Drop, charge, and lose the cords
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 6 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
3.5 stars
"Good camera but has flaws."
Pros: Potential for very good images. Sharp outdoor footage rivals more expensive cameras. Actual audio controls rare for cameras in this range. Excellent microphone. Good ND built-in filters. Professional ins and outs.
Cons: Poor focus control, even in manual. Very poor manual iris control. Eyepiece okay, but a flat panel would have been appreciated. Confusing set of modes that can affect your results. Cueing tape tedious. Needs HDMI output. Fragile headphone jack.
Summary: This camera is great at times, and insanely frustrating at others. While it has the capability to create stunning images, it can also surprise you with lens issues, color timing surprises, and modes that so arcane they are not helpful in normal shooting. For example, there is a green box mode that is totally automatic, (good only outdoors or shooting news), modes that adjust exposure by altering the shutter, or altering the aperture, and a "manual" mode that still wants to take over the iris. (?) The lens, while it has good glass, is a servo-controlled system so that you totally lose the positive feel or confidence of a film lens. This is especially evident when trying to manually focus and the camera drifts into focus as you turn the lens. In that regard, the amount of turning of the focus ring is not always the same to achieve the results you expect. It's very imprecise in that regard. Auto focus is worthless and we keep it switched off all the time, since we've seen it have a mind of its own and start focusing for no reason -- even on a locked-down simple talking-head shot. Stability control is sometimes useful for hand-held shooting. Manual iris is a small thumbwheel with detents, (should be a lens ring like a "real" lens) so if you need to make a smooth manual adjustment the camera is incapable of doing that unless it is doing it under its own automatic control. The viewfinder is somewhat acceptable, but this camera sorely needs at minimum a 4" flat panel display as well to help check the critical focus on HD images. It would also benefit from an HDMI port. There is a memory chip that can be used for snapping still images, and that is a helpful feature.
As with all HDV cameras, white areas can go totally white and so Canon has provided three ND gels switchable on the lens which are very useful, and can also enhance its ability to alter depth of field. The good aspects of the camera are that it has three HD modes and two NTSC modes. It records on HD compatible miniDV tapes In HD or NTSC. There is 30 and 60 and also a "24f" mode that delivers a respectable film look. When using the camera with Final Cut Pro, Apple provides a special driver to accept the 24f mode and converts it on the fly to 24P. This is especially good later for converting your finished output, and we have even transferred to Super 35mm negative with this camera at EFILM in Hollywood and it looks respectable.
The camera is a true 1080i camera, as some other cameras in this price range are actually 720 and use pixel doubling. There are respectable audio controls. You have two professional XLR inputs on the rear as well as phantom power and auto level control which normally works very well. The built-in stereo/mono mic is exceptionally good. In this price range, the XL-H1's professional audio features are unmatched by any other camera. The one and only audio flaw with this camera is an unbelievably cheap plastic headphone jack located in the handle which broke the second week we owned the camera.
Editing with the camera can be accomplished via Final Cut Pro and Firewire or other editing systems. Cueing the tape remotely is very tedious and not always accurate. Recommend purchasing a compatible hard disk recorder, ie FireStore, but one that is fully compatible with Canon's proprietary recording modes. Finally, there is no tape deck available that will play this camera's format, (unless you're recording in 1080/60) so you'll need the camera around to ingest footage from it, unless you plan to use a portable hard drive with it. The size and weight of the camera are not prohibitive, but its shape is at times cumbersome, especially if you're holding it over your head, or trying to cradle the camera for lower angles. In that respect, the Panasonic HVX 200 is more ergonomically friendly but in our non-scientific comparisons, when the XL-H1 is set up and working properly, its pictures appear sharper to us -- that is, when it's in focus.
There. I normally get paid for writing a review this in-depth, but hopefully it will help you evaluate this camera more fully since the HDV field is confusing at best.
