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The good and bad about Canon H1


Stepan Sivko

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So a couple of the designers of this camera came to our set today for a visit. We basically told them what our problems with the camera were and they had a few solutions. The timecode issue will be solved with a firmware update soon. They hadn't realized this problem existed and they started working on fixing it as soon as they heard from us about it.

Also, they said there is a more professional lens that is more like a professional video lens and will solve most of our focusing and zooming problems, so I think we'll be getting those lenses when we start back up for the second half of the season. We hadn't been aware of these lenses before. They said the resolution of the glass is a bit less with this other lens, but it will solve a lot of issues for us concerning focusing....especially focusing while zooming, which is currently impossible.

Another thing they promised to fix with a firmware update was the issue with the timecode going out of sync every time you change a battery. That's not as big an issue as some of the others, but it's one less thing for the A.C.'s to worry about.

We spoke to them about a few other things that we would like to change about the camera and they were very receptive, but there were no promises made regarding these other issues.

Unfortunately, we didn't have that much time to talk to them, so some issues such as the ergonomics of the camera body weren't discussed, but I'm sure they've taken their share of flak regarding this in the past, and I doubt they'll be totally re-designing the whole camera for ergonomic reasons for a while. The guys seemed very interested in making the camera more user friendly, so hopefully they'll be making a lot of changes for the better in the very near future.

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Hi Shannon!

 

Maybe you can answer this question since you own Firestore. Is it possile to play out firestore via SDI connector for playback on the set? Can you also playback from FS into the VF to make sure you got the shot?

 

Thanks Shannon!

 

Pappas

 

 

Hey Mike! I DON'T KNOW & NO..........

 

I DON'T KNOW = if it will playback recorded HD footage out the HD-SDI spigot. I have never tried that.

 

NO = it won't playback 24f/30f HD footage on the viewfinder that you recorded with the Firestore FS-4 Pro HD recorder. It records it fine, but no confirmation playback. 60i? Hmmmm, I don't remember.

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Well, it's refreshing to see to that a massive camera manufacturer such as Canon will take the time to visit a set and get valuable feedback from the actual folks using their products. Hooray for Canon.

 

Now, let's get those mechanical and wide-angle lenses ASAP!

Edited by Starway2001
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Well, it's refreshing to see to that a massive camera manufacturer such as Canon will take the time to visit a set and get valuable feedback from the actual folks using their products. Hooray for Canon.

 

Now, let's get those mechanical and wide-angle lenses ASAP!

It is nice, but what would have been really nice is if they had let some professionals do some testing before they released the camera. Our rental house rep made this comment, "You guys are basically beta-testing these cameras for them, since no one's really used them before". This whole job really has been a beta-test. The only difference is that they were touting the camera as if it was ready to work in the real world already, which it really wasn't. Maybe next time they'll test outside of a labratory and find out what the actual people that will use the camera have to say about it and fix the problems before they release it to the public. Problems like the timecode not syncing could have been averted earlier if they had done this and saved our post folks some time and money.

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  • 1 month later...

There's a reason some technology is called "Bleeding edge!"

 

My experience with the camera is mixed, I've used it for some B roll shots for a short film I've just made shot on an F900. The shots cut together very well considering. However as everyone has mentioned the stock lens is tricky to use, combine this with the awful viewfinder and you could get into some very serious trouble with the camera.

 

Having said that I'mm looking forward to seeing one with a good VF option and a proper lens!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi guys ,i need help...

I supppose to shoot a doc for CTV in autumn about poverty, they want the delivery in digibeta as well in HDCAM...so right away we decided to shoot on HD....now why im mentioning this here....cos we will shoot lot of times undercover I dont want to be running around junkies and criminals with a 50000$ BIG ASS camera on my shoulder...so i started considering using HDV...canon H1 off course...now i got to an argument with sound man who is very unhappy with my choice because of unstable??? Timecode?? which has to do with fact that canon uses mpeg2 compression.....doesnt that actualy matter if we r gonna record sound directly to tape and is it realy that much of an issue??? thanx for any opinions

Stepan

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Hi,

 

The timecode on the XLH1 is not unstable and even if it was it would have nothing to do with the fa

 

Hi,

 

The timecode on the XLH1 is not unstable and even if it was it would have nothing to do with the fact that it uses MPEG-2 compression. Even if either of these was true, it still wouldn't matter since you'd be recording sound to tape anyway.

 

So all that egregious drivel out of the way. The problem that has been reported on the XLH1 (which I am unable to reproduce) is that it sometimes generates timecode offsets in multi camera situations. If this applies to you, which it sounds very much like it doesn't, it's certainly worth testing to establish that the particular camera you're looking at doesn't exhibit this fault.

 

Phil

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