New Canon XA25, XA20 and HF G30 camcorders

[Zach Love]

I think the prices are wrong on the DVInfo
Canon USA Introduces XA25 and XA20 Professional HD Camcorders at DV Info Net

$3,199 - XA25
$2,699 - XA20

According to these links
Canon U.S.A. : Consumer & Home Office : XA20
Canon U.S.A. : Consumer & Home Office : Professional Camcorders

It is:
$2,699 - XA25
$2,199 - XA20

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For reference, the XA10 was originally priced at $1,999 when announced & currently sells for $1,699. So I'm guessing we'd see street prices of around $2,399 & $1,899 for the XA25 & XA20 respectively.

Jeff Harper, I totally agree with you about the white balance toggle. The JVC HM150 (which is selling for $1,999 currently) is my personal favorite in UI & layout for a baby camera, wish others would copy it. But then again, the JVC doesn't have a consumer cousin of the HM150 that it has to design for too.

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I do want to take special note that I really like that the lens hood has built in flip down cover. All camera manufactures, please keep doing this for any / all of your cameras.

[Chris Hurd]

Thanks Zach. I published the press release the way I received it but I'll make the corrections. Looks like they changed their minds about pricing pretty quickly!

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks Zach, great information, glad you shared it with us. Seems obvious the mistakes were typos, no doubt.

Well, let's see, at $2199 the camera is much more appealing. Despite the lack of WB switch or toggle, a 20X zoom at this price is pretty great, and a larger than 1/3" sensor is not too shabby either.

[Michael Galvan]

Every component on these cams are an update, from the lens to sensor to Digic DSP to recording formats.

I'm curious to see the overall performance, but they all look to be quite nice. It's too bad the HD-SDI on the XA25 is only 4:2:0 though... seems as Canon's way to protect the XF cams.

[Allan Black]

With approx $40 billion in global revenue it's about time. Maybe it doesn't need external WB control.

The Tascam DR60 might make a nice addition ..

Tascam DR-60D on Vimeo

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

Looks like they changed their minds about pricing pretty quickly!

Yep signs of late nights and confusion in marketing lol.

Cheers.

[Zach Love]

Thanks for updating the release Chris. My guess is someone at Canon mistyped a 3 instead of a 2 & then swapped the prices. Because why would the XA20 cost more than the XA25?

Or maybe they already knocked $500 off the price. But while the XA25 looks nice, I don't see it costing more than a XF300, so my guess is an honest mistake.

Jeff, I'd say don't get too attached to a "larger than 1/3" chip." I might be wrong, but the JVC HM70 is advertised with a 1/2.3" chip, but by my math it only uses about the area of a 1/3.2"-ish chip (through a combo of cropping the chip & downsampling the higher res to HD res).

Native 1080 is 2.07megapixels, the XA20 is 2.9megapixels. So is it downsampling the resolution to HD? Or cropping the image to HD?

There is a blip about the FOV being different when IS is on / off. Which might mean when you have IS on, the camera is cropping the chip to 1920x1080 & then moving around the chip to keep the image steady. And then when you turn off IS, the camera uses the entire chip & downsampels to HD.

This is of course just my speculation from the specifications listed so far.

[Michael Galvan]

It seems your reasoning Zach is probably correct.

Canon mentions that the new imaging system uses Electronic Stabilization at the sensor level in combination with the Dynamic Optical Image Stabilization on the lens to compensate for movements in a wide range of directions.

Canon Professional Network - HD video camera duo feature all-new imaging system

[Petter Flink]

What would the reason be to add SDI but yet lack so many other manual switches like WB?
Small studio camera with fixed lighting?

[Steve Struthers]

Oh, man. What a game-changer this is. Who would ever have guessed that Canon would have included an HD-SDI output on what looks like a souped-up XA10? At the price the XA25 is going to sell for, this is unprecedented.

I had a Canon XA10 and sold it. I liked the camera overall, but there were some things I wasn't so keen about. I've got small hands, and the way the XA10 body was sculpted, it never fit well - it always felt too thick. I also found it a bit front-heavy due to the XLR attachment, and this, along with the shape of the body, made the camera hard to hold comfortably for any appreciable length of time.

I'm hoping that the XA25 addresses that problem since the body appears to have been resculpted a bit to accommodate a proper zoom rocker (I've never been a fan of the zoom toggle mounted on the top of the XA10).

The touch-screen interface and the UI on the XA10 was also something I didn't like. I found it a bit fiddly, and it seemed oriented towards non-professional (i.e. consumer) users. I hope that Canon have tweaked it so it looks and functions more like the UI found on the XF100.

There are a couple of things that I immediately find a bit disappointing with the design of the XA25. For starters, it would have been nice to see a rotating viewfinder like the ones seen on JVC's HM100/150 series cameras, Panasonic's AG-AC90, and Sony's NX70. It would also have been nice to see at least two manual control buttons - one for iris, gain, and shutter, and the other to toggle focus/zoom.

On the other hand, the 20x zoom is very welcome, and puts the XA25 well ahead of any other camcorder in its size and price class. So is the larger, longer-lasting battery. As for the inclusion of a proper rocker-type zoom control, well, all I can say is, 'it's about time they included one.' I hope that Canon also saw fit to include touch-screen accessible rack focus and focus selection points.

Builti-in Wi-Fi and a bigger image sensor make the package even more compelling. To my eyes, the XA25 has the potential to beat the Panasonic AC90 and JVCs HM150 on image quality alone because it has a bigger sensor, even if it has only one. And the price is right.

Plus I have always liked the colour gamut that Canon cameras have produced - some people say it's a bit orangy-red, but I find it pleasing and very natural-looking - almost exactly like what my eyes see in everyday life.

And hey, if nothing else, the new lens hood looks really cool. I always thought the original lens hood for the XA10 looked sort of fruity anyway.

Canon should do very well with the XA25 and its new siblings.

[Allan Black]

Originally Posted by Zach Love

My guess is someone at Canon mistyped a 3 instead of a 2 & then swapped the prices. Because why would the XA20 cost more than the XA25?

Or maybe they already knocked $500 off the price. But while the XA25 looks nice, I don't see it costing more than a XF300, so my guess is an honest mistake.

Or maybe the guy in marketing who was supposed to check it, went home to pack for NAB :)

Happens all over .. Macy's accidentally sells $1500 necklace for $47 Metro.us

Unfortunately we're not so lucky, imagine if.

Cheers.

[Thomas Smet]

If that lens is 20x at a constant f1.8 like the press release says I will wet myself. That is typically a pretty rare thing to have a constant f stop rating on a video camera zoom lens. They typically lose a stop when zoomed in. The 20x is impressive enough but if it really is at f1.8 that is insane.

After shooting with DSLR's for awhile now I can almost say I don't really need SDI or XLR so I may actually prefer the consumer model. Considering getting this camera to stop wasting money trying to find there fact DSLR zoom lens for live shooting.

[Thomas Smet]

Originally Posted by Michael Galvan

Every component on these cams are an update, from the lens to sensor to Digic DSP to recording formats.

I'm curious to see the overall performance, but they all look to be quite nice. It's too bad the HD-SDI on the XA25 is only 4:2:0 though... seems as Canon's way to protect the XF cams.

Where the heck did you read this? Companies hardly ever mention what the HDMI or SDI puts out.

[Glen Vandermolen]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

Where the heck did you read this? Companies hardly ever mention what the HDMI or SDI puts out.

It's in this description:

Amazon.com: Canon XA25 Professional Camcorder: Camera & Photo

 

Amazon.com: Canon XA25 Professional Camcorder: Camera & Photo

Scroll down to where it talks about the HD/SDI. It is odd, 4:2:0 out of an SDI. An error, maybe?

[Petter Flink]

Originally Posted by Thomas Smet

If that lens is 20x at a constant f1.8 like the press release says I will wet myself. That is typically a pretty rare thing to have a constant f stop rating on a video camera zoom lens. They typically lose a stop when zoomed in. The 20x is impressive enough but if it really is at f1.8 that is insane.

After shooting with DSLR's for awhile now I can almost say I don't really need SDI or XLR so I may actually prefer the consumer model. Considering getting this camera to stop wasting money trying to find there fact DSLR zoom lens for live shooting.

Canon U.S.A. : Professional Imaging Products : XA25

Canon site states:
1.8-2.8 for max f/stop so it's probably not that insane.

And on the HD-SDI it says:
HD/SD-SDI output provides an uncompressed signal at 1920x1080 resolution with 4:2:0 color sampling and embedded audio and time code.

HD-SDI
Video Standard: SMPTE 292M (1080i / 720p)
Embedded Audio Standard: SMPTE 299M
Time code Standard: SMPTE 12M

SD-SDI
Video Standard: SMPTE 259M (480i)
Embedded Audio Standard: SMPTE 272M
Time code Standard: SMPTE 12M

[Steve Struthers]

That would be something, wouldn't it? A 20x lens with a f1.8 constant aperture? Even with still camera zoom lenses, it's hard to achieve constant apertures of 2.8 or greater and keep the price and size reasonable.
What I find impressive is how wide the lens is: 26.8mm, which is pretty good for a lower-end prosumer/pro camera.

I wonder if the eight-blade iris has anything to do with it?

In any case, I get the impression that with the relatively large sensor, the new DIGIC 4 processing engine and eight-bladed iris, the XA20/25 should produce some pretty good images. I can't wait to see some test footage.