I recently purchased two new XL2's with 20x lenses. Bought from
different vendors at different times. Both act the same. When I power
up, lens makes a clunking sound. When in Manual Focus, I zoom in, get
critical focus, then zoom out wide. The wide shot is out of focus. I
focus wide, but then my telephoto focus is off. I'm shooting in 60i/4x3. I placed a 16x lens from my XL1 on my XL2 and it worked fine. Like any professional lens, it will keep focus when zooming in all the way, focusing and zooming out. Why am I losing back focus? How can I fix it, short of using Auto Focus? Thanks in advance from this newbie.

Two answers
1-the clunking is normal. that's the autofocus prism rotating into position as commanded by the rangefinder.

2-your lens needs to have the backfocus calibrated against your camera body. Most professional lenses provide a user accessible adjustment for this, the Canon 20x does not. Send the body and the lens in to Canon for adjustment.

Hi Mike,

First register your XL2s for XL owner club membership if you haven't already. Then call Canon and let them know that you have two lenses that you need to send in for warranty repairs. They will send you boxes, for free, to ship them, but you will have to pay the shipping to send them into Canon.

They require you to send the camera bodies in with the lenses, and from what I have experienced, they do need the bodies to adjust the lenses properly. They will then send the cameras back to you and the critical focus will then hold, mine works perfect now.

Canon Service Center completes these adjustments extremely fast for XL club owner members, 5 days max from the time they receive it till the time it shows up at your door. Just keep in mind that it might be useful to purchase an extended warranty with these cameras/lenses since every time the backfocus is off we will need to send the camera into Canon due to the lack of backfocus adjustment.

Hope this helps,
RPM

Two answers
1-the clunking is normal. that's the autofocus prism rotating into position as commanded by the rangefinder.

Close Bill, but no cigar(grin). It is the variable angle prism being initialized, but its function is optical image stabilization, not autofocus.

-gb-

Thanks for the info. I did join the XL club and I did call Canon. Here is the XL club response:

Dear Mr. Greif:

Thank you for your inquiry. We value you as a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you with the XL2 camcorders that you own.

What you have described is a normal occurrence with any telephoto lens system. To avoid constant focusing, you would indeed be able to enable the Auto Focusing feature.

We hope this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance with the XL2 camcorders.

The guy I called at Canon basically said the same thing, that I have to "live with it". After that, I'm not too excited about sending my gear off to them. It's odd that two vendors at two different times sent me defective equipment.

I'm not quite sure exactly what you asked for them to be reffering you to autofocusing, but it sounds almost as if you've talked to inexperienced rep or something. The critical focus should be maintained no matter what lens you are using.

Sure the focus may not be exact during a couple of spots in between the zoom range, but full tight and full wide definitely should keep your critical focal point.

If your camera's backfocus problem is anything like mine was, your autofocus won't work right when you're full wide either (even though I try not to use autofocus). At first I thought I would just live with it too, but after a couple of shoots, I was on the phone with Canon very quickly.

From what I've heard this is not an uncommon problem with the 20X lens. I know of a couple of people personally that have had this problem while others have not experienced the problem at all. As far as Canon is concerned, I would call back up there and just tell them you have XL2s with a backfocus problem that you will be sending in for repairs, assuming that your cameras are still under warranty. The lady that I talked to at Canon was extremely helpful and sweet as pie.

Just my suggestion, for what it's worth.

To avoid constant focusing, you would indeed be able to enable the Auto Focusing feature.



Basically, this is backwards. Disable auto focus then zoom in and focus. If you are focused properly and back out and it is not maintained, then the back focus adjustment is out of wack.

You should not be letting the auto focus work this for you. This is a manual focus time!

Mike

Basically, this is backwards. Disable auto focus then zoom in and focus. If you are focused properly and back out and it is not maintained, then the back focus adjustment is out of wack.

You should not be letting the auto focus work this for you. This is a manual focus time!

Mike

He did say in the original post that he was manually focusing. Going full tele for critical focus then finding the lens is not holding focus at wide angle. I believe he has a legitimate complaint. The part about autofocus is what the Canon folks replied with in a more or less generic email.

-gb-

p.s. It was good to see you at NAB again this year! Hope you're enjoying that little HV20.

Tech support by phone is a different thing from the factory service center -- in fact they are two completely separate departments. Don't let your experience with one affect your decision to utilize the other. Sending the cameras and lenses into service is the *only* possible resolution to this issue.

He did say in the original post that he was manually focusing. Going full tele for critical focus then finding the lens is not holding focus at wide angle. I believe he has a legitimate complaint. The part about autofocus is what the Canon folks replied with in a more or less generic email.

-gb-

p.s. It was good to see you at NAB again this year! Hope you're enjoying that little HV20.

Greg,

Exactly, I was agreeing with him and not Canon. They were basically telling him to just leave it in auto so he wouldn't have to bother with that nasty focusing stuff!!!! :)

It was great to see you again at NAB too Greg! Love your camera, I'll trade even up!?!?!?!?

Mike

Thanks guys for the replies. I'll give Canon another shot. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem. Yes, I do critical focus then zoom out. I have been doing a work around by shooting in 30p with shutter at 1/30. It seems to mask the focus problem for now.

I'm a little ticked off right now! Just bought a second XL2 and it has the same backfocus issue as my first. That means I'll have to shell out another $70 to have it shipped into Canon so they can fix a problem that the camera was sold with. This will be $140 now that I have spent because of backfocus issues with the 20X lens out of the box.

Don't get me wrong, I love the XL2 and the stock 20X, but it is ridiculous that I have to shell out an extra $70 and be without the cam for a week or more every time I buy one of these cameras.

Sorry if this sounds whiney, but am a little ticked!

Just venting,
Ryan

Ryan,

That sucks about the 2nd lens. I'm waiting for a break from projects to be able to RESEND my xl2 to canon to REFIX the backfocus issue they said they fixed before. Yeesh.

Jonathan

I feel your pain. I have multiple projects that I am working on that I need both cameras for. For now the second is a static shot using the 3x, but I am going to Japan this summer on a project that will be shot mostly cinema verite. My second photog will probably not like it if I give him a cam that has a backfocus issue.

I am going to have to bite the bullet, suspend my shoot dates and send it in so I can have it back before the middle of June.

Sorry to hear that your camera is still having issues, it's not very reassuring that my camera will be fixed when it comes back. They did an excellent job on adjusting my first cam.

Have a safe trip to Japan...haven't shot there yet (though I hope to by the end of the year for work if all goes well.) Should be a good experience.

I'm sure you will, but post back later and let us know what happens after you send the lens in.

Jonathan

Hey guys,

I have an XL2 as well, and I've often thought I may have a backfocus problem. Would there be a backfocus problem if zooming in, focusing, and zooming out seems a bit soft (it's just tough to tell, really).. but then I zoom back in and it's perfectly sharp? Does this mean mine has a problem or no problem at all?

Also, I often shoot with a Soft/FX3 filter, and it seems to have a different effect based on how far zoomed in I am, which makes it tougher to know if I'm in focus or not.

Any thoughts? Is this normal?

I have I think almost 3 more years on an after market warranty that I need to register (I have to transfer from the original owner, I've had it about a year).

Thanks,
Eric

P.S. I didn't make it to NAB this year :( Not that I know any of you but still. :)

Eric,

If it happens without your filter, I think this may be a backfocus issue as your camera seems to be having exactly the same problem mine had a couple of weeks ago: when I fully zoomed in, got the focus, zoomed out to full wide, the full wide was a bit soft. Whenever I zoomed in once again, the subject was in focus. This was most noticeable at f.1.6, at f4 or so, it was barely visible but it was. At 1.6 DoF may affect the planes in front of or behind your subject so they may look like out of focus but your subject you focused on must be sharp, regardless of aperture size.

I took my camera for adjustment to Canon, they did it very fast since my XL2 was out of warranty - I was told that paying customers are treated as a priority :) It was an expensive fix but the problem's gone - now when I zoom out to full wide, everything's in focus.

I would advise you to send our camera to Canon but before you do that check it yourself: sometimes when you shoot too many closeups (as I was) then you may forget about the low resolution of DV, visible especially at wide shots so these may appear somewhat muddier. But see if you can fix this softness by turning the focus ring - I could, so definitely it was bacfocus issue.

Hope that helps,
Piotr

Thanks for the info, Piotr!

I will try to experiment with it a bit, maybe with it attached to my computer monitor and see if I can spot any problems when I zoom out.

I have about 12 hours of footage I shot for a movie we're working on, in post production on it now.. And some of the shots we're reviewing, to find the best take, the best framing, etc, I'm looking at it onscreen saying, "Where is the focus in this shot? Is anything actually SHARP here?".. But it could be that the actor moved after I focused and I wasn't aware of it, or the Soft/FX3 when shooting wide makes it a little too soft. I'm not sure. Other shots (and other takes of the same shot), I would say "okay, this one looks a lot sharper". So I'm not sure. I'll try testing it in and out, now that I have some time. :)

Funny how paying customers get priority with most companies, eh? ;) I know you're in Poland, but out of curiosity, how much did they charge you for the repair? I need to find my warranty card here to setup the transfer first.

Eric

Eric

Youre'right. Connecting your camera to PC is the best way to check the focus - that's what I was doing. I was told by Canon technician that, normally, they test and adjust focus using Siemens chart about 2 or 3 meters from the camera lens, which is the optimal distance. I was using a mobile phone (lots of small details) and a pen, I also cranked in-camera sharpness all the way up and changed colors to black and white.

Regarding the soft shots, you're probably right about the subject going out of focal plane. This, or just some error during focusing. I experience it all the time, especially when I shot indoors in low light (hate low light), XL2 stock viewfinder isn't the best, sometimes when I don't have time to zoom in-focus-out, it is just hit or miss. Some are OK, some aren't.

As for backfocus adjustment, I paid about 271$, guess the price is similar in the USA, however, we earn, less, therefore, it is about 70% (or more) of minimal salary (monthly).

BTW. It was a lady at the front desk at Canon that told me obout this 'priority'. It does make sense (though I don't know if it's a fair policy) as they got nothing from warranty repairs.

Piotr

Thanks for the additional tips, I'll give them a shot this week. =)

One other thing. I notice in my footage sometimes that I have vertical lines, equally spaced. Well not lines, but 'differences'. Like if I'm panning, I can see something like if you took a photo, cut about 10-12 vertical lines in it, and overlapped them slightly when you taped it back together. It's either missing a pixel or two, or doubling a pixel or two. I haven't figured out when or why. Is this an XL2 'feature'? It's really weird. Related to this, it seems to have trouble with saturated reds and blues, which make this vertical line thing more noticeable. I normally shoot cine gamma, with R/G/B at 0 and saturation at 0 or boosted a little bit maybe.

I love my camera otherwise. :)

Eric

Unfortunately, XL2 picture isn't always perfect but I don't recall having vertical lines in my footage, sometimes I get this moire effect or whatever when at wide shot there's e.g. a wall with with lots of fine detail or repeating patterns. These, however, are not vertical lines equally spaced but rather moving random curve-shaped lines so can't help you.

Often I get some very fine noise equally everywhere or in some parts of the image (which worsens If I apply some stylized look or gentle color correction) but again these are not lines.

I agree that there's problem with reds or other saturated colors but its a known DV issue. I always lower saturation in camera (I prefer boosting in post), which helps a little bit and then I use Magic Bullet Deartificator to remove color compression artifacts. Works well.


Piotr

Yeah I get the moire' and noise as well. This is more of an invisible line, like I mentioned cutting up an image and either repeating a pixel or two, vertically, or removing. So there's no visible line, but there's a cut in the picture, all equally spaced. It seems to be more noticeable on the highly saturated stuff. I'll try shooter a little less saturated and boosting later.

It seems odd that there are so many adjustments in the custom presets, but that to make a nice image that can be fixed properly later, you have to make things not so nice going to tape. Why is there the ability to make my footage look like The Matrix or something else that's kind of extreme in-camera, if it's not going to be as usable as shooting it a different way and adding the effect later? :)

Eric

It seems odd that there are so many adjustments in the custom presets, but that to make a nice image that can be fixed properly later, you have to make things not so nice going to tape. Why is there the ability to make my footage look like The Matrix or something else that's kind of extreme in-camera, if it's not going to be as usable as shooting it a different way and adding the effect later? :)

Eric

True. But still, it's nice to have the ability to tweak the image, even if it's only to fix or alleviate possible compression artifacts etc. This is mostly what I use custom presets for.

There were some discussions about if it's better to set the look in-camera or in post. People say it's better to tweak image before it is compressed but let's be honest, XL2 in-cam controls won't give you the look you might get only by doing advanced color correction in post. Instead, you may limit yourself later due to worse picture quality etc. I prefer to do minor tweaks as pressing black, master pedestal and warming the image, but the rest I leave for Magic Bullet Looks, even if color correction gives me images a little bit noisier than original clips.

Anyway, I just saw my brother's in-law wedding video: he said it might have been shot with sony vx2100. Low light performance is great, but the rest.... let's say I started appreciating my XL2 :)

True. But still, it's nice to have the ability to tweak the image, even if it's only to fix or alleviate possible compression artifacts etc. This is mostly what I use custom presets for.

There were some discussions about if it's better to set the look in-camera or in post. People say it's better to tweak image before it is compressed but let's be honest, XL2 in-cam controls won't give you the look you might get only by doing advanced color correction in post. Instead, you may limit yourself later due to worse picture quality etc. I prefer to do minor tweaks as pressing black, master pedestal and warming the image, but the rest I leave for Magic Bullet Looks, even if color correction gives me images a little bit noisier than original clips.

Anyway, I just saw my brother's in-law wedding video: he said it might have been shot with sony vx2100. Low light performance is great, but the rest.... let's say I started appreciating my XL2 :)

Yeah I think the pressed blacks might be a little too extreme sometimes. I almost always use cine gamma, but then I think I'd prefer the mids to be brighter. Still learning I guess. :)

I've seen some pretty rough looking footage since getting my XL2 as well. I take it for granted til I see other cameras' stuff, or use other cameras and then wonder how people can deal with them sometimes. :) "What do you mean you can't control everything on this camera with a hardware knob or button?!"

Eric

OK, I finally found the time to send in my second lens and now I am really pissed. Shelled out the $70 to ship the cam to Canon, for the second time, and the lens came back with the exact same backfocus issue that I sent it to them with.

I am extremely pissed off at this point. I work with professionals and like to consider myself a professional as well, but it is really hard to hand a professional shooter a cam and tell them to "watch out for the backfocus problem" that for some reason I can't even get fixed. It sucks because the XL2 is a great cam otherwise, but I probably won't be buying Canon in the future.

I did have my heart set on XL-H1s for my next cams, but now I am seriously thinking that the Sony XD cams are starting to look pretty damn good.

Is there any such thing as great customer service anymore?

Wow, that stinks. You didn't send in the camera with it though?

I still have a thing with mine where I zoom in and get a perfect focus, zoom back and the shot looks dull, so I refocus til it's sharp (zoomed out), and zoom in and it's out of focus.. But if I zoom in, focus, zoom out, and zoom back in, it's still perfectly focused, so it's not back-focus I guess?

And then another thing.. If I focus at mid-zoom and get it sharp (speculars, hair, etc), and then zoom all the way in, it's no longer in focus. I'm not sure if this is normal behavior or not and I haven't had enough downtime (or cash) to ship it in..

Eric

Yeah, the cam was shipped with it.

Anytime you zoom in and grab critical focus and then lose that focus when you zoom out, you have a backfocus issue. Both of my XL2s suffer(ed) from the same condition that you describe and it is definitely a backfocus issue, one of them they actually fixed when I sent it in. I wouldn't be so mad right now if they had actually fixed the problem. I still think it's BS that the cams are shipped with such a perceivable disrespect for quality control.

Ryan, which Canon center did you send it to? I've had good and bad results at times, usually a phone call will clear it up, and they'll cover the reship charge.

I'm a huge fan of the manual 16x for the exact reasons you point out. Razor sharp, adjustable back focus, a delight to use. AND I have a buddy who uses his with his XLH-1 all the time... looks gorgeous.

Hey Richard,

I sent it to the Cali service center. They did an excellent job on my last lens, but this one not so much. I'll definitely have to call them after the holiday.

I have given some thought to the 16x, but I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with the XL2s long enough to justify picking up any more lenses for them. Maybe I'll just have to pick one up anyway, they seem to keep their resale value pretty well. Man it sure would be nice to have an all manual lens.

I did have my heart set on XL-H1s for my next cams, but now I am seriously thinking that the Sony XD cams are starting to look pretty damn good.

Is there any such thing as great customer service anymore?

Ryan, it will not help you with your current camera, but I just want to let you know that on the XL-H1 cameras, you can adjust the back focus by yourself, you will not need to ship it back to Canon.

Ryan,

You can pick up a 16x for around $800 - $900 if you watch the boards. They come up here every now and then... Ebay will normally have one or two a month. Definitely worth the investment. They are the superior choice for 'filmmaking'.

Does the 16x do auto-focus and finger zoom control? (from remote or right-hand grip?). I know it's full manual, but does it have servos or possible external control, to use it like a studio camera or pro shoulder mount type?

Eric

Eric, the 16x is a MANUAL lens, so no - it doesn't do auto focus. Yes, it has a zoom servo, so it responds to your camera's zoom controlls on the handle or the grip. Since the zoom servo is controlled by the camera, any remote zoom controll would have to go through the camera's lanc control port on the body. The zoom servo can also be disengaged for manual zooming. It has a mounting screw hole on the left hand side of the lens, so you could mount a left hand remote focus block (Broadcast style) - the focus and zoom rings are knurled in standard threads so they accept follow focus gear. The iris is controlled by the camera, so you need to use the exposure rocker/switch.

ALternately, you can pick up the 14x, another excellent manual lens. It has an iris ring on the lens, but NO servo - completely manual...

Read up on the lenses available here

Guide to XL2 Lens Options by Chris Hurd (http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article04.php#c16xman)

Thanks for the lens info. The 16x looks nice but I think I'd miss the OIS from the 20x. Though I wouldn't mind getting focus while zooming again (I've worked in a few public access stations and studios over the years and always enjoyed having both controls at once)

I think I need to find the Mack warranty that came with my camera (used) and send the thing back to Canon for a check-up. It was super clean when I got it, original owner claimed about 10 tapes had gone through it and it was nearly new. Except for the little matter of the scratches in the view finder on multiple lens.. Oh and the dried mud and grass I scraped out from between the lenses. Ugg. Otherwise the thing looked brand new.

Eric