Canon XL2 är här!

[Tobbger]

Nu så har det kommit bilder samt lite info kring den efterlängtande Canon XL2! Den är mycket lik sin föregångare men under skalet gömmer sig mycket nya funktioner. Bl a så har den fått en 2' LCD-skärm som kommer fram genom att man fäller ut sökaren, inbyggda XLR-jack och mycket, mycket mer!

 

Kommer för övrigt ut i augusti. I och med det är det med sannolikhet att jag "får" den genom pappas jobb. :)

 

Läs mer här!

[Ronnie]

Verkar vara en ytterst trevlig kamera. Hade inte haft något emot att äga en sån, men den känns lite i dyraste laget än så länge, lär kosta över 50 000 i Sverige som det ser ut nu.

[nykvist]

Tobbger > Lyckans ost! Vill gärna höra sen vad du tycker om den!

 

Prismässigt känns det som om denna modell för XL-serien ut ur konsumentklassen och in bland de mindre broadcastingbiffarna.

Lite märkligt dock att den bara stödjer mini-DV och inte DV. Men å andra sidan vad skall man ha det till?

 

Det som känns mest trevligt är väl att den har full progressiv slutare. Detta tillsammans med den förbättrade upplösningen kan nog ge riktigt heta bilder!

 

Lätt att ragga skådespelare med det utseendet! ;)

[Minguez]

De första reaktionerna verkar vara en stor besvikelse. För att kortfattat beskriva vad de som testat den säger så är det många som anser att kameran har hur bra spec som helst på pappret men inte i verkligheten.

 

Det verkar vara lite som på 80-talet och watt-hystering i hi-fi branshen just nu, där tillverkare skryter om pixlar och upplösning, men ändå inte gör en prisvärd produkt. Det spelar egentligen ingen roll om sensorn har 200 000 fler pixlar än konkurenten om algoritmerna som ska behandla pixlarna är dåliga...

 

 

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Mitch

Just checked out the XL2 at the DV Expo in NYC, and I must say that I'm severely UNimpressed. It has alias issues like crazy and the color space seemed very poor, with faces mushing into flat pink or orange fields. I didn't see much in the way of solid blacks with the contrast looking very compressed in general. There wasn't any video noise, but I could easily see gridding from the small pixels. And Canon's "pixel-shift" technology gave it that "nothing's really sharp" look, at least to my eye. They had a demo running that really didn't do them any favors. Some 30p arial shots of NYC aliased so bad that it was very distracting. And a sequence with a police car at night had obvious vertical smear on the flashing lights of the squad car -- how eighties!

 

I could really see what I'm guessing were some of the issues of an 8-bit sampling v. the DVX100A's 12-bit. I walked over to the Panasonic booth and Jan Crittenden had a fun time telling me all about why her product was better (and I wouldn't expect anything else from her). According to Jan, the way that Canon uses their chip, the 16:9 area they utilize is almost the exact same size as the DVX100A's 16:9 when letterboxing. And when the Canon switches to 4:3 the image area is smaller than a 1/4" sensor.

 

But forgetting sensor size, I simply saw so many DSP issues that I'd seen solved so long ago in other cameras that I was quite stunned. The DVX100A looks so much better IMHO. Canon has improved on the XL-1s, but not by much. Certainly not enough to interest me.

 

 

Oh, and the story coming out of Canon now where they're backtracking on the 8-bit and saying it's "third-generation technology" so they don't really KNOW what bit rate it rworks at is utter BULLSHIT. There's no way anyone could have written any code for that camera if they didn't know the bitrate. Nothing would function. Note to the Canon reps at the DV Expo: Everyone else was laughing at you over this one!

 

I will say that the new color LCD viewfinder was a big improvement over the old one, but that's not really saying much now is it? And the image lagged like crazy when I panned or zoomed. The new 20x zoom appeared okay but I didn't really get a chance to properly put it through its paces. I could tell that it lost at least a full stop if not two on the telephoto end.

 

Again, I was NOT impressed with this camera. I'd sooner buy the DVX100A even if it were priced more, instead of $1500 less. Resolution is not the only measure of performance, not by a long shot.

 

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Mitch

 

I played with three different XL2 cameras at the show and grilled some of the staff there (some are just hired camera ops or editors working the booth so you have to know or learn who to ask). I went through all the settings on the cameras and knew exactly what was happening and where. I also saw many of these issues watching Canon's own presentation tape, which one would think would be designed to put their best face forward. Don't show me aliasing and vertical streaking here guys!

 

Canon had a "test studio" set up with a lit manniquin in a little dressed set. But it was lit very carefully to perhaps a three stop range--of course the picture will look okay there! First thing I did was spin the camera around to point up the escalator and out the window of the convention hall to judge how it handled mixed color and highlights. You should have seen how quickly the Canon rep tried to stand in my way! Move it lady!

 

Again, tech specs are one thing and actual performance is another. You would be surprised how well the DVX100A does simply letterboxed to 16:9. I've seen footage shot this way then uprezzed to HD and the results were very impressive, far more than I ever thought they deserved to be. Nancy Schreiber shot "November" this way. Should I ever do a 35mm filmout from this camera I would look into the adaptors but I would seriously consider the simple letterbox as well. You may be quite pleasantly surprised with the image quality.

 

Remember, resolution isn't everything. I'd take a really well-performing SD camera over a poorly performing HDV camera any day.

 

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