wooohooo!! and i got a great deal off ebay too yippee me!!! but it's like i've got to do research all over again cuz i forgot what i read about it's functions BEFORE i got it! i was fiddling around with it and couldn't even figure out how to focus manually with the focus ring! but YES, finally i've got a good cam! thanks to all of you for helping me with my decision!

cheers!

Good Luck Vishal,

You have a great Cam there and if you read my previous posts you will find I am still practicing and learning more by the day. The good news it is a "bug" finding out how to learn the features and is never a chore, happy learning and post your questions here and gain the knowledge of the forum experts. You will probably find the answers in previous posts as you are aware.

Go Film! Go have Fun! . . . GO Vishal ! ! ! .. .

Enjoy it, as lots of as do !

if it didn't come with the ever handy instruction manual you can download it here

http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=DownloadDetailAct&fcategoryid=326&modelid=7512

have fun filming!

Quite the contrary actually, it came with the original manual, and a bunch of extras, wide angle,telephoto,lens cleaning kit,sd card reader and yes, 4 tapes! hehe .. just to clarify tho, i've been reading a ton of the posts on here, dating way back to when the Gl2 first came out, why is it that one must always use the same brand name of tape for one's mini dv camera? does it make THAT much of a diff? thanks again!

cheers!

why is it that one must always use the same brand name of tape for one's mini dv camera? does it make THAT much of a diff? It's a type of "best practices" guideline to avoid potential problems principally caused by different tape lubricants mixing and congealing on your heads. It's based mostly on anecdote, but strong anecdote.

BTW, I strongly recommend that you at least use a cleaning tape on that camera before using it for anything serious.

Have fun with your new camera.

thanks for that advice ken, i'll definitely do that altho i can hardly wait to shoot with the camera. Am at work right now and it's killin' me that i don't have the camera here to experiment with. It did come with the telephoto and wide angle lens, altho i suspect they are the generic type as they don't have any brand names on the lens nor the leather pouches they came in :|

Congrats.
Enjoy your new cam!

Vishal,

Try shooting 16:9 mode and Frame mode combined and see what you think. It seems like Canon's stretch mode and progressive "frame mode" create an awesome look.

There's a lot of talk about other cameras in this forum, but the GL2 has created few complaints and lots of compliments. I hope you enjoy your new tool.

Brad

Thanks Brad, yeps i'm going to definitely be experimenting with different looks and aspect ratios and lighting and all that jazz.. it's like a new addition to the family, i'm excited to see what i can do with this camera. Have an old Dig 8 1/4 chip cam so this is a definite upgrade. There are a ton of options tho so that's going to take some time to try and decide which one to apply to which situation. Barry's review on the Gl2 is a really useful tool tho so i'm going to be referring to that a lot.

cheers!

I got mine in April, a week before my own wedding! The camera is the greatest! Unfortunately, no one wanted to touch my camera and so my wedding video is from a tripod - resulting in everyone leaving the picture frame. :(

Anyway, I decided to try my hand at wedding videos! I got hired three weeks ago to do a wedding and the results are FANTASTIC (except for some shakey shots of mine coz I bumped or was bumped by someone)! Now if I can afford a steady cam....I'm set. :)

Hi
Vish-
Congratulations,i have an XM2 and have no regrets about my purchase.
My first accessories for my cam were an external mic.I went with an AT835b and AT4073 with SignVideo Xlr Pro adapter and a 24v phantom power supply.If you are going to do weddings etc i would seriously consider a wireless mic,even using both At's the audio from the speeches were not very good to say the least(admitedly i was pretty far away and had some kids running up and down in front of the cam),but i do regret not getting a wirless mic.The AT's are excellent at fairly close distance,i think i was expecting a bit too much from them.
I also have a SignVideo Zoom commander pro(Lanc controller),which i never really saw a great need for until i left the cable in my brothers car whilst i was shooting a wedding, I will not make that mistake again.

Joe-
If your serious about wanting a steadicam you could consider making one.I have just made one myself using plans from here http://www.codydeegan.com/.
http://p200.ezboard.com/bhomebuiltstabilizers
is an excellent forum dedicated to home made stabilizers.And i know a few of the members post here as well.
There are some pics of my stabilizer here http://qui_tin.tripod.com/ The pics from Arm-fullrig13 are of my rig.
The pics labeled Homemade steadicam are of a handheld stabilizer i made a while ago.

Andrew,

Thanks for the info! I just checked the prices for steadicams! And they're EXPEN$IVE! How much did it cost you you to make your own? Does the book tell you what monitor to buy and how to attach it to your GL2(XM2)?

The cost to make my rig was aprox £500(that included tools,monitor etc).the plans tell you what monitor he used .I got a different monitor ,which i need to make a hood for.As for connecting it to the cam ,i use the AV cable that came came with the cam.
It wasn't too difficult to make but it is time consuming.It took me about 6months to make.I could have done it in less time,as i did a bit here and a bit there.most of it was done in about 2 weeks.