Hi everyone, my name is Jon Bickford and this is my first post here.

i'm buying an XL2 either today (wed. 17th) or tommorrow i can pay $4250 cash or if there are any vendors in the LA/OC/san bernadino that can beat $4600 with $3000 down and 6 months same as cash on the rest

anyone have any suggestions? so far it looks like Samy's is my best bet with financing and the brooklyn joints don't sell anywhere near their advertised prices and i don't trust them to delive over night which is a necessity

thanks for any suggestions you might have

-Jon

Jon, let me recommend Zotz Digital, a site sponsor, in Grants Pass, OR.

Check out http://www.dvinfo.net/sponsors/index.php

I ordered my XL2 from Brian Longley there ($3900, body-only kit, so I think he'll be competitive on the full kit). Even though you'll pay shipping, you'll save money because Oregon has no sales tax.

JS

Hi John,

Looks like we're in the same boat! I'm in LA and about to buy an XL2 also. So far I've gotten quotes from Birns and Sawyer and Alan Gordon. I'm looking to buy the Body-only kit, plus the 16x manual lens. Birns and Sawyer got down to $5250 plus tax for set. I think Alan Gordon can do the same. Zotz and ZGC quoted me $5200 but with no tax. Are you aware of California's 3.25% Film and Video Production tax break? That will save you a couple hundred and make it worth buying here in my opinion. I'm interested in Samy's financing deal though, how does that work do you know?

Oliver

P.S. Not everyone seems to have the camera in stock though, with many places on back order. Definitely check that.

hey oliver,

i ended up going to samy's in LA, the price for the body with 20x was $4699, after sales tax it came to $5100, i didn't get approved for as much credit as i had hoped, not sure why, so i had to put down $4187 or something like that, which means i will be living on top ramen for awhile. and i got financed for one grand through samy's, i have 6 months to pay that back which equates for less than $200 a month, if the entire grand is not payed off at the end of six months then interest will be charged for the ENTIRE amount from the previous 6 months and an absurdly high amount from then on, if it is paid in full then there is 0 interest and you spend the same as you would have in cash, so if you do something like that be sure to calculate the payments and be certain you can make it safely in 6 months or it could cost you several hundred dollars in the end

there are better prices that could have been delivered tommorrow (supposedly) but having talked with at least 10 different places i didn't trust a single person i talked to that had a better price than that, and more often than not if the price were under $4300 there was a trick and it ALWAYS ended up around $4800 by the end of the phonecall, or it was malaysian with a malaysian warranty.

at the end of the day i need the camera for a production that begins friday morning, i really needed a day and a half with the camera before shooting, and now i have one and it is not lost in shipping it is in front of me and boy let me tell you...

i learned cinematography on film, there is not a 16mm camera in the world that has anything like the control over your image that this thing does, and to do what can be done in camera would cost quite literally thousands in lab fees at crest doing color correction and telecine. i've shot 35mm panavision, there is not this kind of control, i've shot 16 and projected it as 16, and i've shot 16 and projected it dv, i was really amazed how good dv can look on a big screen, and to know that i will never be called at 5:30 am by fotokem telling me that there's a gaping scratch through 1200ft of film... priceless

also, i've used sony fd900 and panasonic vari cams and while obviously, they're better, as far intuitiveness they're no match, at first the xl2 is a little intimidating, but literally in under 45 minutes it felt like home, based only on experience with canon eos still cameras and smaller canon dvs like gl2 and opturas it made total sense as a sorta combination of both, i love what a consistent company canon is, no wonder they get so much of my money

one last thought, chances are the first person who reads this will jump on it, go to adoramacamera.com go to used equipment, go to video, go to lenses and there is a 3x wide angle used, rated in excellent plus condition for i believe $239 there were 2, i bought one, and a 2 year warranty on the used lens was $39, i've bought a lot of ef lenses and filters and what not from adorama and never had a problem

-jon

<<<-- Originally posted by Jon Bickford :

one last thought, chances are the first person who reads this will jump on it, go to adoramacamera.com go to used equipment, go to video, go to lenses and there is a 3x wide angle used, rated in excellent plus condition for i believe $239 there were 2, i bought one, and a 2 year warranty on the used lens was $39, i've bought a lot of ef lenses and filters and what not from adorama and never had a problem

-jon -->>>

Wow, now that's a deal! I just hunted around the Adorama site and couldn't find anything though. Thanks for the tip though. It sounds like you got a good deal from Samy's too, as long as you payoff the balance soon!

Good luck with your XL2, and your shoot on Friday. I'm looking forward to working with my XL2 also. I'm sure its intuitive as you say. And the bang for the buck factor is just huge. As people are saying, its really hard to tell the difference next to an SDX900, which says a lot. I'm curious to see how the XL2 footage will look blown up to 35mm and projected.

Oliver

"I'm curious to see how the XL2 footage will look blown up to 35mm and projected."

Oliver, I just found this thread on this site:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35123

Sound like an opportunity to see what can result.

JS

great, thanks for noting that Jon. I'm planning to attend DVExpo anyway, so maybe I'll catch the shorts program too. Although I have a feeling its not been blownup to 35mm, but their projecting on video - though it may be uprezed to HD...

Oliver