I did a search before posting this, and I couldn't really find a good answer to my question.

How does the the new shoulder mount on the XL2 compare with the SP-100 shoulder mount on the XL1 and XL1s. I've used the SP-100 before, and I thought it was average. Could have been better, but it worked fine. I've been hearing people complain about the XL2 shoulder mount, so I'm curious how it compares.

Obviously, it sort of depends on the person and the shape of their shoulder, but I'm just looking for opinions. Thanks.

In my opinion the old SP-100 was barely worth the effort to throw into the wastebasket. The integrated shoulder pad on the XL2 is very similar to the shoulder pad on the old MA-100 XLR audio adapter... much more useful than the SP-100.

Thanks. I was pretty confident that Canon wouldn't make backward progress on the shoulder mount when everything else seems like forward progress. I've just been hearing people complain, so I was wondering how bad it actually was comparatively. I never used the MA-100 or 200, but I'll take your word for it that it's an improvement.

Just about any third-party shoulder support for the XL2 is a good idea.

See the line from VariZoom (http://www.varizoom.com/pages/supportindex.php) for some examples.