disjecta
Lucky Duck
After shooting with an XLH1 for about nine months, I decided to sell it and buy an XHA1 instead. I can’t say I loved the attention I got when I went out with the XLH1. I spent a lot of time smiling and waving at people as they exclaimed “Wow, that’s a serious camera you’ve got there…” Also, the less “official” I look, the easier it is to shoot in a much broader variety of places. On top of all of that, the weight of the camera and the necessity of disassembling it when flying was all just a little too much. Selling it allowed me to get a camera much more akin to my beloved DVX100 and put some money back in the bank to boot.
When my camera arrived, the first thing I noticed was that it was small. It’s much smaller than I expected, in fact. I think it was partly due to my familiarity with the XLH1. In my mind, I was still expecting it to be in that size range. Now what I was looking at as I took it out of the box was more like a toy by comparison.
The next thing that surprised me was the weight of the camera. It was a little heavier than I expected and it also felt very solid. This pleased me greatly because it is pretty robust and that’s critical for me given I am out in the field quite a bit.
It felt well balanced although maybe a tad front heavy. I was able to quickly get up and running with all the controls because they were similarly placed to the XLH1. I was disappointed that I could not enable or disable the OIS from a button but had to go into a menu to change it. I switch the OIS on and off quite a bit so that was a significant loss. Also, I was not completely happy about having to search through the menu again to change the gain from 0 to -3 (which I do frequently). On the XLH1, that was also easy to change independent of the menu.
The instant focusing ability of the A1 is nothing short of spectacular. I never much used auto focus on the XLH1 but I am using it quite a bit on the A1. Mostly I set focus to manual and press the focus button for quick checks.
Having color bars so easily available is really nice. It’s one of those things that is very subtle but ends up being a great convenience.
The LCD, like the XLH1 is much brighter than what is being recorded to tape and can be deceiving. I always use zebra stripes as an exposure aid but sometimes can still be fooled by the LCD display, leaving me with underexposed and noisy footage. This is just something I need to watch out for. I haven’t tried playing with the brightness of the LCD although the brightness is an advantage on sunny days.
One thing that I find really annoying is when I have the camera slung over my shoulder using the strap. The white balance switch keeps getting moved and 75% of the time I have to switch it back to where it was.
The battery compartment, although a little odd compared to what I’m used to, doesn’t bother me at all. My 970’s fit in there and slip out without a problem.
Having an iris ring is such a thrill after the little thumbwheel of the XLH1 and it is surprisingly responsive and totally useable even when recording if I want to make a subtle adjustment. I got used to the position and feel of the focus, zoom and iris ring straight away so the whole design feels very intuitive to me.
The position preset focus/zoom switches occupy a huge amount of prime real estate on the camera and it seems such a novelty function to me. I’m a little confused as to why Canon didn’t use this space for at least an OIS button instead, something I would use a hundred times more.
Without going into every physical attribute of the camera let me just say that I find the entire design very logical. Even hunting around for something I hadn’t yet used on the camera while recording, I was able to put my finger right on what I needed.
Even though Canon basically said that the XHA1 and the XLH1 would record the same quality picture, I was a little nervous that there would be something different. I spent some time working on getting the picture from the H1 just perfect to where I loved the colors, etc. I was relieved and thrilled to see that the picture quality matched and I was still able to produce quality footage in a smaller and lighter package. The noise level is significantly lower than what I experienced on my DVX. In fact, the noise the XHA1 produces is much more like fine film grain than the dancing digital dots I’ve seen on some HVX and DVX footage in low light.
All in all I would say that this is the best camera I have ever used. It is absolutely ideal for my shooting style which is usually out in the elements shooting nature footage. The form factor is right as is the weight and positioning of all of the controls. As mentioned earlier, I would like an OIS switch and the sensitivity of the white balance switch is a minor annoyance.
Canon has done a spectacular job squeezing such a great HD image onto a miniDV tape. I have noticed some occasional macroblocking in high motion scenes but it’s really very minor and not something I am worried about at all. It’s the kind of thing that is only visible through close inspection of still frames, not while watching the footage, even on a 50” plasma.
Do I miss my XLH1? Hell no.
When my camera arrived, the first thing I noticed was that it was small. It’s much smaller than I expected, in fact. I think it was partly due to my familiarity with the XLH1. In my mind, I was still expecting it to be in that size range. Now what I was looking at as I took it out of the box was more like a toy by comparison.
The next thing that surprised me was the weight of the camera. It was a little heavier than I expected and it also felt very solid. This pleased me greatly because it is pretty robust and that’s critical for me given I am out in the field quite a bit.
It felt well balanced although maybe a tad front heavy. I was able to quickly get up and running with all the controls because they were similarly placed to the XLH1. I was disappointed that I could not enable or disable the OIS from a button but had to go into a menu to change it. I switch the OIS on and off quite a bit so that was a significant loss. Also, I was not completely happy about having to search through the menu again to change the gain from 0 to -3 (which I do frequently). On the XLH1, that was also easy to change independent of the menu.
The instant focusing ability of the A1 is nothing short of spectacular. I never much used auto focus on the XLH1 but I am using it quite a bit on the A1. Mostly I set focus to manual and press the focus button for quick checks.
Having color bars so easily available is really nice. It’s one of those things that is very subtle but ends up being a great convenience.
The LCD, like the XLH1 is much brighter than what is being recorded to tape and can be deceiving. I always use zebra stripes as an exposure aid but sometimes can still be fooled by the LCD display, leaving me with underexposed and noisy footage. This is just something I need to watch out for. I haven’t tried playing with the brightness of the LCD although the brightness is an advantage on sunny days.
One thing that I find really annoying is when I have the camera slung over my shoulder using the strap. The white balance switch keeps getting moved and 75% of the time I have to switch it back to where it was.
The battery compartment, although a little odd compared to what I’m used to, doesn’t bother me at all. My 970’s fit in there and slip out without a problem.
Having an iris ring is such a thrill after the little thumbwheel of the XLH1 and it is surprisingly responsive and totally useable even when recording if I want to make a subtle adjustment. I got used to the position and feel of the focus, zoom and iris ring straight away so the whole design feels very intuitive to me.
The position preset focus/zoom switches occupy a huge amount of prime real estate on the camera and it seems such a novelty function to me. I’m a little confused as to why Canon didn’t use this space for at least an OIS button instead, something I would use a hundred times more.
Without going into every physical attribute of the camera let me just say that I find the entire design very logical. Even hunting around for something I hadn’t yet used on the camera while recording, I was able to put my finger right on what I needed.
Even though Canon basically said that the XHA1 and the XLH1 would record the same quality picture, I was a little nervous that there would be something different. I spent some time working on getting the picture from the H1 just perfect to where I loved the colors, etc. I was relieved and thrilled to see that the picture quality matched and I was still able to produce quality footage in a smaller and lighter package. The noise level is significantly lower than what I experienced on my DVX. In fact, the noise the XHA1 produces is much more like fine film grain than the dancing digital dots I’ve seen on some HVX and DVX footage in low light.
All in all I would say that this is the best camera I have ever used. It is absolutely ideal for my shooting style which is usually out in the elements shooting nature footage. The form factor is right as is the weight and positioning of all of the controls. As mentioned earlier, I would like an OIS switch and the sensitivity of the white balance switch is a minor annoyance.
Canon has done a spectacular job squeezing such a great HD image onto a miniDV tape. I have noticed some occasional macroblocking in high motion scenes but it’s really very minor and not something I am worried about at all. It’s the kind of thing that is only visible through close inspection of still frames, not while watching the footage, even on a 50” plasma.
Do I miss my XLH1? Hell no.
