Re: Rear LANC Controller for Zoom and Iris?
 

Tim,

It was a tough decision. So many great cameras coming out. I almost talked myself into a C300 but for some reason the thought of no auto focus terrifies me, really. Some have suggested the price of the XF cams are about to drop in price. I don't think so. Maybe used gear will drop but Canon doesn't seem to drop much. Went with the XF305 for more elegant cable management beside the ability to sync time code. Also should hold value a bit better if I decide to sell it. Due to the reviews on here, I've also ordered Doug Jensen's training video. I went with 2 Sandisk Extreme 64GB UDMA6 CF cards and the portable Nexto device to dump them to. Hopefully get this stuff in time for Christmas vacation in Thailand. Can't wait!!

Re: Rear LANC Controller for Zoom and Iris?
 

Funny thing about the Vortex Media DVDs is that when I first got my XF300 I was coming from DSLRs and a Sony HC1 and had no experience with lots of the features that come with a decent video camera. So the training DVDS were definitely a time saver. But a few months down the line it just doesn't seem that complicated and I wonder how long it would really have taken me to work it all out from the user guide.

End of the day, I am sure I took a serious chunk of time out of learning the camera, and the DVDs are not a lot of money so I have no regrets. Perhaps I should work my way through them again and see what I missed first time through.

Looking fprward to hearing Mark's experience with the ZR-2000

Re: Rear LANC Controller for Zoom and Iris?
 

Received the XF305 today! The ZR-2000 LANC Remote Controller works as advertised. I can manually control the iris. It's lightweight and easily attaches to the panning arm. Plugged it into my XL-H1A and after making the setting adjustment in the Custom Function menu, confirmed that it will also permit manual iris control on that camera as well. Checked the manuals on a few other cameras and found that this iris control function will work on the XH-G1S and XH-A1S, but not on XL1, XL2, XL-H1, XH-G1 nor the XH-A1.

So far I've watched all the Vortec Media DVDs and shot a few practice clips, downloaded the cards (SanDisk 64GB Extreme Pro 600X UDMA7) to the Nexto DI storage device and also directly from camera to laptop with Canon Utility program. Opened right up in Sony Vegas and did some minor edits to see how that goes. So far, so good.

Mark

Re: Rear LANC Controller for Zoom and Iris?
 

Thanks for your follow up Mark. Glad to see everything is working out.

Re: Rear LANC Controller for Zoom and Iris?
 

Just to clarify- the XL-H1 a and s models will also do this. It is Custom Function 17.