In addition I also filmed the expedition. This includes footage from 13 African countries showing everything from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro to the vast desert in Namibia. There is footage of prolific wildlife, fascinating cultures and interviews with people we met along the way. We are currently beginning to sort through the footage to develop finished products including an educational DVD.

About six months before I heard about the African Edventure expedition, I had already started to plan my next trip to Africa. After traveling from Kenya to South Africa in 1995 I decided that I wouldn't travel in Africa again without a quality video camera. It was also around this time that Canon released the much-awaited XL1 Camcorder.

To me, the XL1 was the complete package. It offers superior image quality, 16-bit CD quality audio and a standard 16x lens with the option to interchange lenses. I had virtually no experience with the mini-DV format before purchasing the XL1 so I didn't know what to expect. I never thought that it would rival footage shot on Betacam SP which I had been using for the past 3 years. Now for the most part I consider it to be in many ways superior to Betacam.

After I found out that I would be joining the African Edventure there was a mad dash for accessories. First on the list was audio. The external mic on the XL1 is excellent, but is not suitable for all situations. At the time I was also using a cheap Azden wireless system which just wasn't cutting it. I decided to buy a Samson UM1, UHF wireless mic system and seeing that it used balanced XLR connections I also bought the Canon MA-100 XLR adapter. The XLR adapter allows me to use professional quality audio devices as well as helping with the balance and with protection of the camera while in its case. I thought that I would use the wireless mic system a lot more than I have, but for the most part the footage I shot was spontaneous and didn't allowed for much in the way of set up time. About 90% of the time I used the XL1 external mic and it has performed very well.

Next I looked at protecting the camera from the elements. Traveling for 11 months through Africa can take its toll on equipment when there is dust everywhere. With this in mind I bought a Porta-Brace CTC-2 Travel Case and a RS-XL Rainslicker which has been worth its weight in gold. The travel case in perfect. It is just big enough to carry the camera, a box of tapes, batteries, the wireless mic and still fits under the seat on most airplanes. The Rainslicker has served two purposes. First of all it protects the camera from the elements by keeping out rain and dust. Maybe even more importantly it tones down the look of the XL1 that tends to draw more attention than other mini-DV Camcorders. I have been robbed three times so far on this trip but I still have the XL1 (knock on wood).

I was already using a Libec by Matthews TH-M20 tripod, although with the XL1 being slightly front heavy it didn't allow the camera to balance very well. Luckily Bogen makes a quick release tripod plate which solved this problem. It would have been nice to have a more substantial tripod, but money did not allow for it and the Libec tripod is plenty to be carrying around as it is. A tripod is virtually useless in African game parks where you are not permitted to get out of the vehicle. This has not been that big of a problem as the optical image stabilizer on the XL1 lens is simple amazing.

I also decided to invest in a EWA Marine VXL underwater housing for the camera. I have found for the most part the VXL to be useless as an "underwater" housing. Without dive weights it's like trying to swim to the bottom of a pool with a beach ball. With that said it has really come in handy as a surface splash bag when snorkeling and when it is pouring rain. It is yet to be seen if it was worth its hefty price tag of $800! Another draw back is that it is quite time consuming to put the camera in the housing. In order to do this you must first remove the lens hood, microphone, XLR adapter and tripod plate.

Shortly before coming to Africa I used the underwater housing on a whitewater rafting trip on the Animas River in Colorado. This was when I first began to worry about the XL1 lens. After reviewing the footage from the rafting trip I noticed that the focus was soft on many of the wide angle shots. There has been much written about the back focus problem with the lens, but I only began to notice problems a few weeks before the expedition was to begin. For the most part I believe the XL1 lens is excellent. The image stabilizer and the built in neutral density filter really make life easy, but it is critical that focus is sharp. I started looking at alternatives and came across the Optex XLPRO manual focus lens. At this point the budget for video equipment was already exhausted and there was no way I could afford $1800 for another lens so I began to contact distributors of the XLPRO. I received a response from ZGC Inc., who expressed great interest in the educational goals of the Edventure. They soon after decided to donate the Optex lens to the project and for this I am extremely grateful. The lens is fantastic! It is so nice to be able to pull the camera out of the bag with the lens focussed to infinity and just start shooting. The XLPRO is also much lighter that the Canon lens which gives the camera better balance. I have also found the Optex lens to slightly outperform the Canon lens in low light situations.

Once entering Ethiopia the politics of shooting footage and taking picture became much more complicated. For instance in shooting footage of the Mursi tribe in southern Ethiopia they generally charge one price for still photos and one much higher price for video. This means negotiating with them up front and then finding that they stop acting natural and pose for the camera. This made getting good footage difficult, especially considering they don't speak any English.

Again in ancient city of Lalibela in northern Ethiopia they have two charges for video depending on the size of the camera. The XL1 is not that big, but it is very flashy looking. I ended up getting around this by stripping the camera down. I removed the XLR adapter, the lens hood, the microphone and even the lens cap in order to get the camera in.

Sudan was the first place where we were required to claim and pay duty on any of the equipment. There was a minimal charge and we were allowed to pass. We were also required to buy a photography permit in Sudan. Even though we had obtained the permit we were once temporarily detained for taking pictures of a market. When entering Egypt they wrote the serial number of the camera in my passport to make sure that nothing was sold in the country without paying duties.

Canon camcorders seemed to pop in the strangest of places. I met a guy in the middle of nowhere in northern Namibia shooting with the GL1, which was brand new at that point. I saw two different people shooting with the XL1 on Zanzibar Island off of Tanzania and then ran into a German crew in the middle of the Nubian Desert in Sudan working on short films for German television shooting with the XL1. I also met one guy in Malawi using the Sony PD100, although he didn't seem to thrilled about the camera.

It was very difficult to know how much footage we would shoot on a trip like this. What we did know is that we wouldn't be able to buy more tape in the middle of Africa. With this in mind I bought 80 hours of Sony mini-DV tapes. In the end I shot around 40 hours of footage. The footage varies from classic African scenes of lions hunting on the Serengeti plains to footage of climbing to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro which stand 5895 meter (19,321 ft) above sea level. The first day of the climb we hiked though the rainforest and although we were all soaked through the Rainslicker kept the camera bone dry. The climb took six days and I took six Canon lithium-ion batteries that performed well in the cold conditions. I'm not real sure how cold it was on the summit, but our insulated water bottles were frozen solid in about an hour and a half. Despite this, the XL1 fired up without a problem and shot crystal clear footage.

There have been few equipment problems. There was a car battery charger that got wet during the rains in Botswana and hasn't worked since. I then charged batteries from the vehicle battery using the 110v charger and a 12v to 110v power inverter. The camera also refused to power up at a game park in Zimbabwe. This turned out to be a corroded battery contact on the positive lead. It was not springing back and failed to make contact with the battery. After jiggling the contact with a pair of tweezers it popped back into place and has worked fine ever since.

We have been digitizing short video clips which are then sent to the web site. To view the clips go to african-edventure.org/edzone/gallery/gallery.html. Keep in mind that the quality of these clips is very low as the files needed to be small enough to e-mail from a slow African connection. If anyone has any questions about the XL1 or video from the Edventure, feel free to contact me at: aaronfrick@hotmail.com.

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See also Images from the African Ed-venture
Written by Aaron Frick
Thrown together by Chris Hurd