December 16, 2023

XL-1: A Cameraman's Perspective
by Peter McLennan

I’m just back from my first look at the Canon XL-1 and here is a cameraman’s perspective.  I’m in love!

Let me preface this by saying that, despite taking a DV tape to the demo, I could not record pictures.  The camera displayed a flashing red image of a tape cassette in the viewfinder and refused to record on my tape or Canon’s tape, so my impressions are based on viewfinder information only.

Low light performance: remember, "All cameras look great in the sunshine".

Low light images look extraordinary.  The camera provides for at least 12db of gain, and I saw no gain-up noise in the viewfinder at all.  None.   If you couple good gain performance like this with low shutter speeds and the extra stop of sensitivity that Canon claims from pixel offset and you have one very good low light picture taker.  I shot (viewed) a very high contrast, low-light scene of a Christmas tree. It was covered with tiny bright sources and was located against a dark wood wall.  Photographic Hell.  I estimated there were 5 foot candles of ambient light on the tree.  Evergreen foliage is a well-known light sponge and tiny, bright sources and dark wood make for a very difficult subject indeed. The viewfinder image at 12db gain and 18^th shutter speed was stunning.  I could see much more through the camera than I could with the naked eye.  Always a good sign!

Lens: Manual zoom!  Thank you, Canon!  Some reservations, though.  Both the zoom and focus controls work like the VX-1000.  The rings turn continuously and seem to be connected to the zooming part of the lens by some kind of goo.   I found that if I zoomed quickly, the lens went rapidly from wide to telephoto over a short angular distance on the lens barrel.  If I zoomed slowly, it took a turn and a half to go from in to out.  Smooth stops and starts were fairly easy to do, but this vague control would take some getting used to.  Focus works the same way – it’s a little uncertain, but I’m sure it’s quite effective, given practice.   The power zoom servo was much better than the one on the VX-1000, but still a little short of real greatness. Again, smooth starts and stops were easy and very slow zooms were good.  With manual, at least we’re not at the total mercy of servo zoom.

16X (optical) zoom seems very capable and Canon claims 600 lines resolution. Unlike Sony, Canon is a lens manufacturer and it’s evident in the design of this lens.  It appeared sharp and contrasty in the finder.  I’d order the short (wide) three-to-one zoom that Canon is promising for next summer. Then you’d have a killer hand held camera.

Canon’s image stabilization is flat-out amazing.  I could hand-hold acceptably stable images when zoomed right out. No lag or other effects were apparent, although this is hard to judge without a tripod.  The optional shoulder pad/XLR interface/big battery holder should make this camera as easy to hand-hold as any Betacam-style camera.

Viewfinder.  In my opinion, a camera’s viewfinder is second in importance only to the camera’s imaging quality. The VF is the operator’s lifeline.  The XL1 has an excellent finder.  Bright, sharp, flexible, fully orientable and, I hope, accurate.  (There was no way to tell without viewing some recorded images.)  You can "zoom" the VF image smaller so you can use the finder at a distance.  This excellent, innovative design goes a long way toward mitigating the lack of an external LCD panel, whose functionality on other cameras is just plain magic.  The excellent sunshade mounted on the VF demonstrates canon’s dedication to good viewfinder performance.

Audio.  It sometimes hurts a cameraman to say it, but "Sound is just as important as picture".  Canon obviously thinks so, too.  Audio controls are well located and functional.  Backlit LCD level indicators are viewable while shooting, and it looks like you could ride gain while operating.  The built-in, stereo, "looks-like-a-shotgun" mic appears businesslike, seems well isolated from the body and is easy to replace if it doesn’t sound good.  I couldn’t test it without headphones.  There appears to be selectable audio recording abilities, including the two channel, 16bit 44 kHz standard, but again, no time or way to test this.

Power.  The onboard lithium ion batteries are about the same size as the ones on the VX-1000, but are much easier to change. There are no fiddley doors to open, and it uses a positive, easily accessible battery docking mechanism.  Same thing with tapes, by the way.  Very fast tape changes will be possible with this unit.  Slightly larger, optional batteries promise 90 minutes of recording time.   Yahoo!  The charger is small and an optional charger charges two batteries at once.  (Why is this an option, Canon?)  The optional shoulder pod should carry enough power for hours of operation and those batteries will double as a counterbalance for the camera.

Worries.  At the core of the camera, on the left side near the operator’s cheek, is a two inch diameter rotary switch.  It selects various modes of operation, including on/off, VCR mode, and various exposure modes.  It is a mechanical switch, much like the old tuner switches on TV’s.  If this complex multi-contact do-all switch fails, the camera would be unusable.  Big, complex mechanical switches always worry me.

Also, if the reason the demo unit refused to record was due to the absence of the clock battery as the salesman indicated, this battery is mission critical.  You’d have to carry a spare one of those everywhere.  Let’s hope that’s not why it wouldn’t record.

Some of the plastic doors (one covers the VCR controls, one controls the sound section) are a little flimsy and certainly not weatherproof.  Maybe Portabrace™ [camera bag manufacturer] can help us out here!

The camera is pretty weird to look at (it’s mostly viewfinder and lens) and this could be a problem in some situations. One of the hidden advantages of the "consumer looking" cameras is invisibility.  People ignore you.  With the Canon, this won’t be the case.  It draws attention.  As mentioned by others, Canon has accentuated this by painting parts of it red!  Photographers usually want camouflage, Canon, not advertising.

Loves.  This is an operator’s camera.  The location and action of the various switches and knobs are very well thought out.   "Clever", I kept saying to myself as I used the camera.   They’ve done a lot of research here.

In the viewfinder, the pictures look brilliant.  No aliasing, no noise, no apparent "enhancement", and colors look very pretty.  Only extended testing would reveal real color performance, but at first glance under difficult conditions, the images looked really fine.  I did see vertical smearing (small chips) and some lens flare on very hot sources.

With this camera, all the potential is there for drop dead media.  Canon’s second generation DV camera has definitely raised the performance bar to the "few compromises" level.  I can’t wait to get my hands on one and go shooting!

Disclaimer: Author's opinions are his own and do not in any way represent opinions of the editors.

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Last Updated November 06, 2023