Hello all! I am new here. My son is ready to buy a used XL1 probably rather than XL1s. It seems to be about a $500 dif in price. A lightly used 1 for like 2k and a similiar shape s like $2500.( on ebay and yes i am VERY familiar with the various scams on there thank you)He is 17 yr old, and will be using it with his PC i think primarily on websites.Obviously other general use as well. So anyway, i guess he could afford either, and i guess if he sold it a year or two later, the $500 dif would probably still go with it.So any comments on which way he should go?? Also- if he gets like a not s, but a plain 1, (so it's older) if it had very light use , is there ANY REAL NEED to send it for canon tunup /firmware or whatever they do considering HIS uses??? Thank you all much!!!!!!!! anastas

Wow, that's a rather large camera for website-use. (Actually I don't know if I'm qualified to make such a statement, as I don't know much about designing websites etcetera, but my guess would be a Canon XM2 (or GL2 in the states), significantly cheaper and almost equal in picture quality (more neutral colors, little bit charper) would be at least better. Because else your son is paying for a interchangible lens system, and I doubt if he ever would need it (but hey, maybe he does, and it still offcourse remains his choice).

I surely think an XL1 would do just fine. If your suspicious about scams on ebay (you should be :-)) you can always buy from someone from these message boards here, like I did. I buyed a XL1S in mint condition from someone from the boards, who also was on Ebay. First I didn't really wanted to buy such a thing on Ebay, but when I discovered Dennis was also a member of this site, I trusted it. But I have to tell you, after I bid on his camera, I got a mail from someone trying to deceive me, he had hacked someone's email, I discovered later. So, you have to be carefull. You can always use ESCROW. It's a service from Ebay (there are also fake escrow sites, so choose the right one, but it's listed at Ebay). Many sellers won't do this because I heard it involves much paperwork, but it IS safe: you transfer your money to the escrow service, they tell the seller the money has been transferred, the seller sends, and if you receive it, escrow puts the money to the acccount of the seller. I think that is how it goes.

OR you could shop at B&H, where they also have used XL1S's in mint condition... (I'm not sure, but I think so).

But I still think that is a very big cam for someone using it for websites. I think a 3ccd cam, will do fine enough, not regarding wich one, even a Panasonic GS400 could do. But as I said, I don't know offcourse what your son's plans are.

And Btw: the XL1/XL1S is still a very great and sexy cam. I have it since a couple of days, and color tones are just plain beautiful.

Good luck!

ive got both a xls1 and gs400 - both fantastic cams. ive noticed less artifacts using the canon - the panisonic has a tendency to have a more "quilted" look after running thru an encoder than the canon does. the canon also has less problems with vertical smearing/flaring, and ive read that may be to do it's HAD CCD system. I wonder if the canon has that one too?!? good luk

For your described use I think either would be fabulous although overkill.However if resale is a consideration, your target market will likely be a pro or semi pro and the "S" would be more desirable because of increased feautures..... higher rated signal to noise, easier access to colour bars,etc. I think outputs vary slightly aswell.just my opinion.
smitty