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 The Canon XL-1 is a significant camera that, along with the Sony VX1000, legitimized the idea of DV acquisition for broadcast applications and independent filmaking. Despite being much older than the current top crop of MiniDV camcorders, it still holds its own, providing excellent image and sound quality and control. Lens The lens is absolutely exemplary. It has a 16x5.5 range. This delivers a 35mm equivalent of 39-635mm. The lens is f1.6-2.6. For those familiar with Canon's EOS 35mm SLR lenses, this lens is an "L-series" lens. It is capable, as one should expect, of delivering a crisp well registered image across its zoom range, with minimal distortion. The lens includes an optical image stabilizer. this works by floating the prism that separates the color into RGB in a solution. Inertia then smooths out most minor shaking completely. Major camera motion is somewhat subdued. This stabilization is needed due to the camera's light weight and odd balance. When shooting on a tripod, even moderately quick panning and tiliting will result in a lag effect as the optical stabilizer attempts to smoot out the camera motion. For this reason, whenever shooting on a stabilized platform it is recommended that image stabilization be turned off. The lens is also equipped with a single setting Neutral Density filter. My tests seem to indicate this stops down the camera about 6-10 stops. This is subjectively determined, and varies depending on the light source used. When I recieve my waveform monitor I will make more accurate measurements, and these will have practical value. There are a variety of optional offerings for the detachable lens. The camera natively addresses only XL-series lenses. There are only two offerings, aside from the standard lens, in this range. A Wide Angle lens with excellent characteristics and fully manual lens. Both offer excellent flexibility to the XL-1. In addition the entire Canon EOS EF series of lenses may be mounted to the XL-1 using an optional adaptor. Unfortunately the small imager area forces the focal length of these lenses to be multiplied by 7.2. This means that a 15mm Fisheye has a focal length equivalent to a 108mm 35mm lens when mounted to this camera.On the other hand telephoto lenses are given stunning reach. The EF-L/F2.8 70-200mm lens reaches out to 1440mm 35mm equivalent on this camera. Clearly if you need to take video from a distance this is the camera to own. With a 1200mm lens attached the XL-1 becomes a powerful telescope, with a 8640mm 35mm equivalent. I hope to obtain a selection of lenses from Canon to test the literally astronomical possibilites. Lastly, the camera offers a digital zoom that can be activated from a digital effects setting. This offers a modest 2x enhancement of the image, which retains reasonable image quality, although added noise is quite perceptible. Focusing and zoom control The autofocus on this lens is highly unreliable unless you subject is well illuminated and takes up a good portion of the screen. Focusing and zooming with the lens rings is a problem, because of the way the motorized lens controls work. First off, there is anoticieable delay between your motion and the camera's response. Secondly the camera's response varies with the speed with which you turn the rings. Finally there are no stop points on the rings, you can turn them indefinitely. This results in an often frustrating operating experience. Canon, like most manufacturers of consumer and prosumer equipment, provides a push AF button that temporarily activates the autofocus. Many people have reported issues with the XL-1's lens. They claim that the XL-1 is afflicted with soft focus and an inability to maintain backfocus. Despite having tested over a dozen XL-1 cameras I have not been able to reproduce this issue. Many of these reports may be a result of poor familiarity with operating this camera. It is very easy to unwittingly nudge the focus ring while using the zoom ring, or even when holding the camera. I conclude that this issue should be ignored. Another more serious issue is a problem with the lens holding backfocus through zooming. Again I have not been able to replicate this issue. However I tend to lend this great credence. It seems to have been an issue with earlier production runs. There are three sets of zoom controls built into the camera. There is a rocker switch in standard position along side the lens. Unlike professional video lenses, the rocker switch is mounted to the camera body instead of the lens. This provides reasonably controllable zoom speeds, with pressure sensitivity. There is another rocker switch on the top of the camera, this only provides fixed speed zooming, but is convenient for low angle shooting. Finally there is a zoom ring on the lens itself. This suffers from all the weaknesses of the focus ring. Nonetheless with practice it can be one of the best ways to control framing of a moving subject. CCD's The camera has three 1/3" IT CCD's. Each is 270,000 pixels. The green CCD is offset half a pixel from the rest. Canon claims that this results in a higher effective resolution. It does give the camera an advantage. Since green seems to be the best encoded area of color in the DV format, this selection effectively reduces inerference from other colors in the output image. This makes the XL-1 well suited to using a green screen for chroma-keying. The only complaint regarding the CCD's is that they do exhibit bleedthrough under high light levels. This results in a green vertical streak across the height of the image. In practice reflections from extraordinarily bright sources, such as the Sun, can cause this. This can sometimes only be corrected by severly underexposing the image. A circular polarizing filter has helped to minimize the effect along with more carefully selected camera angles. Sensitivity This is not really a low light camera. The CCD's are showing their age. The excellent lens allows recording in fairly low light. Nonetheless this camera likes light. Canon's claims that the camera can obtain an image in as little as 2lux should be ignored. That is obtained using +12db Gain and the special slow 1/8th second shutter. This creates uselessly blurred video imagery. It does however allow an image to be shot, if the subject is stationary and you use a tripod it can give useful results where otherwise there would be no image. More reasonably you can obtain images in 100lux illumination, using only the +12db gain. The +12db Gain on the camera gives picture with almost imperceptible noise levels. There is another issue that I have not been able to test on the XL-1, but which bears mention. It seems the Canon Optura and GL-1 cameras improperly set Black level and White Clipping. Black level should be set to 7.5 IRE. These cameras set it to 0IRE. White Clipping on these cameras is set at 115IRE. While this is a technically acceptable setting, it depends on the Knee point of the camera being set to an appropiate level. Again this is an unconfirmed report. I will post more details when I recieve my new waveform monitor and light meter. Recorder section The recorder section is primarily constructed of a magnesium alloy. It is very tough. The alloy is covered by a plastic shell with what feels like a rubber content. The camera readouts are backlit LCD's. The backlight is a bright blue. A quick press will activate the backlight for about 10 seconds.Holding the button down will cause the backlight to remain on until cancelled. Readout of audio levels, recording modes, aperture, shutter and tape position are available. The images delivered by the XL-1 recorder are top notch DV images. The XL-1 manages to deliver a full 54dB S/N ratio and excellent color registration. The transport has high reliability. Its recordings, in both SP and LP modes play back reliably on other MiniDV devices. The recorder electronically varies the shutter from 1/60th to 1/15000th of a second. The slow shutter speeds are oddly controlled through the digital effects settings, rather than the shutter control. Canon should unify these controls, much as they have with the digital zoom. The recorder section has a composite and y/c video outputs at the rear protected by a plastic door. (These can only be used for video output.) The handle conceals a set of VCR style controls. An IEEE-1394 input/output port a LANC connector and a Canon flash power connector are concealed behind a rubber seal just behind the rocker assembly.
Viewfinder The Viewfinder on the XL-1 is its weakest point. The image is provided by a 180,000 pixel CCD that measures only a half inch diagonally. This makes it difficult to use the viewfinder for critical focus. Canon offers an optional black and white viewfinder with a higher resolution. The factory setting of the viewfinder is too dark on every unit I examined. If it is not adjusted, or if an external monitor is not used it will result in overexposure due to operator error. Zebra stipes can be displayed in the viewfinder through a menu setting. Audio Control The Canon offers excellent audio control. It can record four 32KHz 12 bit channels or two 48KHz 16bit channels. The first pair of inputs are controlled by a level control and a unified gain conrol. The second input has separate gain controls for each channel. The automatic gain control on the unit is surprisingly useful. It can be relied on except in very quiet rooms. There is also an attenuated microphone setting which will effectively eliminate most of the issues related to audio gain. Audio inputs abound. The first audio input can be assigned to a stereo mini jack (where the on camera mic is set up by default) or RCA inputs on the rear of the camera, with the video outputs.. The second audio input is protected by a rubbereized door on the handle. It is a second pair of unbalanced RCA connectors. The RCA audio connectors can also be used for output. There is also a headphone mini jack, with its own volume control. Conclusion The XL-1 remains a standout selection in the world of prosumer DV cameras. While some newer cameras have exceeded it technically, the XL-1 has unrivaled flexibility. This is enhanced by the large number of third party add ons designed with the XL-1 specifically in mind. Among these are Anton/Bauer battery mounts, microphone isolation systems, underwater enclosures.
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