Got my XA10 yesterday been playing around with it so far i love it. will have some videos soon ill post links up here when i do

Congratulatons! I am anxious to hear how this camera performs in low light situations from both a picture standpoint and from an autofoucs one. Any report you can give will be appreciated!

Blake, I'd love to see some daylight type shots with it. I'm expecting mine on Tuesday, and I'm less concerned about the low light (given the rave reviews I've seen) than I am about the good light videos relative to a camcorder like the Panasonic 900 (which I have). I just don't want to sacrifice too much picture quality in good light for the superior low light of the XA10. It just depends on how much better the 900 is in good light (if at all).

Okay the low light was amazing! I will get some video up tomorrow of the night shots. (I used MF the whole time.) i will get auto here soon. it was super cloudy today in Ohio so I hope to get some daylight tomorrow maybe have those up as well.

Do you have anything else to compare it with?
It would be nice to see a side by side comparison with a DSLR (with a lens equaly fast though)

Kinda I used a t2i 50mm lens 1/30 iso 400 at a f2.8 well the XA10 i tried to get the zoom right pretty sure i failed it was at a 6db f2.8 and a 1/24. i was shooting in 24p with the XA10. I'm not to sure on the iso to db so yeah. and the T2i was manual whit balance i use Magic Lantern and the XA10 was auto if you guys want to see the video let me know

Blake, I'd love to see a TMV700-XA10 comparison.

Okay here is some raw footage it is exported to h.264 with adobe.
YouTube - XA10 Raw test (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWbIMF5a9IY)
Feel free to watch my other videos as well (wedding reel, NF Photo shoot) and let me know what you think.
The rest of the videos i did not do. All but the fighting ones were from film camps i help put on every year.
I will be putting up the XA10 T2i next now that is rough just to warn you

Thanks Blake,

The best way to do a low light comparison with the T2i is to place the two cameras next to eachother, zoom in with the XA10 to obtain the same field of view as with the T2i and the 50mm lens, set on the XA10 the widest possible aperture, 1/24 or 1/30 shutter speed, and put the same aperture and the slowest available shutter speed on the T2i (1/30). Adjust gain and ISO to get a good exposure (make sure you get the same exposure on both) and shoot.
Repeat the test for daylight shooting using shutter speed of 1/50th but this time you can also try to match the DOF. In that case you will need to set the XA10 at the widest aperture and the T2i at an aperture that gives you a similar DOF.

Thanks for the info I will be doing a DOF test tonight so that helps a lot I will upload when done

Okay here is more videos From the XA10 DOF testing i was doing tonight. specs are listed in the video and on the youtube page.

YouTube - DOF Test (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vMf14nT8b0)

YouTube - XA10 DOF (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6qN4pPTSvk)

WOW!! I am impressed. Used the Xa10 today for the first time. Lowlight is better than my HF s10 and 11. Of course my XF-300 is in a different arena but the cameras sure match well. Just have to lower the XF-300 sharpness to -10.

Outdoors was incredible. It was written in another forum that the 1/3 inch chip is not as sharp as the prior 1/2.5 chip due to pixel size. However, I can't really see a BIG difference if any at all.

HINT: Use the VIVID setting outdoors. The ND filter is on automatic.

Agree 100% I was blown away with the Canon XA10. I did not like the auto ND filters but that so far is my only complaint. so thanks for the vivid suggestion. I have not had the opportunity to use the XF300 but I'm saving so that will be my next buy

Thanks guys for the real world hands on reports and footage. I currently shoowt weddings with 2 Sony V1U's and a little Canon HV20 as the B roll backup cam (locked down wide shot). That little Canon has save our butt many times as the shot to cut to in editing. With a little color correction it matches the Sony's and looks pretty darn good. I would imagine the XA10 would be a significant step up from the HV20 so it is on my short list for a new camera.

Blake and Ken, where did you purchase the Canon XA10? I would like to purchase this camera!

Thanks!

Troy

Got mine two or three weeks back. A few things to know about it (US model):

It does not come with a separate battery charger. You have to plug the camera into the A/C adapter to charge it. Buy the CG800 charger. The BP827 batteries balance pretty well with mics on the front and the readout onscreen says they'll last four hours. Ergonomically, it's a winner.

It comes out of the box set to the lowest image quality. Beware of online postings complaining about image quality. On the contrary, the image quality is pretty impressive.

LCD hinge feels cheap but the rest of it is ok and it has the lowest handling noise (audio) of any camera I've used. Sweet.

Menus suck. Very unlike Canon. You've gotta go deep in menus to format a card. Much worse than HF200 menus.

It has these funky cinema style settings that drive me insane because of their potential but lack of control. There's one setting that puts a beautiful vignette on the image but desaturates to a really ugly color palette. Oh, please Canon, give us menu control over all the parameters!!!!! Does anyone know if maybe you can control color settings with a computer?

Another thing that drives me insane is the story settings. You can in theory shoot a story by choosing story mode, following silly amateur prompts, then downconvert from one card to the other to SD, and upload your story, already edited in camera, directly online. But what you can't do is shoot normally, pick clips in the order you want and then downconvert and upload. (or at least I can't figure out how.)

Lens is sweet. Takes 58mm filters. Digital zoom is better than I expected. I'd say it's probably ok for most purposes up to 15x. (It's 10x optical) Past that it's SD and then online quality only - but it gets pretty long. I'm using it for news work, mostly online, and it's perfectly adequate for that at the long settings, which gives plenty of reach.

I'm still coming to grips with audio. There's no clipping warning on the meters so you can't tell when you go from being close to zero to actually hitting it. Audio gain controls don't feel like precision instruments. I'm used to riding audio to keep it loud without clipping but the XA10 doesn't seem to like that and it gets krunchy sounding before it actually clips.

Only drawback is the AVCHD. I wish the XA10 would mate with an XF100 and give us an XF10 tiny body with the XDCAM codec. That would be killer.

Only drawback is the AVCHD. I wish the XA10 would mate with an XF100 and give us an XF10 tiny body with the XDCAM codec. That would be killer.
me too, but who's gona buy XF100 then :)

More good stuff: the A/V output signal is clean - no red record dot or anything on the SD image coming out of the camera via RCA cables. You can feed it into a canopus or deck and get firewire into a computer for livestreaming. Only problem is you lose your headphones when you switch it to A/V output.

The autofocus is the best I've ever used - it locks onto a face and keeps it in focus. I am really impressed with it. I'm used to manual focus or push-to-focus and this does better than I can.

Hello I'm new to this forum. I have had the xa10 since April 1st and love it. I have bought and returned the Panisonic 700, 750, 900, Sony cx560 and NX5U before I got the xa10. The nx5u is an awesome camera no complaints except it was a little big for everyday use. The others had some fan noise, beeping sounds or wired color issues. I think for me the xa10 is an all around great camera for size, pq in bright daylight and low light shoots. I use the camera for little projects and mostly family stuff. I have posted a bunch of clips under my name on Vimeo and I have been very happy with most of the results from what I have used with this camera.
I'm very interested in the xf100 and wonder if I should trade in the xa10 while bh will let me. Thanks

I used both cameras. I now own the XF-100, having just sold my XF-300, which was just too big-a great camera.

With that said, The XF-100 is the better choice and appears sharper to my eye. The profile settings are so interchangeable that there are thousands of combinations to adjust the picture. Less motion artifacting @50Mps.. .MXF files compared to AVCHD.

Don't get me wrong, the Xa10 is a good camera, especially in the VIVID setting.

Thank you sir I loved the xa10 and when BH said said they would exchange it for the xf100 I waisted a day and night trying to justify by reading posts/ clipsthat it was worth it. I only found good stuff so the xa10 has been returned and once they refund it they all send the xf100. I loved the size of the xa10 and had the nx5u and did not like the 4pound + for everyday handheld stuff. I hope the xf100' isn't to much bigger looks to be 1/2 pound heavier and 2inchs longer/

gerald did you get the full refund when you returned it to bh

No I did not get a full refund had to pay 15% restocking fee. I'm still waiting for BH to give me a refund they got the camera on Friday and told me it would be 2 days.

Been doing a lot of work with my XA-10 and T2i. editing with the two is easy. last weekend i filmed a short with just the XA-10 Check it out let me know what you think.

YouTube - ‪BoxArtStudio's Channel‬‏ (http://www.youtube.com/user/BoxArtStudio#p/a/u/0/3QWbLgN4J-4)