Is the Canon XL1 still a good buy nowadays?

[Reportage]

Planning to get one 2nd hand. Covered events today and found that i needed features that can only be found on more chunky video cameras. As much as i can compensate by techniques on my current camcorder, sure would be less of a pain not having to use such techniques.

And also as added boost, a "big and professional looking video camera" can increase my client base.

Opinion?

 

[jaegersing]

I would say that the XL2 is much better, especially if you want to shoot in 16:9. The XL1 achieves 16:9 by cropping the top and bottom of the picture, which means you have to digitally zoom in to restore the full height, and this makes the image softer.

The XL2 also has some presets for image adjustment that can be very handy. For example, you can set up presets that are optimised for lower light conditions and for outdoors, and this makes it easy to switch between them quickly. The XL1 doesn't have so many possible adjustments to begin with, so is not so flexible.