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Canon XL Cam's (1 Viewer)

Ash1456

Well-known member
Are there any good shops that sell second hand or cheap Canon XL 1 or 2?
I would love to have on but have alot of saving to do. But its still work looking!
Also Does anyone have any experience of an XL series with the EF lens adaptor?
Ash
 
Are there any good shops that sell second hand or cheap Canon XL 1 or 2?
I would love to have on but have alot of saving to do. But its still work looking!
Also Does anyone have any experience of an XL series with the EF lens adaptor?
Ash


The XL's do crop up on Ebay now and again (cheapest XL2 i saw recently was still over £2000) I got mine last year and its a great piece of kit but I'm now waiting for insurance to payup after mine was wrecked by a relative recently gggggggggggggggrrrrrrrr.
One thing i can say is although they are great camera's they don't make you a great film maker:-C I have seen brilliant videos taken with much cheaper equipment so its all down to the user. In my case I'm useless;)
Also you do need to use a tripod at all times to get decent footage, there's nothing worse than wobbly video's (I have hours of footage which if it didn't wobble would be pretty good but I decided not to use a tripod and had to pay the price:C)
There's plenty of good forums for camcorder users knocking about with lots of info.
Cheers
Brian
Ps the EF adaptors are pretty good but mine cost £400+ so not cheap
 
Thanks Brian. I considered some of the cheaper options but having the ef adaptor would save me alot of money on new camcorder lenses.
Thanks
Ash
 
I`ve got an XL1s which I use with the EF-XL adapter.......it works well but theres no Autofocus so everything has to be manualy focused which can be a pain with the colour viewfinder (the B+W one is better but is expensive). For second hand try BBlist there`s a XL1 on there at the mo with a 3X wide angle + the standard 16X for £1150 or an XL1 for £800 (not sure if thats on its own or with a 16X.....I would expect with the 16X. There's also an XL2 for £2000.
 
Hmmm depends on how much money you have......


There are a lot of advantages that the XL2 has over the Xl1/s a few of these are...


1 Higher res sensor

2 True 16:9 where as the XL1/s utilises a crop method which degrades image quality.

3 25p which gives a more 'film' look.

4 2 XLR sockets with phantom power, on the XL1/s you had to buy an adapter to get the XLR sockets which was an extra few hundred quid or you could get a cheaper non-canon one such as Beachtek DXA-4 for about 180.

5 Better lens comes with the camera......you can use the 20x with the XL1/s but will have to buy it seperatly adding to the cost.


But the problem is you are buying a system, you will wan`t a good tripod and head again this can cost anywhere between £500 (at the least for good support) to several thousand for the best. If you are videoing wildlife then it would be beneficial to get a decent mic with a long lead so as to get it away from you and anyone else with you so you don`t pick up any unwanted noise and you`ll wan`t a grip and cage with some form of wind damping....again several hundred at least. The mic can wait but I would say you wan`t the tripod asap.


So I guess it goes down to what you can afford.......if you can get an XL2 with a good tripod and head go for it.......if not its up to you but you`ll find it frustrating trying to hold the XL2 with the lens at its highest magnification.........and there is no way of using a decent tele hand held (which also adds to the cost as a adapter costs about 300 second hand).
 
The XL's do crop up on Ebay now and again (cheapest XL2 i saw recently was still over £2000) I got mine last year and its a great piece of kit but I'm now waiting for insurance to payup after mine was wrecked by a relative recently gggggggggggggggrrrrrrrr.
One thing i can say is although they are great camera's they don't make you a great film maker:-C I have seen brilliant videos taken with much cheaper equipment so its all down to the user. In my case I'm useless;)
Also you do need to use a tripod at all times to get decent footage, there's nothing worse than wobbly video's (I have hours of footage which if it didn't wobble would be pretty good but I decided not to use a tripod and had to pay the price:C)
There's plenty of good forums for camcorder users knocking about with lots of info.
Cheers
Brian
Ps the EF adaptors are pretty good but mine cost £400+ so not cheap

Got an Xl1's for wildlife filming which i use with a tripod and also alot of hand held shooting, as well as a good bean bag, never had a problem with excess shake, also got a ef converter for £150 off ebay, well chuffed.

Mark
 
Are there any good shops that sell second hand or cheap Canon XL 1 or 2?
I would love to have on but have alot of saving to do. But its still work looking!
Also Does anyone have any experience of an XL series with the EF lens adaptor?
Ash

Ash

You should ring LCE Leamington Spa and ask to speak to Tom, last when week when I visited there he had a fantastic XL kit for sale and it looked in mint++ condition
 
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