I also found the standby switch very useful when walking around with the camera. Is it completely gone or did they move it elsewhere? It's not a "must have" feature, but if it's gone, I will miss it a little. Otherwise, it's a very nice upgrade to the line. They've definitely listened to the customers. Lots of nice functional enhancements. Thanks for the photos Chris!

I'm kinda bummed about this one.. I loved this feature.. infact so much I don't know if I'll part with my A1 just yet.

Seriously I know its a pain for people who don't know about it; but man its just super cool and fast for run & gun battery life!

Chris,
So they didn't do anything about widening the battery bay?

Why would they need to widen the battery bay? Canon batteries are a perfect fit in the XH series battery bay. I've heard of third-party batteries being a tight squeeze, but Canon doesn't want you to use off-brand batts -- they want you to use Canon batts, so they're not about to do anything to accommodate off-brand batteries.

It's just that when I was using my XL-1 I didn't think Canon even made a 7hour battery, so I used the Lenmars and they fit fine. But I can't do that on either of my XHA-1s. I guess I'm the only one who thinks it would be nice if all my old batteries would fit in the new bays.

No "Lock/Standby" anywhere on A1s?
 

I video horse shows, videoing riders who pay me to capture their 2 minutes of fame in the ring. (I attend 20 or so shows a year, videoing 50-100 riders at each show). There can be 3 or 4 horses near the end-gate ready to enter the ring and I might have an order to video 1 of them. I wait - with A1 on Lock - when I see my horse approaching the gate I flip to Standby ready to push the button. I replaced my XL1s with the XH-A1, and found the Standby/Lock which is an incredibly useful feature for me. So how would I do this on the A1s? Let the camera run for the 10 or so minutes between horses? I have a dust/rain cover over the camera, so if I turn off the camera must I dig around on the left side to turn it on? Will it retain my manual focus setting if I powered it off via the dial?

I'm a little confused by the Canon web site then. Because the product comparison page says that the XH-A1s and XH-G1s both record to SD/SDHC instead of MiniDV. That would seem to be a pretty big difference between the XH-G1 and XH-G1s cameras.

Am I missing something? Did Canon just replace the tape transport system with writing directly to SDHC? Because if so, that would be a big advantage (in my book at least).

They do not record to SD Media (or any other digital media other than Tape); unless it is referring to photo capture.

See, that is what confused me, because their product comparison page didn't mention MiniDV casset for the recording medium. See attached screen shot.

Canon certainly dropped the ball in such a simple game as this :D

Canon Video guys have a lot of catching up to do with the Canon Photo team.

The direct link is http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...modelid3=12152

Wow, what a serious error that is. I wonder how long that page has been like that.

Michael, I was merely commenting on the elementary misinformation such as this. In my "game rules", there's no excuse :)

I'm sure Canon has something up their sleeve regarding tapeless video. They just always seem to be last in the running with new technology and I think it's because they wait and observe what other manufacturers are doing and keep an eye on pros and cons from those users feedback before they come out with their own solution. I think it's a somewhat smart move.

yes that is true, however i've already sold all of my canon video cameras and replaced them with the 5dm2 - it makes canon video team look silly all the way arround! So its a big "shame on Canon (Video)" in my opinion.. and how long has the 5DM2 been out?!

And here I was getting super excited that the "s" rev was tapeless, but still recording in HDV format. Because just the tapeless part would be enough to entice me to buy one A1s because that would make SDE work and a lot of other work a bit easier. Darn.