I have got a brand new XL1s I love it to bits, but one problem that I have which is a bit annoying is that the hotshoe on the XL1s seems to be a tiny bit wider than the standard hotshoe. I have tried mounting the Sennheiser MKE300, Beyer Mic Holder and a small flash. All of which fit on the hotshoe, but due to it being a little wider then on anyother camera I have used, there seems to be movement for the item attached. So with the MKE300 this alllows the mic to 'rotate' or pivot from side to side as the base has slight movement on the hotshoe area. So no matter how tight I screw down, there still is a little 'play' with the mic. And its a bit annoying as It would be nice to have anything attached to be tight and stationless. I tried to pu a bit paper on the slot area to try and fill up the gap, but its even smaller than the paper, so with the paper the mic wont slide on. So there still is a bit movement horizotally.

Has anyone else got this problem??? Or is it just the hotshoe plate screwed on top of my viewfinder/mic holder just been made slightly too big????


I would appreciate if any one has had experience with this, and if there is a cure, or shall I just let Canon know, as the camera is still under waranty????

Not much I can suggest on this, except to say that the XL1 / XL1S does not have what you would call a hotshoe... it is simply an accessory shoe, which is quite "cold" unfortunately. The GL2 / XM2 has a hot shoe, that is, power to the shoe.

These XL1 / XL1S accessory mounting shoes are wide enough for standard Canon accessories, such as a Speed Lite flash, VL10i onboard light, etc. However many other brands require a narrow shoe for a better fit. Perhaps there is such a thing somewhere as a mounting adapter, which fits into the wider Canon shoe and provides a narrow shoe on top? If not, someone should make one.

Yeah I understand all that about Power for 'true' hotshoe. I was just inquering if anyone had similar problem and how they overcame it. I mearly used 'hotshoe' as that is what most people, especially those from photographic background, would refer to it. So hotshoe or accessory shoe, either way its still a miniscule amount too big.

While I still had my XL1s, I occasionally used the accessory shoe for a shotgun mic, and even the reciever for my Azden mics. They both fit fine. Maybe you got an odd shoe?

Measurd some shoes and feet on differnt pieces of gear (camcorders, cameras, mics, wireless receivers, flashes, lights, brackets, etc.) The shoes on a sampling of 6 items ranged form 0.735 to 0,740 inches wide. The shoe on my XL1 was 0.737 and the GL1 was 0.735 wide. The feet of 7 different shoe-mount items ranged from 0.716 to 0.730.

Keep in mind that the shoe has to be made wide enough to fit the widest "foot" on gear that is likley to be used on the camcorder plus a bit more to prevent binding.

The MKE300 I have has a plastic foot and plastic lock nut, which is enough top prevent it from sliding out of a shoe, but not to prevent some rotation in the shoe. But the mc pattern is not tight enough to make the rotation an issue for a camcorder-mounted mic.

<<<-- The MKE300 I have has a plastic foot and plastic lock nut, which is enough top prevent it from sliding out of a shoe, but not to prevent some rotation in the shoe. But the mc pattern is not tight enough to make the rotation an issue for a camcorder-mounted mic. -->>>

Same here.

Oh well, looks like I have to just live with the movement. I have a little Sony PC-100, and shoe is a great fit on that, guess Canon are just a little bigger than others. The Beyer mic holder and MKE-300 do seem to fit good as not to fall off, but have some 'play area'. Oh well!

Thanks for the info Don - much appreciated!!!!