I've been playing around with lower quality stuff as a hobby, and I really enjoy it. Now I want to get some good stuff for the following action sports video work:

*Kiteboarding
*Windsurfing
*Surfing
*Snowmobile
*Dirt Bike
*Skiing
*Riverboarding
*Etc....

The lense range of the XL2 makes it the camera of choice for this type of work. Sometimes I will be in the water with a wide angle...other times on the beach with a 16x + 1.6x adapter.....

I have a few questions.

I was leaning toward the 16x Manual as the basic platform. I like the control of the manual, but when I used the 16x with a 1.6 adapter, will I regret not having the auto-stabilization of the std 20x.....?

Who makes custom water housings. I know of SPL and Del Mar in southern CA. Anyone else out there? With all the surf photography in HI, there must be a few custom housing makers there. I assume I will need different port set ups for the 16x and wide angle lenses?

I really need time frame stretching and slow mo capabilities in my editing package. Twixtor is hands down the set up for that. But it looks like this will rope me into using Premiere/After Effects? Anyone have experience with Twixtor as a plug in for other NLE platforms?

Hi Thomas,

The 16x manual lens is a tripod lens. The 20x lens is a handheld lens.

See http://www.gateshousings.com/XL2.html for an underwater housing (the Gates has different ports for different lenses).

Please ask about Twixtor and similar software in our postproduction & editing forums, you'll get a much better response there (this board is for the XL2 only). Hope this helps,

If you are shooting on the far tele end of the range, the optical stabilization on the 20x is great on a tripod too. I have both lenses and mainly use the 16x, but the 20X comes in handy once in a while.