New XL H1S and H1A -- questions and answers.

[Chris Hurd]

Expanded zoom speed range -- fastest snap is 1.2 sec -- slowest crawl is five minutes -- end to end throughout entire focal length.

[Jonathan Shaw]

http://www.usa.canon.com/templatedat...0410_xlh1.html

Announced at NAB, above is the press release.

Jon

Bugger got excited just saw the other thread....

Apologies

[Steve Sobodos]

I love the new ability to adjust gain in .5 dB increments between 0-18 dB. Wish I had it on my A1.

[Lou Bruno]

Maybe I am wrong....sounds like a XH-A1 in a shoulder mount and a XH G1 as well for the second introduction albeit interchangeable lens capability.

[Kevin Martorana]

I agree with many of you....this is just an upgrade...not a new camera.

Interesting if you can just buy the body....or just buy the new lens.

I'm not familiar with Canon enough...but I'll be amazing if they show a NEW HD camera...with tapeless recording.

Two days and counting !

[Kevin Martorana]

Apologies to my last post....it was answered in the Watchdog link.

Can't buy the lens or body by themselves.

Well...kinda of stinks. You can buy the 6x...but not the new 20x. :(

[Bill Pryor]

I think it's great marketing strategy. A nice upgrade, as they did with the XL1 to XL1s, and just as Sony does with their 2/3" chip cameras with the "A" models. There's nothing here that makes your XL H1 obsolete, but if a person is going to buy a new one, it's got some desireable improvements. The product is evolving as it should.

Also, from a marketing strategy, lots of people who like the XL form but are put off by the cost can now talk themselves into spending $6K to get it. And, it gets Canon more competitive with Sony's Z7, which is the same price and has interchangeable lenses.

It's not the same price (or in the same category) as the EX1 when you consider the cost of recording media, not to mention the time it takes for all the data management you have to do when going tapeless. In my case, I have to have some safe means of storage for everything I shoot. That would mean loading all the EX footage, then, using the $2500 XDCAM disc burner, making discs of everything so I could store them...as I do tapes. In my case it's not the cost of going tapeless and buying some device for archiving so much as it is the time and hassle of having to load footage and then output it to something as safe as tape. If I go out of town for a week's shoot, I may use 20 or more hour tapes. That's a lot of SXS cards, or a lot of hours in a motel room, plus taking a laptop and an XDCAM disc burner or backup drives, dealing with all that footage, loading it then making back up copies. After a long day shoot on the road, I don't want to work half the night.

I'm not knocking tapeless, but it's not for everybody and won't be for me until I can shoot an hour on some device and stick it in a box on a shelf as I do with tapes and not have to delete the files and reuse the media. For people who want to go tapeless, there is the EX. If Canon wanted to design and manufacture a 1/2" chip tapeless camera, that would be a whole new system and have nothing to do with the XL series. I'm glad the XL series is evolving in a logical fashion. Maybe in another year or so they'll evolve the XH series and give lucky new purchasers the ability to turn on and off the OIS without having to go into the menu.

[Marty Hudzik]

I am completely happy with the new model.....primarily because it doesn't add anything significant to make me want to sell my H1 and buy it! Seriously I have a problem with new equipment and had the H1s been something revolutionary I'd have to have it! Not logically...the compulsive side of me.

I evaluated the features and realized that for the most part, everything is enhanced usability. At the end of the day, the camera head is going to put out the same image quality as the H1/A1/G1. Sure there a few new tweaks but the image will be about the same. I realize the gain +/- .5 degree increments could be helpful....but realistically I always shoot at 0 or -3 unless I am in dire straights.

As I said in an earlier thread....this just reinforces my investment in the H1...better chance of new accessires now.

Peace.

[Brent Ethington]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Incorrect. Their D-SLRs use Digic III. That's a photo DSP. Digic DV II is a video DSP.

Chris - thanks for correcting - I hadn't noticed that they were differentiating with 'DV'

[Bill Busby]

Originally Posted by Daniel Browning

Looks like we got some of our firmware wishes granted.

That's what I was thinking. It's as if when they got wind of them, and then many of those wishes were just put into a new product instead of granting us the firmware upgrades that are... at the very least... possible to do.

Not a happy camper :-\ A real disappointment, in my opinion.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Originally Posted by Jack Felis

Okay... Canon's HD cameras are great cameras. They do 1080p and they have 24p/30p modes on top of having some of the best 60i around. But, things are changing now in the industry. We have a 4K camera system which can be had for nearly twice the price of the XLH1S, there is a $6,000 handycam camera that has, arguably, the best 1080p resolution images, the Sony EX1, Panasonic has just greatly lowered the price of the 2/3" HPX500 P2 broadcast camera and added a $2,000 rebate on top of that, thus making for about an $8,000 2/3" camera, and NAB is just a few days away with potentially even more announcements, particularly with tapeless and, perhaps, 2K options *cough*Scarlet*cough*. All Canon has done with the XLH1S and XLH1A is basically sat on their hands.

Neither option makes much sense, the XHG1, for quality sakes, can be had for about the same price as the XLH1A and offer the same image quality with uncompressed HD-SDI output in a smaller body. The XLH1S doesn't offer much more over the XLH1, other than the refined lens.

The only way you could make either camera make sense is with tapeless recording but even that isn't an option. They could have simply added a tapeless option along with HDV like Sony has done with the Z7U or, if they really had to do it at the last minute, add an AVCHD recording mode to SD cards like the HF10 and HF100 have. But no, Canon didn't do either of those things. If you went with a third party solution, like the Convergent Designs CF recorder, you're adding $5,000 on top of the $9,000 XLH1S, which equals $14,000, just a few thousand shy of RED territory.

Don't get me wrong, the XLH1S and XLH1A aren't bad cameras but then again they're not good enough either compared to the competition. At the end of the day, the competition just has more flexible options. Hopefully Canon has other announcements at NAB.

For me, there is not much more to add than this.
I think it's clear that in the light of the other companies evolving very quickly to higher features, Canon is a bit behind now...

[Floris van Eck]

Behind, yes.

But they still have the best HDV quality of all companies. And that has not changed. Not for the old XL-H1, XH-A1, XH-G1 and these new camcorders. Canon has a three year product release cycle and the XL-H1 has only been out there for two years. So I am confident we can expect an XL-H1 successor somewhere in 2009. And believe me, it will be much improved. They might even manage to pull a trick to use their DSLR photo lenses.

Everyone is calling for CMOS, tapeless and 1/2" chips but all these things need to be developed further. CMOS is not perfect yet and has some shortcomings, 1/2" is possible but requires (I suppose) other lenses. Is this desirable? And for tapeless -- that is just getting started and also needs development. SxS and P2 cards are very expensive. I hope that Canon goes Compact Flash card as those are very cheap, well made and are successfully used in photography for many years by professionals. The Convergent Design XDR flash recorder also uses normal CompactFlash cards.

I hope Canon or another company will shortly come with a Compact Flash recorder for under $2,000 and so we will have both tape and tapeless in one camera for a reasonable price. The best of both worlds. I shoot documentary and also events and for that purpose, tapeless is not suited. Unless you buy for like $5,000 in SxS or P2 cards. I can wait a while.

I think people are always looking for the next big thing but in the meantime we should enjoy the gear that we already have. The XL-H1 has shortcomings but is very nice camera with very good image quality. Most people deliver things in SD or on the web and people will hardly notice if it was shot on an EX-1 or XL-H1. I myself can also be blamed for this.

I think my next camera will be a 2/3" camera because they have good ergonomics and there is plenty of choice. Also, the investment in lenses is heavy but you can use them much longer and on multiple cameras. But for now, I have decided to enjoy my XL-H1 for all its goodness.

[Lonnie Bell]

Is the new manual lens still the free spinning type? I didn't see the words "repeatable focus" or "focus marks", and the lens barrel looks like the former model - no markings - nada...

I hope I just missed it in the techno speak and it is a real lens like the EX1!

Lonnie

[Marty Hudzik]

Originally Posted by Lonnie Bell

I hope I just missed it in the techno speak and it is a real lens like the EX1!

Lonnie

Don't think so. It may be an improvement over the XLh1 lens but it is still the same servo design. If there is any hope for it, it is the fact that you can supposedly customize the response time when you spin it. So you might be able to make it a little quicker or a little slower depending on your tastes.....but I don't think you will be able to make it have hard stops.

[Mike Quinones]

Not trying to change the subjet, but what would you guys think if Canon would do something like Sony has done with the HVR-Z7U, and pair it with a memory card recorder like the HVR-MRC1. I would be lining up for one in a second.