Cool! Please try a low light test. I'm curious as to how the single chip will perform.

Yep, thats why its here....we're doing a low light test for 2 of our clients (big reality producers) who are very interested in the low light/ IR capabilities to use on their many shows.

Jim Martin
FilmTools.com

Excellent news Jim. Look forward to hearing (and hopefully seeing) your test results.

Also, for those that follow Mac Video there are two new Canon interview films where the XF100/105, 300/305 and 60D, other DSLRs (and a brand new DSLR lens) get discussed by Canon sales staff. More a sales pitch than anything - but it's good to see the key points about the XF100/105 spelled out as you watch it sitting next to it's brother and sister. Link below:

MacVideo - Camera Technology - Interviews - Canon XF 100/105 and XF300/305; plus DSLR update with EOS 60D and 14 - 15mm fisheye L series lens

Also, here is a snap my mate took with his 7D showing the fateful moment when I got a XF100 (or was it 105, can't remember now) in my hand at the recent Canon Pro Photo event in London. Note my concerned look as I realise that the next few minutes might become another "expensive moment" for my business purchasing decisions in early 2011. He's got a video clip of me handling it too - but I look really ugly when drooling...

Okay....We spent about 2 hours playing with the 105 and here are some thoughts.....

1) as the ladies here said..."It's so cute" 3.3lbs, compact, and really feels solid.

2) we looked at the picture via HDMI thru a KiPro, changed to HD SDI and onto a TV Logic 50" LCD.....and we were very surprised on how sharp the picture was....it handled all the most minute details very well, the corners were fine with no CA.....in fact it was so sharp, it made me look older!

3) we next played with the gain with the lights out (some ambient coming in from other rooms)...the noise at +33 was somewhat as expected but still quite usable. When we moved down 1 step (I think it was +25), the noise appeared to drop quite a bit....quite remarkable for that much gain.

4) then we went to use the IR.......in the green vs. white debate, everyone in the room liked the white better and when we used the IR illuminator, the white seemed to work better. As for the Illuminator itself (located on the front of the mic), the 1st 6ft we quite strong and was able to produce distinct shadows when my hand was put in front of my body on a black shirt. From 6 to 10ft or so, the illuminator still did a good job with the hand shadow more diffused. We then went into a completely dark, large closet and, just using the LCD, it was very easy to see, focus,etc......our clients gave it a big tumbs up.

All in all, very impressed...but still no solid word on the pricing (I expect that we'll here soon on that).

As for the size, we made a quick, fun video comparing the 105's size to a large avocado and it should be up on our youtube site later today.

Jim Martin
FilmTools.com

Canon XF105 - Example Footage
 

Hi Jim,

Excellent post. Thank you. I also had a quick look on YouTube but could not find your much anticipated Canon XF105 footage. Is it up yet?

Canon XF100 - First footage from France on Vimeo
 

Night video:

1080p25, 50mbps, 4:2:2, Shutter 1 / 50 (except for the bumper cars at 1 / 25)
Gain between 0 and 6dB,
Shooting without a tripod in hand,
Autofocus "Instant AF".


Timelapse:

1080p25, 50Mbps, 4:2:2, Shutter 1 / 50
2 frames all over 3h 4s.


Infrared function:

1080p25, 50Mbps, 4:2:2
Everything is automatic.

We had to re-shoot the peice on Friday....its being edited now and should be up later today or tomorrow....without the avocado....and we did not add any actual footage because we had a very limited time with the camera....but the stuff above looks very good and seems to cover what people want to see.

Jim Martin
FilmTools.com

I'm so impressed with the French material - even for web video it looks good.
I'm definitely going to look out for this little camera when it reaches these shores next year...

If only you can compare it to a couple of it's competitors, the JVC HM100 and the Panasonic HMC40.

Maybe, but it's the 50Mbs capability that's the clincher for me since I need to shoot material for broadcast sometimes in the UK...

Yes, the Canon XF 300s are the only 1/3" camera on the BBC's HD camera list. They'll need something to replace all those Z1s that they've been using in recent years.

Although, the sensor may be the stumbling block for this new camera being used for more than inserts.

Thanks for pointing us at those test videos of the XF100 Ivan. Looks pretty promising for such a small cam.

The night time shots show that this camera is certainly capable of some pretty decent stuff at 0 and +6dB gain. Sure, I don't expect it'll be quite as good as my Sony EX3 or Canon 7D at night/in low light due to sensor size etc. but it looked OK from a quick viewing just now (purely from a noise aspect, ignoring other factors).

I wonder what the JVC HM100 and Panasonic HMC41 would have made of those types of shots? (as I guess they are the most directly comparable competition in this size of cam/price point).

I'm really concerned about the 1/3" sensor. Not so much that it's a single 1/3" sensor, but that it's only 2Mpixel. They certainly did that for light concerns... with the Bayer filter, they're down to 1/3 the sensitivity of a 1/3" 3-chipper, and even a bit less than a 1/4" 3-chip camera, all things being equal.

But if you look at the $1000-ish market, the modern Canons hold their own, pretty much, against the Panasonics, despite the single chip. They do this largely by using an 8Mpixel sensor. Sure, that gives consumers a reasonable still photo mode (stills on my HMC40 and TM700 are questionable at best), but it also allows the camera to use pixel-binning -- same reason DSLRs and high-end cinema cameras can use a single sensor and not screw you with color errors.

With the single chip at 2Mpixel, they're going to have the same color issues as my old Sony HVR-A1 and Canon HV10. Also, not sure how you get any digital zoom of interest out of that chip without a corresponding loss of video quality. At least with a large sensor, you can do a modest digital zoom and not do much damage to the image (you lose the pixel bucketing).

Sure, the higher bitrate is a good thing... but even with that, there are issues. Ok, full 1920x1080 at 50Mb/s in 4:2:2, that's good. But it's actually slightly more compression than DV, since you need to double your bitrate for 4:2:2 vs. 4:2:0, but they're also going to 1920x1080 vs. 1440x1080. Probably still looks great, but we'll see. The MPEG-2 workflow is certainly more tried and true, but the AVC encoders are getting very good, with as much as twice the coding efficiency of MPEG-2.

Yup... as an HMC40 owner, and as well a Sony HVR-A1 owner, this one is right up my alley. But I remain skeptical. The HMC40 was more of an improvement over the HVR-A1 than I expected. I was more or less happy with the A1's performance, at least in adequate light, and don't have the budget for a 1/3" 3-chipper (though a video DSLR definitely looms in my future).

Ideally, that's a pretty even match. Well encoded AVCHD delivers twice the coding efficiency of MPEG-2; that's largely why it's taking over. This hasn't even been much of a question.. the real question is just how close the hardware running in realtime and 3W or so of power can get to that ideal. Up until this year, there was a pretty big jump in AVC encoding quality, year to year... MPEG-2 was actually a mature technology when HDV started shipping. The Canon adds the additional detail of 4:2:2 encoding at 50Mb/s... that bitrate anyway is largely for the color, a little for the extra resolution, versus 1440x1080 at 25Mb/s.

But there's a big reason for that: higher resolution sensors. Crack open any video DSLR or higher end consumer camcorder and you'll find many, many pixels. Canon's own S21 has an 8.5Mpixel sensor, the DSLRs generally about 18Mpixel these days. So while they still use Dr. Bayer's patten on those single sensors, they don't have to interpolate between pixels. You have a 2Mpixel frame, something more than 8Mpixels in the sensor, and you can simply bucket together your G/R-B/G set (if it's pure Bayer, which some of them aren't these days) as one single pixel... no need to look at the neighbors. Thus, none of that color distortion at color boundaries I used to get with the A1. In truth, it's not terribly obvious except when you're chroma keying... except when it is.

Not so sure about the low-light thing. Here's my math. A standard 1/4" sensor has an area of 7.68mm^2, while a 1/3" sensor has an area of 17.3mm^2. If they have the same pixel efficiency, you're getting an aggregate 23.0mm^2 coverage with the 1/4" sensor... 33% more light. Ok, the HMC40 is actually using 1/4.1" sensors, so that's about 7.3mm^2 each, 21.9mm^2, 26.7% more light (the comparison is fair... every pixel site is getting 1/3 of the light entering the camera -- on the four chipper, it's split 3 ways, on the Bayer sensor, 2/3 of the light is just eaten).

They're close enough, of course, that "all else being equal' may not apply. If the Canon sensor is better at using light (more pixel coverage, better microlenses, just plain more recent CMOS tech... noise thresholds seem to shrink a little every year), the Canon could still emerge the winner here.

Of course, this is also why three 1/3" sensors is such a big win versus three 1/4" sensors in low light... that's a big improvement in actual imaging area. By comparison, a Canon 7D or 60D has a sensor (APS-C) that's 419mm^2, while the 5D's (full 35mm) is 864mm^2. Thus the advantage in low light for DSLRs, even though they're using high resolution sensors and Bayer patterns.

I've used an HVR-A1 since they came out. While it's a great little camera, it did suffer from a lack of low-light sensitivity and color errors. Both of those are inherent in going to a single HD-sized sensor versus three similar sensors... it's 1/3 the light per image pixel, some softening of the image due to interpolation, and color errors along color boundaries.

Certainly sensors have been rapidly improving, so these new cameras should be better in low light than the A1 was, but I'd be surprised if it was all that dramatic. And the color issues, errors and softening, have been solved in consumer and DSLR cameras by pixel bucketing -- more sensor pixels than image pixel, so you don't interpolate across image pixel boundaries. All of the top consumer models have higher resolution sensors for this: Sony, Canon, JVC, even Sanyo (Panasonic uses 3-chips on their higher end consumer models).

It's hard to believe Canon doesn't know what they're doing here, but this is kind of a shock. 2-3Mpixel single sensor camcorders have been second tier consumer models for the last year or so.

Pricing
 

Just got the word from Canon........and these are LIST prices here in the US.

XF 100.................................$3300.00USD
XF 105.................................$4300.00USD


Jim Martin
FilmTools.com

Good to know, thanks Jim!

Bet that's going to pan out at:


XF 100.................................£3300.00 GBP
XF 105.................................£4300.00 GBP

..over here...

(long sigh)

Ouch! If it's at those UK prices the images will have to be absolutely stunning or I'm definitely walking away from this one. Much too high. A near mint used EX1 would be a better buy. We'll have to see what it actually goes for on the street once the buzz has died down a bit and the camera's true worth is established.

better to buy a sony nx5 at 3150 GBP

Perhaps I was just being pessimistic, but knowing how much we get ripped off in these islands, maybe not...

A quick Google reveals some different UK pricing:

Park Cameras: £9,999.00
3dbroadcastsales.com: £4112.50

I'm kind of hoping that both of them are wrong!

The more well-known dealers are simply listing "to be advised" or "call for pricing".

I got on BH this morning and saw it there too.

if they do like they did on the XF300, the XF100 will go for $2,999 a little bit after the official launch.

I wonder if Canon has a XF200 series in the works. I'd love to see a version with something like the Sony NX5u's attachable 128GB flash drive. That would really be awesome... Having the new codec and a large on camera, easily mountable, instant back up device.

But why would it need such a device? It already records a great codec to easily removeable CF cards. Just take 'em out and load 'em into a computer. What can be more convenient than that?

The reason the NX5s has an external drive is to bypass HDV tapes - and it still records the HDV codec. No need for that on the XF100. The less appendages hanging on a camera, the better, IMHO.

The Sony NX5 isn't HDV, it's AVCHD and doesn't use tape.

That is right, the NX6 is an AVCHD based camcorder and is the solid state variant of the Z5U.

There are 2 Sony Flash Units: The MRC1 which can be used with most HDV camcorders, and then the FMU128 which was specifically designed for the NX5. It mounts cleanly on the rear quarter of the camera and allows up to 11 hours of recording time.

My thought was, it would be great to see something like this from Canon at a reasonable price. The FMU is about $700, which is quite a bit cheaper than some of the other 3rd party solutions I've seen which run between $1000 and $1600... and aren't near as user friendly or asthetically pleasing for that matter. Mounting brackets etc...

For event videographers it would be a great option to have, to be able to record that awesome 50MBps codec onto a second device in real time.

The other advantage would be, if a card, or the card slot encounters a problem, you can still record directly to the Flash unit and by pass the card slots all together, thus potentially saving the day in a worst case scenario situation with cards or card slots failing during a live shoot.

Oops, my bad! I was thinking of the Sony Z5/Z7s when I wrote about the HDV codec.
Sorry!

The XF100/105 (like the XF300/305) not only has Relay Recording where when one card fills up then it continues recording to the second card it also has what Canon call Double Slot Recording (which the XF300/305 does not) where it records the same files to both cardssimultaneously thus providing an instant backup.

Proactive UK are now listing the models at £2295 and £2995, both plus VAT, for January delivery.

Creative video are listing the XF105 at £3250 plus vat but with a 20 December availability.

Just in time to put under the tree!


Mark

Thanks for those figures.
Don't forget that VAT is going up next year as well, so that would put the XF100 to about £2755.
Still very interested though - I'd like to see some more images from its single chip...

Yeah, so would I. Have n't found anything new since the French clips despite some occasional Google searching with 'XF100' and 'Video' keywords.

If people start taking delivery in the next week or so then we'll start to see some clips soon! Certainly, at those prices my decision to buy is definitely still "on hold" (even though I'd get the VAT back anyway so it's rate is irrelevant to VAT registered businesses like mine).

Note to Chris Hurd and the Mods: I guess as soon as cameras start getting used this discussion will get moved to the Canon XF 300/305 section - or will the XF100/105 have their own sub section?

Yes, it'll be one or the other; either we'll throw the 100 / 105 into the
existing XF board or we'll give it its own forum, and that will happen
when we get closer to the actual shipping date.

First French Review of the XF100
 

By the way, in case anyone has not seen this yet, here is the very recent (8th Dec) French review of the XF100 by the guy that did those clips, Antonin Baches.

test-canon-xf100-fonctionnalites-1

If you don't understand French well (I almost do having worked there many times - but it's a bit rusty) just use the Google Translation tool to instantly get a "90% readable" script in English/language of your choice - with a few funny ambiguous phrases of course!

Been following this thread for a while and became a member today.
I just found out that the "XF100 / XF105 NTSC instruction manual" can now be downloaded from Canon USA:

Canon U.S.A. : Consumer & Home Office : XF100

Welcome to DVinfo - you'll like it here! I had some very happy times working in your country (at Aarhus) a few years ago. Thanks for the link.

Thank you Andy and sorry for not introducing myself properly.

I’m a product designer with no experience in video, except for a few product animations.
I’m planing a 2-month trip to China and Japan next year.
Instead of making sketches and writing a diary I want to document it on video.
For that purpose I’m planing to get the XF100 and a lot of other stuff. Everything as light as possible.

Would this camera be useful for some green screen work, primarily for the web?

Blake,
According to Canon, the 4:2:2 color encoding makes these camcorders good for green screen work. However, some cameramen have speculated that the single sensor of only 1/3" size might make it difficult for the camcorder to differentiate colors well enough to take advantage of the 4:2:2 color encoding. We won't know for sure until some green screen tests are done and published. The product is expected to arrive on store shelves sometime in January. So maybe by the end of January we will have our answer!
Ken

For what it's worth, the Slashcam website has posted their review of the XF100, and they include measurements (graphs) of color resolution:

HD camcorder reviews/tests and comparison of Canon XF100 sorted by score

You can compare the XF100 with other camcorders by using the "One on One Cam Comparison" feature on this site.

Pat