Hello all,
This is my first post here, so please forgive any blatant missteps and the length of this post. I see so many people wondering - gee has anyone used them side by side - anything I should know. I will pass along what little knowledge I have gathered so far with the XL2 and the DVX.
My observances are just that, they aren't scientific, just my subjective feelings of actually looking at the picture and not the specs. Now, before everyone blows a testicle and dumps all over me, I'd like people to know I am just passing along my singular opinion, and do not claim that one camera is better than the other. I think after the amount of time I spent looking at these two cameras, that "better" is a waste of time. They are different yes. Better? No.
I own an XL2, and have a DVX rented to see the differences for myself. I have no prejudices or particular allegiances to one or the other. Coming from a film background, the first thing I would like to address is that neither of these cameras is even remotely close to comparing to 35mm. Not even close...so we should leave that very unfair and unrealistic comparison at the door. I have worked extensively with the Sony F900 and the Panasonic Varicam, and even those aren't film. They are both amazing, but they ain't film. That being said, they are video cameras, and so as such they have many strengths and weakness in common. One of my primary beefs with both the DVX and XL2 cameras is aliasing. I find that the base camera setting on both to give brutal levels of aliasing, but with a bit of tweaking this can be managed. Even film transfered to video shows aliasing (particular offenders are car commercials if you want to see this in action). Until we all have progressive scan LCD or Plasma monitors, that is the joy of interlacing. With both cameras - dial down the vertical detail, the coring, the general detail level to get rid of most of the problem. Try to kill the rest in post with selective antialiasing.
My observances are - the stock lens on the DVX is nicer to use. The manual zoom is more predictable, more repeatable. The focus is okay but both the DVX and the XL2 are a bit fussy to focus using the tiny little LCD monitors. I was viewing both on a 19-inch high res 16:9/4:3 production monitor with the S-Video out. Even with a large monitor like this the focus is fussy. The DVX focus was slightly less temperamental. I would think a fully manual lens would be the best option - Image stabilization or not. The servo lens on the XL2 takes some getting used to, and let's all face it, servo lenses are a pain in the butt.
The DVX pop out LCD monitor is handy at times, and can make focusing a bit easier depending on situation. The DVX size is less cumbersome and I felt like I could position in nicely down at my waist, over my head - all sorts of things. The XL2 is kind of a pain to do this with. The wide angle lens on the DVX is nice, but it would be nice if the telephoto end were just a bit longer. This of course depends heavily on what you need it for. The iris control is also better on the DVX. The stepped iris wheel on the XL2 is annoying. No person can really defend this honestly. A stepped iris is not as flexible as a wheel iris - BUT - depends on how often you are changing the iris during a shot. If you do it constantly, the DVX is certainly easier and better.
I am not too concerned with which camera has a more red or green color cast, warm or cool, rich blacks, etc. etc. as I like to think of the video as a film negative. Get as much information on the tape as possible and tweak it in post - a crushed black is gone forever, as is a clipped white. You can always crush a black in post with more control. Same goes for highlights. Easier to add contrast that remove it. This is even a major drawback on the F900 or Varicam. The latitude of film is much better than video, even very expensive video. The HDCAM SR format helps just a wink. I think the XL2 has slightly better latitude than the DVX after all the tweaking was done, but not by a staggering amount. Try with both to get as much highlight retention as possible using the knee, gamma, and curves.
Viewing both in 16:9 mode on a Sony production monitor, I found that generally, the DVX in 16:9 stretch mode (not cropped) was the best - the least amount of aliasing and good detail. The next best (and I mean a virtually dead heat) was the XL2 in 16:9. There was slightly more detail overall, so there were a few more aliasing artifacts but they may be able to be cleaned up in post. I think that the DVX had slighly more control over the vertical detail - in a -7 to +7 rather than just high, medium, low on the Canon. The only bummer about the DVX is the faux 16:9. However - if you are only on TV, and not planning a film blowup, and want to work exclusively in 16:9 and never need a 4:3 extracted from that image, the DVX is the narrow margin winner from an aliasing point of view. I guess you could use an anamorphic adapter, but that introduces other issues. Unfortunately this is where things started to turn against the DVX in my tests. The 4:3 and cropped 16:9 were both weaker than the 16:9 and 4:3 performance on the XL2 by quite a bit in both 24p and 60i. In 4:3, the DVX aliasing became really problematic for me.
Nice things about the XL2? The 16:9 chips do seem to help a bit. The flexibility of changing the color LCD to the BW high res. Good image stabilization. Pretty good "tweakability", if that is a word. The fact that the lens can be taken off - but this is moot depending on whether you'll ever really want to do this. For using with the mini-35, this is a nice feature. To replace the servo lens with a full manual lens this is nice. To use the 3X lens? HERE IS WHERE THINGS GO TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY WRONG for Canon. (In my case) I ordered the 3X lens as the wide on the stock lens is not great - not bad, but not great. I thought, "Hey the 3X - that's the ticket!" WRONG!! The lens is garbage. And I have now gone through two of them, and had them tested on multiple cameras (both XL2 and XL1). The backfocus issues discussed on many forums are real, very very real. Zoom in, focus on something, zoom out, mush. The focal plane moves. What was in focus is now out of focus. Period. Now - before XL2 lovers roast the crap out of me - yes it was in manual, yes, I tried the "push auto-focus" etc. etc. On top of the this, the first lens had dirt all over the one of the inside elements. It was visible to the naked eye with a flashlight. Canon spent a week telling me there was nothing wrong with the lens, and that the "dirt" I spoke of was not an issue. BS - dirt on a lens with 1/3 inch chips is bad news. Very bad. Finally after standing physically with the tech at Canon's service center, he agreed - yes the dirt was there. Gee? Really? Now, after also spending about an hour describing what backfocus was to a person who was supposed to fix the backfocus problem, I was told it was fixed and to come in. Yes XL2 lovers, I let them keep the camera as well because the two communicate electronically. Was the problem fixed? No. The tech said, it was better though. That is comforting. It is only partly out of focus now. That helps. Kinda like being partly pregnant.
The new lens - no better. The new one they gave me has no dirt inside, so that is a plus. But same focus issues, and add to that that I couldn't focus to infinity. It just stops focusing before you reach that point, and as you zoom the focus pulses in and out of focus with pops. You can focus to infinity sometimes, sometime not - depends on where in the zoom range you are. Brutal, just brutal. In 10 years I have never seen a more poorly made lens. Now - this is where it gets good. Canon's response was simply that the errors were considered within their tolerance. Well - too bad, not inside my tolerances. Going into the process I went through with Canon service would be a small novel, so I will spare you. The best analogy I can give is that is was like a prison gang rape, caught on tape, that everyone stood around watching happen but denying it was happening. I cannot dump on Canon service enough to do the story justice. Deny the problems, then ignore them. Great confidence builder.
THAT BEING SAID -once you get around the service and the 3X lens, the camera is actually very good - the 20X lens is sharp and clear, if displaying the annoying tendencies of all servo lenses. There is lots of fiddling room with the settings (but having numbers instead of the sliders would be helpful) The 16:9 native chips are nice to have, and OVERALL, it is a very good picture (for a 1/3 inch video camera). If you want wide angle - try the century optics .6 or .7x adapters - maybe they work better. And hope and pray you don't have a problem. Cause if you do, you too will get to spend weeks of your life arguing with Canon. Hopefully they will design a new lens.
Is the DVX better? No. Is the XL2 better? No. They are different. Like Kodak and Fuji, like Ford and Chevy, like apples and oranges. To be honest, I prefer apples over oranges by a slim margin. Unless juiced. Then we have a whole new debate. Both cameras have their weaknesses and strengths - the key being the operator. And the 3X lens is crap.
Well, I think that about does it. I hope this helps people. After buying an XL2 I started having serious second thoughts, but the tests I did have made me feel much better. Just to make you feel good - my honest recommendation is to rent both cameras for a day. They rent for about $145CND per day here, so for less than $300, you can see for yourself. If you are thinking of spending $4000+, that seems like a pretty small amount to spend for peace of mind. They are very close in a side by side, with each having certain benefits over the other. And - did I mention that the 3X lens was crap?
In closing - these were my experiences alone, and others may have other experiences.
Have a good one.
This is my first post here, so please forgive any blatant missteps and the length of this post. I see so many people wondering - gee has anyone used them side by side - anything I should know. I will pass along what little knowledge I have gathered so far with the XL2 and the DVX.
My observances are just that, they aren't scientific, just my subjective feelings of actually looking at the picture and not the specs. Now, before everyone blows a testicle and dumps all over me, I'd like people to know I am just passing along my singular opinion, and do not claim that one camera is better than the other. I think after the amount of time I spent looking at these two cameras, that "better" is a waste of time. They are different yes. Better? No.
I own an XL2, and have a DVX rented to see the differences for myself. I have no prejudices or particular allegiances to one or the other. Coming from a film background, the first thing I would like to address is that neither of these cameras is even remotely close to comparing to 35mm. Not even close...so we should leave that very unfair and unrealistic comparison at the door. I have worked extensively with the Sony F900 and the Panasonic Varicam, and even those aren't film. They are both amazing, but they ain't film. That being said, they are video cameras, and so as such they have many strengths and weakness in common. One of my primary beefs with both the DVX and XL2 cameras is aliasing. I find that the base camera setting on both to give brutal levels of aliasing, but with a bit of tweaking this can be managed. Even film transfered to video shows aliasing (particular offenders are car commercials if you want to see this in action). Until we all have progressive scan LCD or Plasma monitors, that is the joy of interlacing. With both cameras - dial down the vertical detail, the coring, the general detail level to get rid of most of the problem. Try to kill the rest in post with selective antialiasing.
My observances are - the stock lens on the DVX is nicer to use. The manual zoom is more predictable, more repeatable. The focus is okay but both the DVX and the XL2 are a bit fussy to focus using the tiny little LCD monitors. I was viewing both on a 19-inch high res 16:9/4:3 production monitor with the S-Video out. Even with a large monitor like this the focus is fussy. The DVX focus was slightly less temperamental. I would think a fully manual lens would be the best option - Image stabilization or not. The servo lens on the XL2 takes some getting used to, and let's all face it, servo lenses are a pain in the butt.
The DVX pop out LCD monitor is handy at times, and can make focusing a bit easier depending on situation. The DVX size is less cumbersome and I felt like I could position in nicely down at my waist, over my head - all sorts of things. The XL2 is kind of a pain to do this with. The wide angle lens on the DVX is nice, but it would be nice if the telephoto end were just a bit longer. This of course depends heavily on what you need it for. The iris control is also better on the DVX. The stepped iris wheel on the XL2 is annoying. No person can really defend this honestly. A stepped iris is not as flexible as a wheel iris - BUT - depends on how often you are changing the iris during a shot. If you do it constantly, the DVX is certainly easier and better.
I am not too concerned with which camera has a more red or green color cast, warm or cool, rich blacks, etc. etc. as I like to think of the video as a film negative. Get as much information on the tape as possible and tweak it in post - a crushed black is gone forever, as is a clipped white. You can always crush a black in post with more control. Same goes for highlights. Easier to add contrast that remove it. This is even a major drawback on the F900 or Varicam. The latitude of film is much better than video, even very expensive video. The HDCAM SR format helps just a wink. I think the XL2 has slightly better latitude than the DVX after all the tweaking was done, but not by a staggering amount. Try with both to get as much highlight retention as possible using the knee, gamma, and curves.
Viewing both in 16:9 mode on a Sony production monitor, I found that generally, the DVX in 16:9 stretch mode (not cropped) was the best - the least amount of aliasing and good detail. The next best (and I mean a virtually dead heat) was the XL2 in 16:9. There was slightly more detail overall, so there were a few more aliasing artifacts but they may be able to be cleaned up in post. I think that the DVX had slighly more control over the vertical detail - in a -7 to +7 rather than just high, medium, low on the Canon. The only bummer about the DVX is the faux 16:9. However - if you are only on TV, and not planning a film blowup, and want to work exclusively in 16:9 and never need a 4:3 extracted from that image, the DVX is the narrow margin winner from an aliasing point of view. I guess you could use an anamorphic adapter, but that introduces other issues. Unfortunately this is where things started to turn against the DVX in my tests. The 4:3 and cropped 16:9 were both weaker than the 16:9 and 4:3 performance on the XL2 by quite a bit in both 24p and 60i. In 4:3, the DVX aliasing became really problematic for me.
Nice things about the XL2? The 16:9 chips do seem to help a bit. The flexibility of changing the color LCD to the BW high res. Good image stabilization. Pretty good "tweakability", if that is a word. The fact that the lens can be taken off - but this is moot depending on whether you'll ever really want to do this. For using with the mini-35, this is a nice feature. To replace the servo lens with a full manual lens this is nice. To use the 3X lens? HERE IS WHERE THINGS GO TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY WRONG for Canon. (In my case) I ordered the 3X lens as the wide on the stock lens is not great - not bad, but not great. I thought, "Hey the 3X - that's the ticket!" WRONG!! The lens is garbage. And I have now gone through two of them, and had them tested on multiple cameras (both XL2 and XL1). The backfocus issues discussed on many forums are real, very very real. Zoom in, focus on something, zoom out, mush. The focal plane moves. What was in focus is now out of focus. Period. Now - before XL2 lovers roast the crap out of me - yes it was in manual, yes, I tried the "push auto-focus" etc. etc. On top of the this, the first lens had dirt all over the one of the inside elements. It was visible to the naked eye with a flashlight. Canon spent a week telling me there was nothing wrong with the lens, and that the "dirt" I spoke of was not an issue. BS - dirt on a lens with 1/3 inch chips is bad news. Very bad. Finally after standing physically with the tech at Canon's service center, he agreed - yes the dirt was there. Gee? Really? Now, after also spending about an hour describing what backfocus was to a person who was supposed to fix the backfocus problem, I was told it was fixed and to come in. Yes XL2 lovers, I let them keep the camera as well because the two communicate electronically. Was the problem fixed? No. The tech said, it was better though. That is comforting. It is only partly out of focus now. That helps. Kinda like being partly pregnant.
The new lens - no better. The new one they gave me has no dirt inside, so that is a plus. But same focus issues, and add to that that I couldn't focus to infinity. It just stops focusing before you reach that point, and as you zoom the focus pulses in and out of focus with pops. You can focus to infinity sometimes, sometime not - depends on where in the zoom range you are. Brutal, just brutal. In 10 years I have never seen a more poorly made lens. Now - this is where it gets good. Canon's response was simply that the errors were considered within their tolerance. Well - too bad, not inside my tolerances. Going into the process I went through with Canon service would be a small novel, so I will spare you. The best analogy I can give is that is was like a prison gang rape, caught on tape, that everyone stood around watching happen but denying it was happening. I cannot dump on Canon service enough to do the story justice. Deny the problems, then ignore them. Great confidence builder.
THAT BEING SAID -once you get around the service and the 3X lens, the camera is actually very good - the 20X lens is sharp and clear, if displaying the annoying tendencies of all servo lenses. There is lots of fiddling room with the settings (but having numbers instead of the sliders would be helpful) The 16:9 native chips are nice to have, and OVERALL, it is a very good picture (for a 1/3 inch video camera). If you want wide angle - try the century optics .6 or .7x adapters - maybe they work better. And hope and pray you don't have a problem. Cause if you do, you too will get to spend weeks of your life arguing with Canon. Hopefully they will design a new lens.
Is the DVX better? No. Is the XL2 better? No. They are different. Like Kodak and Fuji, like Ford and Chevy, like apples and oranges. To be honest, I prefer apples over oranges by a slim margin. Unless juiced. Then we have a whole new debate. Both cameras have their weaknesses and strengths - the key being the operator. And the 3X lens is crap.
Well, I think that about does it. I hope this helps people. After buying an XL2 I started having serious second thoughts, but the tests I did have made me feel much better. Just to make you feel good - my honest recommendation is to rent both cameras for a day. They rent for about $145CND per day here, so for less than $300, you can see for yourself. If you are thinking of spending $4000+, that seems like a pretty small amount to spend for peace of mind. They are very close in a side by side, with each having certain benefits over the other. And - did I mention that the 3X lens was crap?
In closing - these were my experiences alone, and others may have other experiences.
Have a good one.
