xa10user

Just got back from 3 weeks in New Zealand as well as a week in Sydney where I did a fair bit of filming with my Canon XA10. Once again, it performed really well and the infrared function really came in handy in the caves at Waitomo where there was just too little light to get any decent footage.It’ll take quite a while to get the editing done though as I have almost four hours of footage so to keep things going, I thought I’d post a quick time lapse I did looking across to Darling Harbour in Sydney from the balcony of my hotel. The shot took 2 hours to film (at 5mbps to help save space as well as to speed up the download). The shot was then speeded up a couple of times in iMovie. There was no colour correction done and the music was taken from Music 2 Hues (CD collection).

Here’s a  another quick short that I took just after I bought my Canon XA10. It was shot hand-held on the ferry from Central to Discovery Bay at sunset. I didn’t do any colour grading as the colours came out very nicely just using the camera settings. You can also see the video at http://vimeo.com/43180465, with slightly different music.

As promised, here’s a short video taken around Discovery Bay, Hong Kong (which is where I live).

I used a tripod for the shoot but didn’t turn off the Image Stabiliser (IS), which was a mistake as you then get drift in the image as the IS adjusts itself. This significantly reduced the useable footage when I came to edit (using iMovie) so either 1] remember to switch the IS off when using a tripod, or 2] run your shots for longer than usual (you’ll probably need at least 10 seconds worth for the drift to finally subside).

Apart from the occasional shot, I left the camera on Auto for most of the shots and set it to Filter 2 (Dynamic) as it really helps to bring out the colours.

The video is also available on Vimeo at:  http://vimeo.com/36666556   but I obviously haven’t figured out the best upload settings yet as it’s not as sharp as some other footage I’ve seen on Vimeo but it’s fine when I watch it on my computer.

Welcome to XA10 User! I recently bought a Canon XA10 after a lot of research into other cameras. Mostly I checked the reviews or footage on either Youtube or Vimeo but there wasn’t as much info as I’d have liked as they mostly seemed to cover either DSLR cameras, large sensor cameras (such as the Sony F3 or Canon C300, most of which were out of my price range) or the Gopro (which I also have and love, especially now that I’ve got around to buying the LCD Pac).

All the reviews seemed pretty positive so I went and ahead and bought one. Initially, I was a bit disappointed, though, as I had a few problems. Firstly, the XLR attachment REALLY DOES MAKE A RATTLING SOUND!! I checked with Canon to make sure that it wasn’t just the model I was given but it does seem to be a design flaw with the XA10. If you sellotape the XLR buttons, the rattling stops. As I use a tripod mostly, the rattling isn’t really a big problem for me (but still!!).

My second problem was that, unlike with my Gopro SD cards, my Apple computer didn’t recognise the footage direct from the SD card. Since I bought the XA10 BECAUSE it had SD cards (for easy review of footage and transfer to my computer, without having to bring the camera along for downloads), this was again a nuisance. It took  a while to realize that I can still download direct from the SD card but only when either Final Cut Pro (FCP) or iMovie is opened, after which it downloads in the usual way.

Thirdly, and lastly, I was shocked that the footage was very blurred when viewed back, making it very difficult to edit (although, when exported to a .MOV file, the blurred footage was not so bad). It turns out that this was the result of filming at 50i, which was clearly NOT compatible with my Apple software. After I changed the setting to 25p (or better yet, used the camera’s filters settings), this problem was solved.

Since then, I’ve been pretty happy with the camera and will be doing a lot more shooting and testing with it. Hopefully, if you’ve just bought the camera yourself, and have the same problems I had, you’ll now have a quicker solution than I did because the manual didn’t really address the problems mentioned (either that or I didn’t read it very carefully!).

Over the next few weeks, I’ll also be posting some of the footage I’ve shot as well as running a few tests so that you can see how to get the best from your Canon XA10 if you’ve got one or if you’re still undecided on which camera to go with.