Hi,
I can't believe I did this. The on / off switch is bit 'squirelly', to say the least. The other day we shut the camera off. Came back the next day to a dead battery! Turns out, I inadvertently switched it to "media" (or it slid thru the 'OFF' position).

Would you believe, my assistant made the same mistake today! I think whenever we switch the camera off - we're gonna check it in the viewfinder . . . to be sure we did what we think we did!

I wonder why Canon doesn't have an 'auto-off' default setting that shuts everything down after a few minutes of inactivity - like most cameras seem to?
Larry

QUOTE: Would you believe, my assistant made the same mistake today!

Of course I would! It's the worst on/off switch I've ever seen on any piece of gear -- ever. I can never slide it the center postion on the first try. POS.

Well if it's worse than the EX1 / EX3 switch (and Doug will certainly know those well!) it really must be BAD. Maybe you'll need to take the battery off every time to be totally sure you don't keep repeating this mistake. Once, in the early days, I left my EX3 in it's bag for hours whilst on - and boy it was hot when I went to get it out again (still works flawlessly).

Yeah, it's a lot worse than the EX1 switch. And you bring up another pet peeve about the XF305. The battery is hidden hunder a cover at the rear of the camerra so you can't even glance at the camera and know if it has a battery attached or not. I agree that the cover makes the camera look nice and sleek, but it also makes the camera more difficult to work with.

When I saw the switch I thought "Oh good it's got a center lock like the new EX1R switch". But the operation is different and doesn't make sense. You have to push down the green tab whenever you move it, even moving it in to the off position, this means there is nothing to stop it in the center off position so it shoots across to the opposite side. The EX1R switch can be pushed to off without pressing the button, which then locks the switch in the off position. The original EX1 and EX3 switches were pretty poor but this one deserves an award!

And don't get me on to the battery.......

I don't remember having any of these issues with my H1 and the DSLR's are all well thought out. There are a few bits that seem like a rush job which is a great shame because overall it's a very nice piece of kit.

Ironically, Canon engineering has years of R&D invested in developing and evolving its wonderful rotating switch that first appeared in the XL1 but has now been replaced in the XF by cheap little switches scattered all over. This switch strikes me as having been tragically engineering by MBAs.

It's just amazing that Sony could go from a nice rotary switch as used on the Z1, PD100 etc. to a dodgy slide switch on the EX1 (I know... different factories... different design team) only for Canon to make the same mistake a couple of years later.