Chris
I believe that quite a number of XL1 shooters use this lens, and I have never seen any serious adverse comments. I've used it a little, perhaps not enough to form a valid opinion. My impression was that the lens performed very well throughout most of its range, but was a touch soft above 300mm and wide open.

I bought a tele zoom to use with an XL1 a few months ago, and my choice was between the Canon 100-400 and the Sigma 120-300, which is in roughly the same price band. In the end, I went for the Sigma and have been very pleased with the results. The biggest advantage the Sigma has over the Canon is its speed: maximum aperture of f2.8 throughout its focal range, making it great for low light conditions. Optically, it is excellent. Another advantage is the zoom action. The Sigma zooms using a ring, and the length of the lens doesn't change. The Canon's push-pull action felt rather unwieldy, although I'm sure more practised users may not find it so.

Cheers
Duncan

Duncan,

I would agree that the push pull zoom control is a bit of a handful and does push the front weight still further forward.

I am interested in your comment about the speed of this lense and I too thought that it might be better to go for a shorter lense and larger aperture to make up for low light found in the average UK woodland, so that remains a consideration.

I assume you purchased with a Canon mount and used the EF adaptor, so is the aperture control retained on the Sigma lense?

Do you mount the setup on the camera tripod bush, on the lense bush or do you have a dual mounting plate?

Just flicking through Practical Photography for August 04, they reviewed the Sigma 120-300 and commented that the optics are superb, but the price is near to £1700 in UK rather than £1170 for the Canon 100-400.

Regards,

Chris.

Chris

>>I assume you purchased with a Canon mount and used the EF adaptor, so is the aperture control retained on the Sigma lense?

Yes, Canon fit with EF adapter. The aperture control is the wheel on the body of the XL1, not on the lens.

>>Do you mount the setup on the camera tripod bush, on the lense bush or do you have a dual mounting plate?

I use a dual mounting plate. I think this is essential with all heavy telephoto lenses, both for stability and to prevent damage to the lens mounts.

>>Just flicking through Practical Photography for August 04, they reviewed the Sigma 120-300 and commented that the optics are superb, but the price is near to £1700 in UK rather than £1170 for the Canon 100-400.

I could not find any reasonably-priced UK suppliers. I bought on-line from B&H in New York via mail order for $1800.

Cheers
Duncan

Many thanks Duncan, you have been a great help.

Regards,

Chris.

When I purchased my xl1s used it came with an EF adapter. I would like to use this adapter to get more of a film look to my stuff. I am a student so I am on a small budget so a mini 35 adapter is out of my range. I am trying to use what I already have and in my price range. I have researched using the adapter and lenes, but since I am new to this I'm kinda confused.

What would happen if I used this EF adapter with a 8mm fisheye lens such as this one

http://www.sigmaphoto.com/html/fixed.htm

Since the EF adapter has a 7.2x magnification to the lens, would this make the lens equivalent to a 57mm lens or so?

If this is true would everything still look distorted as fisheye would normaly look on a SLR? or would it apear to be a normal lens becasue only the center of the lens is being used?

Has anyone tried the EF adapter with a fisheye before?

Or would it be better to go with a 12-24mm lens to achieve more of a film look.

Hi Guys,

Another question for you wonderfully informed people out there.

I have just bought the adaptor to use canon Ef lenses but seem to be having a problem. I have put on a 80-300mm ef lense but it doesn`t seem to work. The minimum view is as expected (7 x closer to a subject) but if I zoom in, the distance covered is no more than the 16x that comes with the xl1s. Am I missing a setting here ?. The lense is a cheap one that comes with a package of 2 lenses with a canon camera, would this make a difference

Thanks in advance

Andy

Are you saying the image size doesn't change when you zoom? What do you mean by "the distance covered?"

When I zoom in on a subject it is not very much. I was expecting a massive zoom of 300m x7.2 (2100mm), but it only zooms in as much as I can with the canon xl1s lens fitted, nothing more.

It is 40X the size of what the naked eye sees. The stock lens on the XL1 is about 12X what the eye sees.

so if I put the adpator on and put a 300mm lense would that not give hundreds if not thousands of what the eye sees. With an adaptor and a 300mm lense I`m only getting the equivalant of a 16x zoom. What am I doing wrong, or can the adaptor be at fault. I know its working at the botom end of the zoom as everything seems 7 times closer and I cannot get very wide on the lens.

The standard 16X lens is about 88mm. Your EOS EF lens is 300 mm. In optics a mm is always a mm. So, the EF lens gives you 3.4X more magnification than the XL lens. The crop factor gives you 7.2 times additional magnification. If your saying that the subject appears the same size with the EF lens at 300mm as the XL lens at 88mm (maximum zoom) then something is wrong.

Still waiting for my adapter to arrive. The information on DV Info Net has clarified some questions on the long lenses but I'm wondering if the 100mm f2.8 macro (which gives 1:1 on 35mm) is usable and useful on the XL1s?
Anyone tried it or can give some comment?

John,

I guess the 100mm Macro lens would work just fine with the EF adaptor. But keep in mind, that a 100 mm lens on the XL1 would be equivalent to something like 700 mm. I wonder what you would shoot with this lens in macro mode. Boy, you could probably have the eye of a midget fill the whole frame! Focusing could be quite a challenge, though.

Let us see the results!!

You may have seen the quick webpage I put up last year with my EF system (35-350 canon lens) It shows the Cavision support system that i had custom made in vancouver that is great!

http://www.digitalcrossing.ca/ef-1.htm

I'm off to Africa for a shoot next week, so i will redo these lens test, and create a better page for people to look

If you need a email address for Cavison, let me know.

I have searched all 19 pages of Canon XL1s Watchdog/lenses and optics and cannot find the answer. I hope someone can HELP.

I have a Canon XL1s and would like to fit a Sigma 120-300mm
f2.8 EX HSM Canon fit lens via a EF/XL adaptor.

My questions are:
Will the auto functions still operate, ie: auto focus,auto exposure, zoom from the camera controls.
If these functions do not operate is there any point in purchasing an auto lens.
Can anyone recomend a better & cheaper setup.
I must have f2.8 and 300mm. I will be using it for wildlife, often
in low light.
PS. I know all the problems with stability and depth of field.

Many thanks.

Hello Henry,
There are lots of threads here dealing with the EF adapter (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=387366&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending), located via the Search button (above).

Yes Ken, I have looked at many hundreds of threads but I
still cannot find the answers to my questions.

The lens will not auto focus, it will need to be manually zoomed by the camera operators hand and the aperture may (or may not) be able to be adjusted manually via the XL1 aperture dial. Sigma does not purchase chips for their lenses from Canon (unlike Tamron and Tokina) and compatibility and functionality issues may arise with the Sigma lens.

I ran some tests using the EF adapter on my XL1s using a variety of eos lenses. The "zoom" images are using the 16Xmanual lens, fully in and out, which is 52mm and 844mm respectively. All pics were taken from the same spot. The pictures are unretouched other than de-interlace in photoshop. I felt the image clarity was fine, given there was a lot of atmospheric influence that afternoon. The longer lengths were very difficult to fix focus. Very shallow relative DOF and just touching the focus ring would blur the image.

http://www.wavecam.com/images/lenstest/

Basically, because of the huge (7.8X ?) magnification factor, the interchangeable lenses are not a practical feature of the XL, except for extreme telephoto use. Beyond 200mm, the system was too unstable to get a good image panning or tilting.

There is at least one other company making a long lens support for the XL1. I'm pretty sure it is Kirk photo.

These are old posts and answers have probably already been resolved: But I have the solution to your EOS and FD lens mounting problems. I also have a sight that is very useful in capturing the subjects that are hard to find with the limited FOV inherent with the long lenses. Take a look at my website at www.ronsrail.com

Okay, I have just sold my two Sony PD 150's and have decided to move to Canon gear simply for the opportunity to be able to use my Canon EF lenses. I am a sports photographer as well and I already have a very nice collection of Canon "L" glass.

24-70L 2.8 - 50 1.4 - 85 1.8 - 70-200L 2.8 - 135L 2.0 - 300L 4.0 - 300L 2.8 - 400L 2.8.

I have read these threads and re-read these threads regarding the use on EF lenses and I keep coming to a different conclusion. I can't find anybody posting who uses this setup to shoot sports, some of the landscape and wildlife guys seem to love using these lenses while others seem to feel that they are so long they are useless do to camera shake.

I understand that I need an adaptor and the magnification factor is about 7x. I also lose auto focus? Will my fast apertures still work to enable a nice bokeh background blur and help in low light situations?

A ton of my video sales are youth team sports highlight video and college recruiter videos.

Anybody out there shooting sports can give your view of using these lenses.

Thanks,

Woody

They will probably be too long. The DOF will increase 7X also, because of the magnification. You could get by with the 24~70 (173~504), but why? The normal Canon XL lens will retain AF and has IS, probably resulting in more usable shots.

Woody I primarily shoot wildlife; But have shot some soccer and baseball using the Canon XL lens as well as the 70-200 2.8 EOS lens.The problem with the EOS lens is the ability to focus quickly and hi magnification,so it depends on where you are in the stadium.I think the new 20X lens would be ideal for sports, as Jeff stated.
My prime lens for wildlife is a Canon 50-300 4.5 FD L lens,quite often with a 1.4 converter. resulting in about 3000mm - (35mm equivilent) It is also not unusual to use a 600mm lens for long distance shots.Most wildlife people I know are not adverse to using these long lenses on sturdy tripods and stable fluid heads. Some of them use the 150-600mm Canon FD L lens. A commercialy available converter is used to attach the lens to the XL series cameras. Approx. price $400. I built mine, but don't recommend others try it!
There is also another problem which is seldom mentioned. In the older EOS lenses, there is an unusual amount of motor noise that is picked up by the microphone. It may not be too apparent in sports with all the background noise. The newer lenses are considerably quieter.

Jeff & Bob ... thanks for the replys.

Maybe I should clarify my sports style. I don't shoot entire games where I pan with the action. I have a shot list and follow it. For example what I was thinking I could do with the extra reach is set up beyond the center field fence on a platform of some sort and get a great shot of the hitter catcher, and umpire. Once the batter starts to run to first he runs out of the frame, I don't follow him. I was wanting to sit on particular players looking for extreme closeup emotion shots. The look of a pitcher after a big strikeout, the dejection of giving up a big hit, the excitement of a coach after a big play, etc ... and I need to do it from a distance to keep me out of the way of the game.

Picking up sound from the lens isn't at all an issue as I don't use any sound from these shots, when I use ambiant sound(which is seldom), I get it from the close in cameras like my VX2000 and the majority of the video is backed with a high tempo music track anyway.

I really wasn't thinking about the two big lenses the 300 & 400 2.8's but more like the 70-200, the 135 and even the light weight 300 4.0.

So really the EF lenses is not an option that will be viable for me, it's really only an advantage for landscape, wildlife type of stuff?

My exitement baloon has been punctured!

But thanks,

Woody

Woody The 70-200 would be a great lens for tjhis application. You would get the closeups as well as being able to pan if you wished. Continual focus would not be a problem. You could set up a little to one side of center field and possibly be able to get first base and the batter, pitcher combo without too much panning.
Depending on whether a rt or lft handed batter!! I do alot of panning with a 420 FD lens, and Ive done baseball from first base with a 300 2.8 with great results. The picture quality is excellent.

Check out my website at www.ronsrail.com for the various lens combinations.

Good luck!!

Best

I'm having trouble seeing the difference between the two.. couldn't I just mount my EOS lens on an EF adapter and save tons of money? What difference would it make?

These are two completely different tools.

The EF adapter is for mounting PHOTO lenses and the resulting field of view is equal to seven times the focal length (50mm x 7.2 = 360mm on an XL1 / XL1S). See this link (http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/images/images09.php).

The Mini35 is for mounting MOTION PICTURE lenses and it preserves the original focal length and depth of field (20mm = 20mm on an XL1 / XL1S). See this link (http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article84.php).

I have the EF adaptor but seem to have lost the instruction booklet that came with it. Does anyone have any idea where I can get another one, or could someone possibly photocopy one for me. Any help would be much appreciated. I live in the UK.

Many Thanks

Andy Paul

You can download the manual from the Canon site, go here:

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=DownloadDetailAct&fcategoryid=326&modelid=7471#New%20Window

Go to the link under "Product User Guides & Manuals" and on
the next page select "English manuals". The fifth link down will
be for the EF adapter:

EF Adapter Instruction Manual
ins_xl_ef_adapter.pdf

You are a star !!! Thank You very much.

You're welcome :)

Ron,

I have been looking for your product for two years but just never found it till now. We shoot XL-1's with EF lens all the time, and are never happy with the balance or the stability of our cobbled together setups. Your product looks like exactly what we need here at Fish and Game. Poachers beware!

Matt

If you use Premier Pro or even premier 6x and or After Effects, there is a company called 2d3 that makes a stabilization plug in that works really really well. I had a 600mm Sports lens in front of my XL-1 on a cobbled together adapter to a solid tripod. Wind out of my 2 o'clock position at 15 knots, and man the image showed it.

After digitzing the shots, I dropped the filter on it, rendered it and it was almost like I had set the thing in concrete!!!! Very little motion and yet did not seem to affect pans or tilts much, it understood the difference. The killer part.......... $99 usd. Luck you say?....

OK , another shoot, Hand held on a 40' boat in San Francisco Bay, 20 knots of wind in my shooters face, zoomed in most if not all the way on the Canon 16x, you know the shot is completely unuseable, need dramamine just to watch it, I was able to not only salvage the shot, the client wanted to know how I got a gyro stablized lens for the XL. Dang it, I should'a billed him for one!

But seriously, it is nothing short of amazing, and it can save your behind even faster than DV RACK!

check them out at http://www.2d3.com/jsp/index.jsp

i have a canon xl 1s--and i have purchased the subject lense---need to know what would be the ideal lense support if one is needed---i am doing wildlife video---any help will be appreciated--thanks, kal

Paging Ron Armstrong... Ron Armstrong to the front counter please.

Hi Kal;
Thanks Chris. As I recall, Kal and I have had discussions on something similar to this before. Nice to hear from you Kal.
The 100-400 mm lens is an excellent lens used by many XL* owners. I have, however heard some comment on the lack of sharpness at the long end, above 300mm, in particular with the use of the 1.4 converter. I have not used the lens myself, so this is mere speculation. Kal should be able to confirm this as he uses the lens.
Now for suport for the camera lens combination. As the subject lens changes balance during zoom, loading weight at the front in the 400mm range, it requires a change in position to balance properly on the tripod. Also, being much heavier than the standard 16x lens, it has to be mounted at its foot to relieve pressure on the camera lens mount, therefor allowing the occurance of vibration and movement between the camera and lens, the weakest point in the assembly.
The RONSRAIL solves these problems by tying the camera and lens together through a rail and clamp system that also allows the combo to be balanced on the tripod by moving the whole assembly fore and aft.
Kal , I believe, has seen my website showing some of the lenses used.
Chris has given me opportunity to again present my website to those who have not had the chance to view it.

Thanks again Chris!!!

Ron

<<<-- Originally posted by Ron Armstrong : Hi Kal;
Thanks Chris. As I recall, Kal and I have had discussions on something similar to this before. Nice to hear from you Kal.
The 100-400 mm lens is an excellent lens used by many XL* owners. I have, however heard some comment on the lack of sharpness at the long end, above 300mm, in particular with the use of the 1.4 converter. I have not used the lens myself, so this is mere speculation. Kal should be able to confirm this as he uses the lens.
Now for suport for the camera lens combination. As the subject lens changes balance during zoom, loading weight at the front in the 400mm range, it requires a change in position to balance properly on the tripod. Also, being much heavier than the standard 16x lens, it has to be mounted at its foot to relieve pressure on the camera lens mount, therefor allowing the occurance of vibration and movement between the camera and lens, the weakest point in the assembly.
The RONSRAIL solves these problems by tying the camera and lens together through a rail and clamp system that also allows the combo to be balanced on the tripod by moving the whole assembly fore and aft.
Kal , I believe, has seen my website showing some of the lenses used.
Chris has given me opportunity to again present my website to those who have not had the chance to view it.

Thanks again Chris!!!

Ron -->>>

Thanks again Ron for good hints, I will be using this and other canos lenses for next five monts in alaska - let everybody know about lens performance. As far as lens support comes I leaned from previous threads ; according to canon this and other canon's white lenses with their own lens mount can be safely installed on tripot... the XL1 body just hangs off the back of the lens . I can see the safety difference in between this consept and you RONSRAIL , but I am going to see how this is going to work for me. Thanks again - kal

Hi Kal:
"The XL1 body just hangs off the back of the lens." Very true. However there are only four very small machine screws that hold it there. It cannot stand much abuse and the environment it will be subject to in Alaska may be severe. The adapter is not very robust, and I don't think it was designed strong enough for the uses we put upon it.
I completetly severed the viewfinder from its mount at the swivel in Denali, and that happened on the bus!!
Be carefull and protect your gear, you will have much success and an enjoyable experience; But be very carefull with your system in Alaska.
Don't forget to consider the RONSIGHT for those long shots at birds, moose and bear.

Best of luck and keep us posted.

Ron

So are are all of the EF photo lenses compatible with my XL1s or do I need an adapter to fit them?

You need the Canon EF-XL adapter. The adapter makes all of them compatible.

See http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article58.php#ceos for more info.

"The adapter makes all of them compatible" ...

That is, physically mountable. Remember, the lenses' respective fields-of-view will be narrowed by a factor of 7.2x, because of the size of the camera's chips.

I read Jeff Donald's excellent post, The Ultimate Depth of Field Skinny.

But I still have a couple of questions on the XL 1 and its EF adapter.

If you analyse the construction of the Canon EF adapter you'll notice a piece of glass in the actual adaapter. If you look through the end where the camera body connects to it, everything is blown up, as if you were looking through a magnifying glass.

What role does this play in the image size conversion from the EOS lens to the 1/3" CCD?

Second question.

Would using a lens to shrink the light stream to fit the CCD work?

Thanks in advance. =)

I'm not really sure, but the glass inside the adapter is probably focussing the
light beam for the proper distance. It is definitely not doing something like
a ground glass to get that 35mm depth-of-field.

I have no idea what you mean when you say "sing a lens to shrink the light stream"

I'm asking cause I recently bought one of those home made adapters on ebay, just out of curiosity to compare with the Canon EF Adapter I have. The first thing that I noticed is that the Canon Adapter has lens in its adapter and the home made Adapter didn't.

The results were the same. I noticed no loss in quality, no vignetting, etc.

Except for the annoying no lens error I got it looks like the Conon adapter does nothing.

I was also wondering if someone were to add a lens of some sort that would shrink the light signal on one of these adapters, would that negate the 7.2X inflation of the image size; sort of like reverse magnification.

I understand that this would probably take more futzing around than adding something in front of the lens like the mini 35.

That is the difficulty with the XL series indeed. Personally I would go with the
35mm adapter in front of the lens. Much simpler. Check the imaging forum for
threads on that subject.

Hello all!

I have now used a number of different Canon EF-lenses (with the EF-Adapter, of course) on my XL-1s. While image quality has always been excellent, the weight of any but the shortest of these lenses poses problems (particularly with the 100-400 mm IS fully extended).

Ever since it's been released, I've been pondering purchasing the Canon EF 70-300 mm f4.5-5.6 DO IS USM (not to be confused with the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM). Due to its Diffractive Optics (DO) design, this lens is short and light - just what I'm looking for.

Since Canon states that this lens is NOT compatible with the 1.4x and 2.0x EF-extenders, I'm worried that there could be problems using it in conjunction with the EF-adapter on my XL-1s rig.

Any feedback from people using this lens on their XL-1/2 rigs would be highly appreciated! I'd primarily be using it for wildlife shooting, and any feedback regarding it's usability in that area would very welcome, too.

TIA for your feedback!

Warm regards,

Ron

Hi Ron,

I'm not exactly sure why that lens isn't compatible with the Canon EF extenders, but there should be no problem using it with the XL adapter.

Some lenses are not compatible because the extenders have a front element that protrudes right into the barrel of the lens, i.e. it's a simple mechanical problem. For example, the EF 24-70mm f2.8 USM is not compatible. When you try to attach the extender, you would damage the last lens element.

On the other hand, the XL adapter does not have a protruding front element. Thanks for the explanation, Rainer -- much appreciated,