After lurking around these forums for about 1,5 month, I just ordered my first own camcorder, an XM2 from Germany, so now my father can get his cheapo JVC 1 CCD camera back :-)

An XM2 is 35% cheaper in Germany than here in Denmark where I live, so quite worth shopping across the border.

I got an UV filter, bag and 930 battery with it, but I will be aiming for tripod and shotgun mic very soon.

Just wanted to thank the DVI forum for the wealth of competent information presented here in a very friendly style ie. flamefree environment.

It is truly a treasure trove and I hope that I will eventually be able to return the favor to the DVI community - I have already tried on the subjects that I know something about.

Now if that postman would just hurry up from Germany!!!

Hans Henrik

Good luck, I am sure you will love the cam.

Hello Hans Henrik,

I'm curious, how much did you pay for the camera when you ordered it from Germany? And how did you pay? Where from did you order it ( website ? )

Cyberphoto here in Sweden sell it for 24074:-SEK ( with Swedish guarantee and documentation ). 24074:-SEK = 2777 USD or 2617 Euro or 18296 Danske Kronor( I think ;-)

Best Regards,

Lars Siden

I was originally inspired by this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3499

The seller can be found at www.foto-bartmann.de

I E-mailed the original poster about his experiences with Foto-Bartmann and he was very positive, so I decided to give them a try.

I have spoken to them repeatedly over the phone and via E-mail. I ordered it last Thursday, and the price was set at 2147 Euros (slightly more in USD atm.) They wanted to send it "cash on delivery" but it turns out that Denmark does not accept COD over the amount of 1600 Euros.

I talked to them again on Friday, and I decided (after taking a deep deep breath!) to prepay the camera, and trust the store to send me the camera. It was not done totally out of the blue of course. It turns out that they have a physical store with showroom, they were perfectly happy should I come by and pick it up in person instead, and they have been in business for about 30 years, so I think I can trust them to send me a camera. I also have full documentation of my payment, order number etc.

I actually paid less, since I buy it for my company, and thus get it without 16% mehrwertsteuer (sales tax) but even with the tax, the price seems almost 500 Euros lower than the price you have seen in Sweden, so it should possibly be a good deal for you too. The sales tax difference from Swedens 25% to Germanys 16% alone is a nice difference, and provided that the German company are not a major exporter, you can import it to Sweden as an EU country without extra taxes (how it works for Denmark anyway, your results might differ - call your local tax authorities)

Shipment came to 41 Euros, including insurance.

Right now they say they have the camera ready to go, and will ship as soon as I fax them my bank transfer confirmation which will be in the mail tomorrow.

If you are interested, I can keep you posted on how things turn out....

Staring at the mailbox....

Hans Henrik

I am in the same situation - just got my new XM2 from Germany last week. Bought it at pixxass.de - price 2145 EUR. I had to transfer money by bank transfeer - bank charged DKK 100 in fee.

I got the DM50 microphone, 64 Mb SD card, BP-945 (ordered BP-930 but got BP-945 instead for the same money - lucky) and VL-10Li. All stuff at 2570 EUR included shipping cost - great price compared to prices in Denmark. I am think I will bye the WD-52H later on an mayby a 2X lens. So I am interested to hear about your experience:

Where did you get yours?
At which price?
Could you pay with credit card (visa) and save the fee to the bank ?
Which bag did you buy? Can you give me a hint if it is excellent for the XM2?

Delivery time was pretty long - about 6 weeks because they did'nt have all items in stock. But everything came at last. All in unbroken boxes, so I can sure recommend pixxass. All my e-mail enquiries was answerred the same day. Only one complaint - the order status on my account on the site was not updated - had always status open.


I agree that this community is a great for us new XM2 users - have got a lot of usefull information.

I hope you will get your gear soon. It's great. Maybe we can share further information by e-mail if the community think this is borring stuff.

Mogens Dahl Pallesen

"by e-mail if the community think this is borring stuff." - Hey, how would you know?!?!

IMHO - C'mon stick any XM2 stuff up here - I for one would love to hear from y'll - Nice to have a few more people who live in Europe on this site - yes? Apart from anything else I'm fed up doing the "GL2=XM2" typing !

Good morning Hans Henrik,

Foto-bartmann sounds very interesting - I tried to check out their online shop this morning, but alas, my school German is very poor ( http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/ can be helpful for others in my situation, it translates Eng->German, German->Eng ).

I also had some trouble getting stuff into my shopping-basket, even though I lowered my security settings to low in IE 6.02 sp1.

I'll call the Swedish toll to hear what they say about ordering a camera from Germany ( shouldn't be any problems since we're both EU countries...but you never know, Sweden is often "special" )

Checking the rest of this forum-thread I can see that many of us work with same things in real life ;-) I'm also an intranet/internet developer - devoted to MS .NET technology.

Once again, thank you very much for your information - could be that you made me save about 5000:- SEK

Best regards,

Lars Siden

Lars,

I gave up on their web page ordering system too. I only used it to check prices which seem to be updated every week or so. It seems their focus is more on the physical store anyway.

Instead I used E-mail and phone. You can write them in english. If you phone, you may ask for herr Wienen. He speaks excellent English.

They had all items in stock by the way, and will be shipping my XM2 today. I'll keep you posted.

Hans Henrik

Hans Henrik,

I contacted Foto-Bartmann yesterday via e-mail. I refered to you ;-) Told them I'd like to order a XM-2 and a BP-945 batterypack.

They haven't answered my mail yet, like you, I'm jumping up and down in anticipation! I want the camera now ( or more likely, last week ;-)

// Lazze

Are your ever gonna have fun!

My feelings exactly Lars. I cannot wait either.

According to Foto-Bartmann, my package is now in Hamburg. It seems that the German postal service only offers tracking by phone. Ie. calling a certain premium number, and not via the Internet.

Good luck with your order.

Hans Henrik

I'm jealous. Won't be getting my XM2 for another couple of months :(

Tada!

It is on its way! The Swedish Postal serices accepted COD up to 3500:- EURO. So Björn W at Foto-Bartmann sent my camera today!

I got the Camera, 2 extra BP930 batteries(non Canon brand), bag(ROWI), UV filter and 6 Sony Highgrade miniDV tapes for 150:- Euro less than the camera alone costs here in Sweden.

So far the service has been excellent!

// Lazze ( The Bouncing one... )

Another swede checking in! ;)

I've pretty much decided on getting a XM-2 but since it's a lot of money I've been holding of on a purchase.

Lars: what kind of warranty (garanti) do you get. Will a local swedish repair shop/service center honor it or would you be required to send it back to Germany?

What was the total cost of your order in euros or kroner? Also I know that COD means cash on delivery but will the swedish post office accept any thing else? Withdrawing twenty something "Gustav Vasa" bills isn't exactly convenient.

Benjamin:

The German warranty is 2 years. I have been told that Canons warranties are European wide so I should be able to get it serviced here in Denmark if it should break, but have written to Canon to get this confirmed. I can keep you posted on the reply.

The total cost including german sales tax and shipment was 2190 Euro.

Hans Henrik

<<<-- Originally posted by Benjamin Taft : Another swede checking in! ;)

What was the total cost of your order in euros or kroner? Also I know that COD means cash on delivery but will the swedish post office accept any thing else? Withdrawing twenty something "Gustav Vasa" bills isn't exactly convenient. -->>>

Hello and Welcome Benjamin - nice not being the only Swede around!

I sincerly hope that I will get a "hämta paket på posten blankett". So that I can pay by card. I don't think they'll accept 23kkr in casch ( too big a chance to be robbed )

If you'd like you may e-mail me directly, that way I can keep you posted on the progress. Adress: lazze@datarutin.se

Best regards,

Lazze Z

Hans Henrik, you mention that you will be buying the camera through your company and thereby avoiding the German tax. How does this work? If I buy something for my company here in Sweden I would normally pay the full price including sales taxes and then I can write it off against the VAT included in my incomes. Is the VAT/Sales tax drawn off at the time of purchase or do you get it returned later on? I guess I'll have to check the Swedish rules as well but it would still be interesting to know how you did it.

Also, please keep me posted on what reply you get from Canon on the warranty issue, thanks...

Lazze, I sent of a mail to you!

Hi there,

I'm German and I ordered my XM2 at www.foto-bartmann.de, too (2138 EUR). Ordered Monday, cam arrived Thursday so everything seems to be ok with them. But if you need batteries and memory cards, you should definitely try www.save-it-smart.de. I bought the 5500mA accu and it's absolutely brillant. The price is 37 EUR (CANON's BP945 ist about 200 EUR and don't last as long as this model). I also orderd a 64MB SD-Card which was 60 EUR.


Chris

Benjamin, it is the same here in Denmark. If I had bought the camera in Denmark, I would have had to pay 25% VAT. I would subsequently have been able to recoup the tax paid by a deduction in my income, but since I bought it in Germany, I simply give them my company registration number (SE number). They then ship it without charging the sales tax at all.

I will then have to inform the danish tax authorities that I bought it, but the VAT is never really paid. I assume it is because it would be too complicated if I first paid German tax, then deducted it from my own income. In that case the german tax authorities would have to send the money to the danish tax authorities.

I hope that explains it a bit.

Good tip on the batteries Chris

Hans Henrik

I got a fast reply from Canon regarding the warranty issue. The reply was in Danish, so here is my translation:

"All digital Canon cameras bought in Europe are covered by a pan-european warranty which includes the following countries:

Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, England."

Then follows an address for Canons service office in Denmark. There is also a disclaimer about cameras bought outside Europe and in ex-eastern Europe.

Sounds good to me...

Hans Henrik

Hans Henrik, Benjamin and Lazze!

As I mentioned erlier in this thread there is another interesting German site http://www.pixxass.de/ with even lower prices compared to the Foto-Bartmann site. And the on-line ordering system is working. I got my XM2 from Pixxass a couple of weeks ago. Details are mentioned above.

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play with it until now to get some experience - especially not with the manuel settings.

If you new XM2 users dicoverer/experience some intersting stuff please do not hesitate to share it with another newcommer at this GL2/XM2 page.

I can understand that you are all very exited to recieve your XM2 soon. It's great. Looking forward to make my first footage and can't wait until summer where I am going to make some shoots from atlantic salmon fishing in Norway and see trout fishing in Denmark.

best regards

Mogens Dahl Pallesen

Hello Mogens,

I checked Pixass.de, but they had raised their price, so now Foto-Bartman was 150.- Euro cheaper for the camera.

When I lay awake in bed at night ( I'm a father of a newborn daughter, so there are many nights spent like that ;-) - I plan my coming video-sessions.

I have just realized that I need to learn how to use som 3D program, so that I can add some fun animated stuff to my films, any tips on an easy to learn 3D program that can create AVI ?

I have Truespace Caligari 4 - rather simple... but it craves alot of time. Besides cool animated stuff, I'll need a library with add-on sounds and music....

So much fun to do, and so little time!

Regards,

Lazze Z

"I need to learn how to use som 3D program" - As you might guess this is a massive area of activity. Could you be a bit more specific? Is it 3D graphics and/or 3D animation? Really it depends on the size of your wallet. You appear to have the pc muscle to cope with a lot of editing. I'm a bit concerned you having just one HD. Even though it is very big the recieved wisdomn form others, and my own hard won expereince has shown me the need to have:

1 - A system disc. solely for the programmes and Windows.
2 - An external daisey chain of firewired supporting video and graphics HDs

It would be my advice to explore and research the options and need for some additional "working" drives. Apart from anything else, in the event your only drive going "South" and you loosing ALL your work - the extra drives can be used for back up and general housekeeping - yeah?

I use a combination of 1x60gb + 80gb + 2x 120gb external firewire drives. I use these for various combinations of Capture; Render to; Pre-render; Graphics and music; mpeg tests and other NEw Software test bedding etc etc - yeah?

Hope this helps. A bit "Off-Topic" but within the same area of getting ready to-do stuff.

Hi Graham,

<<<-- Originally posted by Graham Bernard : "I need to learn massive area of activity. Could you be a bit more specific? Is it 3D graphics and/or 3D animation? Really it depends on the size of
>>>

3D-animation should fit my needs best. I'm just doing video editing as a hobby so the budget isn't that large. My main interest in computers is developing programs ( yepp, I'm a genuine nerd, started Before the commodore 64 ). I've found that working with stills & video really gets my creative thinking into high gear, so it isn't just fun, it's good for work as well ;-)

As I said, I have bought Truespace 4, just got an offer to update to v6.5 with a facial animation pack included...

What I would like to do in 3D is some kind of funny-toon that can introduce my videos and act as a guide ( when doing some kind of documentary videos ).

My fist planned project is a documentary about a castle in the neighbourhood - for that shooting I'd like some "ghostly" animated fifteencentury dancers ( you know, white powdered in old fashioned clothing )

So the ideal 3D-program for me should be something with alot of pre-made, ready to use stuff.

>>>>>>>>>>>
your wallet. You appear to have the pc muscle to cope with a lot of editing. I'm a bit concerned you having just one HD. Even though it is very big the recieved wisdomn form others, and my own hard won expereince has shown me the need to have:
-->>>

oh *s* I just wrote the short short version of my hardware. I have 2 computers at home. One workstation ( @2.53ghz) and one server ( P4@1.5ghz ). I have 2x 80gb in the workstation, and 2x80 in the Server(+ 80gb system drive ). All drives going in a RAID(mirror).

I'm planning to get 2x 120gb Serial ATA drives that I'll STRIPE for maximum performance. The striped partition is very vulnerable so I'll only use it when doing the editing and final render. Then I will back up the material, either on a DV tape or on DVD.

I'm also planning to get a gigabit ethernet at home, the prices on gigabit NIC:s is down to about 50 USD ( a switch is still expensive, but having just 2 computers I could use a cross-over copper cable )

Ohh, I think I went quite out of subject here ;-)

Best regards,

Lazze Z

Woah! You're way ahead of me! Nice to read all your experience and your "muscle" power - That reminds me to add my spec and CV to my signature - taught me a lesson here - cheers!

My only other "advice", would be to scout some more dedicated Forums - dedicated to 3D animation etc etc. But I guess you knew that too - yeah? - You could wait for one of the colleagues here to respond.

My package with XM2 just arrived from Germany in fine order. Everything seems to be in order, so hereby my recommendation of Foto-Bartmann.

Now I remember what Christmas feels like for an 8 year old :-)

No more time to write... Got better things to do.

Hans Henrik

Glad you received it okay, Hans! Go shoot some things!!

<<<-- Originally posted by Hans Henrik Bang : My package with XM2 just arrived from Germany in fine order. Everything seems to be in order, so hereby my recommendation of Foto-Bartmann.

Now I remember what Christmas feels like for an 8 year old :-)

No more time to write... Got better things to do.

Hans Henrik -->>>

Hello Hans Henrik,

I'm so glad for you ... and for me ;-) Cause I still have the thrill of opening the box ahead of me! My package was sent 19/3... so I should receive it about 25/3 or so ...

I'm waiting for a full report from you, I want ALL details on the camera and your first impressions!

Friday night - Time for some booze and women(oh, I'm engaged, damn! ;-)

// Lazze

"Time for some booze and women(oh, I'm engaged, damn! ;-)
" wellll 1 out of 2 aint bad . . . and then you get your XM2 too!

<<<-- Originally posted by Graham Bernard : "Time for some booze and women(oh, I'm engaged, damn! ;-)
" wellll 1 out of 2 aint bad . . . and then you get your XM2 too! -->>>

Haha, You're right Graham! And to be totally honest, I already got 2 wonderful women .... one of them only 6 months old... the same one that will be target number one when the XM2 arrives!

BTW -> Just tested Windows Media Encoder 9 -> Good result! a 1.3gb AVI compressed to 77mb .wmw file. The quality is above average ( but it took long time, 5min video took almost 30 minutes to encode on my P4@2.53ghz ).

Even VERY good quality considering the small file size.

Hick, time for another glass ;-)

// Lazze

Hi Lars (and others)

My camera was shipped from Germany one day before yours on 18/3 and arrived 21/3, so hopefully you should get yours soon too. If you are impatient you can call the German tracking service (only available via phone for some odd reason) on this number: +49 18 02 30 22 00. Ask for international "Track and Trace". It requires that you have the "Einlieferungsnummer" which you can get from Foto-Bartmann.

Here is an initial report of my first day using my new XM2:

I started by charging the battery which was probably the longest hour of my life :-) I could then power up the camera without tape in it and start familiarizing myself with all the controls.

I did a little testshoot of course just to see what the footage looked like, and in my overeagerness I disregarded the cameras request that I set date/time. This in turn led to a strange error when trying to capture the DV to my computer. Adobe reported that it was an unknown compression format.

It turned out that entering the date and time helped out with this (by fixing the timecode issue), so I recommend you do that from the outset. It still has an odd quirk where I get the same error for the first scene on the tape (I am capturing each scene to an individual .avi with "Scenalyzer"). My guess is that there is still a bit of incorrect timecode at the beginning of the tape, so I just record a "garbage" scene first on the tape. I assume that changing tapes will solve that problem, but I haven't tried that yet.

I also put on an UV filter right after I took the camera out of the box. I would definately recommend doing that to protect your precious fluorite lens.

All the different shooting modes and controls can seem a bit daunting at first, but after playing with it for an hour with no tape in it, I started to feel more familiar with it, and didn't have to look every time I had to find a button.

I should say that I come from using a borrowed JVC GR-DVL 157 camcorder which is a fairly low end 1 CCD camera. My first pleasant surprise was when looking in the viewfinder of the XM2.

Instead of my usual low-res black and white image, I had a very clear color image. Remember to focus it with the little knob on the underside of the viewfinder. I have been used to shooting using the fold out LCD display on the JVC, but the viewfinder on the XM2 is really good. Much better in sunlight where the LCD may be hard to see.

I then went to the local park armed with both my JVC and the XM2. I wanted to do a "side by side" comparison, so I shot a number of scenes with one camera, then the other. I went with auto white balance on both cameras for the sake of simplicity.

I put the shots into Premiere so that each shot from my JVC was followed by an identical shot from the XM2. What a pleasant surprise! I was immediately impressed by several things. The colors on the XM2 are great. Much more natural looking than my JVC. The image is very sharp, and compared to the JVC there is much less noise especially in large bright color surfaces. I shot a vertical white flagpole, and while the JVC exhibited some shadowing just outside the flagpole, the XM2 showed the border between the flagpole and the background very clearly.

One thing I would like to experiment more with is the "sharpness" control. "Sharpness" as far as I know is a bit of a misnomer. It should rather be called "edge" enhancement, because what it really does is to add a bright edge to all sharp contrast changes in the image. If you turn it up fully you will see what I mean. Generally I am not in favor of adding something to the image which is not really there, and on my viewing device - a home theater setup with an Electrohome 4100 projector, I have sharpness turned down to minimum. I will try to do some shots with varying amounts of "sharpness" but I suspect I will end up setting it at minimum on the XM2 as well. In the beginning you might think that the image looks a bit "soft" but after getting used to it, edge enhancement just looks terrible in comparison.

Another difference that took me a bit to identify was that the XM2 shots just seemed so much more "relaxed" compared to the previous JVC shots. It took a while before it hit me... The OIS (optical image stabilization). That simply works great on the XM2! Not only does it not degrade the image, but it held my XM2 shots rock steady compared to the JVCs digital stabilization.

I tried playing around with manual focus which has not been available to me before on the JVC. I wanted to do a rack focus shot of a far away castle with some branches in the foreground. I went to a full open iris (f 1.6), a somewhat zoomed image and focus on the branches with a defocused castle in the background. With the manual focus ring I could reasonably well shift focus to the castle, but I still miss the mechanical focus of my age old 8 mm camera. The servo controlled focus ring just doesn't give you the same feel.

I should say though, that the XM2's autofocus works very well indeed. I did not see any "hunting" at all in my test shots.

Another little quirk was the ND filter. I engaged it for my rack focus shot, and "NDoff" then flashes in the display. At first I thought I had actually turned the filter off now, but I realized that the "ND" part shows that the filter is engaged, and the "off" part means that the camera suggests you turn it off since the scene was not bright enough to warrant an ND filter.

That was my initial impressions in a nutshell - a rather large nutshell actually, as I probably let my exuberance over my new camera get the better of me :-)

Overall very happy with my XM2 so far.

Hope you get yours soon, and looking forward to hearing about your experiences with it.

Hans Henrik

Oh, and one more thing... If you or someone else would be interested in seeing raw DV footage from the XM2, I will be happy to put up a small scene on FTP. I don't have a webspace that will accomodate around 40 MB, so I will just set up a FTP service on my desktop computer if anyone is interested. If so, write me an e-mail at hhb@post7.tele.dk

Hans Henrik

Heh. That didn't take long. I had barely posted the above before I got requests for raw footage.

I set up a FTP server on:

[url]ftp://80.164.30.144

Username: DVFriend
Password: dvinfo

It will only remain up for the next 20 hours or so. I have dynamic IP address assignment, so I will likely get a new one next time I boot my machine.

Hope you will find it useful. The upstream bitrate is 512 kbit/s so you will need a bit of patience since this is raw DV footage.

Hans Henrik

Hi there Hans Henrik,

I'm impressed that you put up so much time writing here, when you have your new toy to play with *S*

Thanks alot for all tips ( timecode...ND filter etc etc )

I've spent the whole day(almost) - editing our daughters baptism ( which was shot with my former camera, a mega-lousy canon mv5i/mc and a Sony digital8 ). I still haven't found the "optimal" setup in premiere ( I compare NLE with my music seqencers like Cubase SX, trying to get the same setup ).

To Sharpen or not to Sharpen that is the question: I've been debating this issue a loooong time - since I have a digital SLR still camera ( Canon D30 ). I tend to lean at "sharpen abit" ;-) I do like the "unsharp" function in Photoshop 7 - it removes the digital softness from stills that I don't like.

One thing to keep in mind is that video is "motion" - a thing I tend to forget. What I mean by that is that the consumer won't analyze every single frame, it is the "whole package" that counts. So sharpning the video may very well be an overkill - an effect only seen "behind the scene".

Very glad to hear that you are happy with the camera and the quality if it!

<<panting>> Maybe I'll get my camera on tuesday then!

Brgds,

Lazze

I finally ordered a Canon XM-2 from Foto-Bartmann! yay

Hope it arrives soon....now I have to get an extra firewire harddrive too. :D

Sounds good Benjamin. I hope it will live up to your expectations. I am still very happy with mine.

Just curious, what did Foto Bartmann charge you for the camera. It seemed that their prices went up a bit after I got mine. Perhaps they realized that their profit margin was too narrow after I got mine?

Hans Henrik

Hey hey, got my camera today! My firewire harddrive and firewire cable for the camera got delayed until next week though, doh....

Your right about them charging quite a bit more for the camera now but since I would be able to buy it through my company it still seemed like a pretty good deal compared to the prices in sweden. Anyways this is what I was supposed to pay.

1x Canon XM2 1981,90
2x Sony Exelance a 5pc 81,90
1x UV lens 37,93
1x shippment incl. insurance 40,00

Total: 2141,73

Björn W forgot about the tax free price and wrote down the price with tax on the package. I phoned him today and he offered to transfer over the difference to my bank account. I sent him all the neccesary info for the transaction so hopefully everything should work out in the end.

Now if that battery charger would only stop blinking soon. :D