XL HD lens 3.4mm - 20.4

[John Guthrie]

Today I just purchased this lens for my camera.

Does anyone have a copy of the instructions for this lens? Searching the net I can't find anything.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Regard's
John

[Mark Watson]

Hi John,

I have that lens. It came with a SD card with some firmware to update the XL-H1 camera so it works better with this 6X lens. Did you get the SD card as well?

The documentation that came with the lens is in paper form only, as far as I know, there is no digital version. I will scan it and see if I can get a good copy (English portion) to you.

Mark

[John Guthrie]

Hi Mark

Thanks for the reply, no I did not get a card with the lens, however I did sometime ago get the firmware update v1.7 from Canon which included the update for the 6x lens.

Regards
John

[Chris Hurd]

Howdy John,

That manual seems to be the one .PDF that I do not have. And you are right, it does not seem to be online anywhere. There are some folks at Canon USA that might be able to help, except we're on the eve of NAB right now and almost everybody from CUSA is in Las Vegas getting the booth ready for the show.

There's not a whole lot in that manual, though. Pete Bauer gives a description of it here:

"Mike is correct about the instructions; they're not really a "manual" but a large sheet with one column per language..." (more)


The main thing to be aware of is that MOD switch for minimum object distance, be sure it is set to your intended focus range. What's not in the manual is that this lens has a magic, undocumented feature: a built-in macro mode. Take off the lens hood, zoom out to full wide, check MOD switch setting and presto, it will focus practically on the front objective. You can hold a dollar bill up against the glass and it should focus.

Here's the press release for that lens:

Canon USA Press Release: 6X HD Zoom Lens for XL H1 Camcorder

I'll ask some Canon fellows at NAB next week if they can come up with the .PDF for it. Best regards,

[Mark Watson]

PDF upload failed so here it is in .png form.
The pages are weird sizes after trying to scan something like a folded roadmap, so before you print, make sure you enable scaling to your paper size.

Mark

[Chris Hurd]

Remind me to make a "Mark Watson Saves The Day!" award badge...

Thanks!

[John Guthrie]

Mark & Chris

Thank you both for your help, I'm looking forward to playing with the new lens.

Mark, I tried looking at the .png files you sent, but didn't have much success at viewing them. I tried using Acrobat XI but as soon as I enlarged the image to read it, it became too pixelated to be useable.

Then I tried Photoshop CC2017 but that was no better. Do you have any suggestions for viewing the files at a half decent size?

Regards
John

[Mark Watson]

John,

I just checked and they open large enough for me. You might be downloading the thumbnail instead of the full sized image. There's a huge difference in quality.

You need to double click on each image until you see the magnifying glass.
Click the "+" magnifying glass to enlarge the photo. Then right click and save that version of the image to your computer.

They are image files and should open in Microsoft Picture Viewer (or similar viewer) and be able to print in letter size.

Mark

[John Guthrie]

Hi Mark

If it were possible to give you a gold medal I would!

You were quite right, I downloaded the thumbnails and that was my problem. I never use .png files and couldn't work out what to do.

What a chump!

Thank you again for your help.

PS. I have just ordered a 82mm MCUV filter super slim for the lens was that the right choice?

John

[John Guthrie]

Hi All

Here is a pdf file I created from the .png files that Mark sent me.

Hope it may be of use to someone else.

John

[Mark Watson]

Glad to help John. Turned out to take a little more effort than expected but nothing a 6-pack of Mt Dew and a box of Hostess cupcakes couldn't handle.

I always liked using that particular lens on my XL-H1A. Any 82mm filter should work The 20x takes a 72mm.

Mark