Strange symbols on my XL1s

[Crawford Anderson-Dillon]

I'm a producer over in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and I'm making a bunch of shorts for a thing called Screenwriters Ink at the minute. I've borrowed a bunch of equipment for various shoots, and I've borrowed an XL1s for the weekend.

It doesn't work, and no-one knows why! The only clue is a strange symbol in the EVF that no-one has ever seen before. It looks like a small yacht! If anyone remembers the old symbol for the oil in a car dash - a kind of half sail thing, then it looks like that. Does anybody have any idea what that means, or how to fix it. If it is oil, how do I put some oil into it? I'm due to start shooting on Saturday in the morning, so I'm tearing my hair out!

Oh, and next weekend I have another weekend shoot on a beach at night, and the only cameras I have availble are PD 150s which are rubbish in bad light. Any suggestions? Or even a kind friend who lives round here who could help me with some decent equipment!

PS. Check out the Screenwriters Ink website www.screenwritersink.co.uk to see what we are up to over here. I apologise if I'm not allowed to do that, by the way.

[Rick Bravo]

This is the signal that alerts you that the backup battery needs to be replaced.

The backup battery allows the camera to retain
date/time/settings.

It should not affect the main operation of the camera

The battery holder is located at the bottom of the camera.

If the camera is not working, check this out...and no, I'm not insinuating that you are dumb, this has happened to me and a bunch of other folks that I know.

Make sure the tape carriage has retracted into the camera with the tape. The outer door of the camera will close with the tape ejected so the problem is not immediately obvious to the eye.

RB

[Crawford Anderson-Dillon]

Cheers. It's always the little things!

[Nathan Gifford]

Yes it sounds like the button cell stored in the handle.

I agree that not letting the tape transport finish its cycle before closing the door might be the other problem.

Send some feedback and let us know if it worked for you.

[Don Palomaki]

You can download the manual for the XL1s (at least the NTSC version) from the WWW.CANONDV.COM web site. I would expect the PAL versions to use similar symbols. Maybe there is a site in Europe from which the PAL manual can be downloaded

And as noted by others, you have to close the inner tape transport door first, the one with the PUSH printed on it, before you close the outer door. IF the door is not clisd, you should see a no-tape icon flashing on the screen.

The backup battery symbol looks a bit like a 1-mast sail boat, and appears in the center of the viewfinder. (It is actually a side view of a button battery with a + sign anove it and a slash through it.) The battery life is ~1-2 years, and it is common to encounter borrowed/loaner units with dead batteries.