Build your own gear!?
 

Hey guys, i tried posting this earlier but for some reason it never showed up on the forum. Anyways ive been looking for some accessories for my XL1 and found out that some of the stuff i need for good shoots is rediculously expensive (i.e. Matte Box, rail support system, follow focus setup etc) I am fairly mechanincally inclined and have friends in the machinist business so i would like to pursue building some of this stuff myself. I would like to know from the members of this board 2 things

1) what features would you add or have on some of these build your own accessories?

2) post or email any technical drawings, info, CAD files etc so that i can build these things

I will probably have a run of about 5 or 10 of each item made, because its cheaper in the long run, then i will sell them cheap, if they sell well, who knows, maybe ill have more made and sell them too for little or no profit, just to help the fellow filmmaker out, because 1000 bucks for a plastic mattebox setup is STUPID!

An XL1 in the Himalaya's
 

Hello Xl1ers,
I ahve been looking forward to a discussion room like this for a while. Ok i am off to film a documentary of a camel expedition from Leh
( Ladahk) to Pushkar in Rajasthan india. We are taking Two humped
(Bactrian) Camels to the one humped ( Dromedary) camel fair in Pushkar. I have filmed witht he canon in Pushkar last year and as you know the lens caught some beautiful light. www.camelodyssey.com is the website of the trip if you are interested. I have a few questions that i would love to have some answers for from people who have shot on the cheap in wild conditions.
i have notice there are people on here who shoot wildlife docos.

(1) has anyone shot with a canon xl1 in the himalaya's in ladahk? what should i take as precautions.
(2) what altitude can a canon xl1 handle, what pressure, does anything blow out?
(3) i have an insulated bag for storage of my gear at night so it remains a constant temp. outside shouldn't go below 0 C.
(4) anyone heard of canon bateries freezing?
(5) seeing we will be on the back of camels for 7 days at a time in between civilisations, recharging will be an issue. i come up with some solutions i was wondering if you have any more. We take some car batteries, i hook them up to my inverter and charge my canon batteries. I take a solar cell and it trickle feed the car batteries or we change them at each town along the way.
(6) Has anyone used a moter bike battery set up. where you have a motor bike battery ( 12 volts) on your body and you run it through a regulater down to 7.5 volts and run it straight into your camera? does anyone know of a device to do this. I have a regulater but have to do some tricky wiring. wilol the camera by fine on 7.5 volts even thought the batteries are 7.2?

please if you have any ideas on this subject to help me out i would be more than appreciative. this is going to be a big trip and shot on the fly and i want to make sure i get it without killing my gear.
cheers

Hey
You may be interested in reading the following thread which is about me shooting in the arctic with an XL1 and XL2:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...ghlight=arctic

It might answer a few of your questions as to operation of the camera in the cold. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me (but place them in the other thread, please).

All of the things you have mentioned have been homebuilt in the past. See the
following book (the author also frequents these boards):

http://www.dvcamerarigs.com/

There are also sites like:

http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/

Which have forums on a variaty of homebuilt equipment.

Good luck!

35 mm Lens for xl1s
 

hai...i'm new member and 1 have 2 unit xl1s for wedding and company profile production. And now we want to expand our product to new indie film. Then we have a problem for buying or forum or organization for dv in my country (indonesia). oh ya...how can i see used or new item for 35 mm lens with that mounting adaptor? thx guy for the help

Jumping frames and blocks in the frames
 

On my Canon XL1 I have this problem when I play back a tape...but I don't have it when I play these tapes on another XL1 or any other kind of camera...

At the end of the tape (lets say the last 5-10 min) I always get jumping frames, blocks in the frame and creeping sound.
Jumping frames : the bottom 1/3 part of the frames comes on top of the frame. So it sames that the frames scrols up 1/3
Blocks in the frame : The frames shows square block
Creeping sound : sometimes no sound at all, and sometimes noise

The XL1 has had a cleaning tape, it has been to the repearshop in the Netherlands (etbass.nl Canon repair shop).

But I still have the problem...
Any ideas...

Hi Ferry;
Take a look at my website for the various lenses and mounts. You can purchase 35mm still camera lens adapters from ZGC. They also have a system available for the 35mm film type lenses. chris@zgc.com
Best;
Ron

XL 1 VS. XL 1-S advice needed
 

hello
everyone on here seems to be very knowlegable with there cameras...
im wanting to buy a second hand XL1 or XL 1-S system and after reading for the past 4 days about both of them im left a little confused...

can some one please help out with...

why go with XL1 or XL1 -S are there reasons to get one or the other... any advice would be much apreachiated. it seems you can buy both at more or less the same price and i just would like to know a little more before i buy one and then wish i had gotten the other...

long and short of it if you were me looking to buy an XL set up would you buy XL1 or XL1 -S ?

thank you for any help...

XL1 Broadcast Lens - DOF? ND Filter?
 

I'm currently building a micro35 adapter, but I'm not sure I'll have enough time to finish it before I start shooting a music video. I have the possibility to rent the broadcast lens for the XL1 and was told that this has a very good DOF already. It won't be 35mm like, but you can do some nice shoots already. So here are a couple of questions:

* Did any of you use the broadcast lens already? How is the DOF?
* What if I slap on another ND Filter, that will improve the blurriness of the backgrounds already
* Why can't I just put on one of the EF Lenses of out photo kit? We have a couple of lenses that would just be perfect. They work great with the Canon Rebel, so what prevents us to do the same with the XL1?

The questions I ask are because I don't own an XL1 ...

Thanks in advance for the help!

-- Frank

Broadcast lens? You mean the manual lens? The DOF on any 1/3" camera is limited but you can achieve nice results with some skill. You need to shoot longer, and avoid wider shots, also keep the iris open and use ND filters to control the light.

With a micro 35 adapter you will be adding a 7X magnification to any 35mm lens, just a matter of physics. This is only good for wildlife, sports, etc, where you are VERY far away from your subject.



ash =o)

"With a micro 35 adapter you will be adding a 7X magnification to any 35mm lens, just a matter of physics. This is only good for wildlife, sports, etc, where you are VERY far away from your subject."

You are talking about the adapter canon sells, right? Or really about the RedRock Micro35 DIY Adapter?

Thanks for the info so far!

-- Frank

Hi Erwin,

It may be wise to send the camera to Canon themselves (I have no real idea
how to do this here in NL since I never had to do that myself). That being
said, a couple of questions:

1. are you perhaps recording in LP mode?

2. what tape brand are you using? You may want to try some different brands (do USE a tape CLEANER before switching to the new brand [and if you switch back as well]!!!!)

3. are you seeing this effect on both a TV and when you capture to a computer?

It sounds like something is not 100% okay inside your tape mechanism.

Good luck!

Personally I would go for the XL1S. It has a couple of extra or different things
that can help greatly. Like you can instruct it not to turn of the camera after
not using it for a couple of minutes (on the XL1S it will just disconnect the tape
transport which is no problem). One thing I really found handy was the variable
zebra stripes.

For all the extra/changed features on the XL1S take a look at the following page:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/xl1s-skinny.php (clickable)

for all the reasons rob mentioned, plus it's greatly enhanced low-light performance (this actually blew me away when i first got the camera), and increased image control (sharpness, black level, etc.). check this article out:

http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/xl1s-skinny.php

i still love the images from the xl-1, and it's a flat-out bargain right now, but if you can find an xl-1s at a good price (i think there's one in the classifieds section now), i'd definitely go with the xl-1s.

Canon Belgium doesn't do repairs themself. They send it to the Nederlands
No only in SP.
Sony and TDK tapes. Just the cheap one. But after the cleaning, I'm now using the Panasonic Pro tapes, and they are better.
Both on TV, camera and when I capture it on computer.

But when I play the tapes on an other XL1, the tapes are fine ??!!