Back in the days when I did a lot of still photography, it was common to walk into a professional camera store and see Canon reps talking about their products, and to see full inventories of cameras and lenses. And in the strictly consumer end of things, you can go to places like Best Buy and see all the Canon cheapo cameras on display.

But what if a guy is interested in an XL2? In the Kansas City area. Two dealers are listed. One is a quasi-professional supplier and rental house. I called up and asked if they had an XL2 in rental or on display or if they had any coming in soon. "We ain't got none," was the exact response I got.

So I called the next one, the local Microcenter. "We have one but we don't have one out to look at." Like, duh...I'm supposed to come down there and buy it at retail price sight unseen!!!

People who live in bigger cities are fortunate. I guess I'm going to have to fly to Chicago just to see a damn camera in person.

I was told that Canon was restricting dealers on the XL2. I think I read it here and also, a local dealer told me that. I didn't question the dealer further to find out the circumstances. I assumed it was a large stocking quantity situation.

Bill--

Contact Canon directly, explain your situation and ask them how to best resolve your issue. They may have a dealer near-by that you're not aware of.

Just a thought.

Jay

The searchable list of Canon dealers on their website is a bit lame... evidently, there are no dealers in my whole end of the state (North Carolina). So I get zip when I search. There are dealers in Charlotte and Atlanta, though. Guess I'll have to do a little driving to get hands on a cam before buying.

--Ralph

Ralph: just call Canon and explain your problem to them. Who
knows if the list on the site is complete!

Thanks, Rob.

--Ralph

Around here it's not a problem of no dealers. There are two in the immediate area. The problem is that the dealers don't really care about selling the product. It's like, oh you want to buy one? OK, we'll order it and it'll be here in 3 weeks. You want to HOLD one? Well, you'd have to buy it first because it's in a box.
There used to be a primarily consumer home theater place that carried Canon and Sony consumer video stuff, and they actually had the XL1 and VX2000 on display, and you could buy a tape and shoot something with the cameras there in the store. Unfortunately they got run out of business by the giant corporate chains like Ultimatte, Best Buy and Circuit City, all of which are totally worthless for people interested in anything other than single chip cameras.

and you could buy a tape and shoot something with the cameras there in the store. -->>>


Something I've been wondering is, if stores let you walk in, use your own tape, and shoot on their camcorder, don't the heads get screwed up pretty quickly, with all the different kinds of tape? I would think it would affect the quality of footage on the tape too. Or do they make you buy a specific brand in-store?

They should have a demo unit, and you should buy a tape from them for the purpose. I always did.