2nd hand XL2 - good buy or not?
 

Hi there
A friend of mine asked me to look at a Xl2 for sale. The camera is 12 months old, has had about 30hrs of recording to date, comes in a genuine canon case, has a spare battery and is selling for AUD$4000. The seller said it has never been dropped and is in perfect condition, he even said he would give a 6 month personal garauntee. Reason for sale is that the network is supplying him with a JVC high definition and he does'nt need to have 2 cameras. I am looking at the camera in a couple of nights and am wondering if there is anything I should look for to help decide if this camera is as stated. I use a Xl2 myself and the seller said I could bring my xl2 along to compare picture quality. He also said that the technicians at the television network adjusted the settings to make it broadcast friendly and said the picture quality was nearly indistinguishable with cameras that were of $100,000 value. Any suggestions would be really apreciated.

I don't know the exchange rate of AUD to USD, but it sounds like this camera has been in some very good hands and well cared for. I would look at the camera's cosmetics because if it looks beat up on the outside, it likely hasn't been taken care of on the inside (which is really only about head and transport cleaning.) Try to take your camera and a 4 pin to 4 pin firewire cable to make sure the fw port is working. Try hooking up to s-video, and the bnc/rca (set the little switch accordingly). Essentially, do a checkout of the camera's main functions and I/O capability to ensure that all are functional. Check out the transport by fully fast forwarding and rewinding a tape. Any weakness in the motors will be exploited towards the end of the tape as the gear ratio gets harder and harder on the motor.

All in all, sounds like a good deal to me.

-gb-

AUD$4000 equals $3072 US

The $3072 sounds like a good value for the XL2, considering the other accessories that's coming along with it. I don't know what your budget is, but consider that for a few hundred (US) dollars more, you can purchase a brand new XL2 instead.

I'd like to add to Greg's great suggestions; make sure to check the lens as well.

Good luck!

--JA

Beware of the dead pixel.
 

Whatch out for dead pixels in the viewfinder and most of all in the CCD.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

REMEMBER TO TURN THE XL-2 OFF BEFORE REMOVING OR ATTACHING THE LENS OR VIEWFINDER. Otherwise you could blow a fuse. Also shut it off when attaching a mic to the XLR. Bob

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I took my XL2 down with me to look at this camera for comparrison. I checked most things that were suggested. The camera is in near perfect conditon (exept where there is glue residue from the network sticker on the side) All tests came up perfect. Interesting thing about the aluminium flight case was that it is much larger than mine. I purchased my case from the US via Ebay,great case, very happy. It was advertised as being an original Canon replica for the XL2 but discovered this Canon original is much longer & higher than mine with more storage in the base. We ended up with the following deal -

Canon Xl2 with all standard accesories (12 months old)
Original Canon aluminium flight case
Fluid head tripod
Extra large capacity battery
Hoya polarizing filter
Personal 6 month warranty ( hope he honours this)
The final price was AUD$4000 US$3074

Sounds like you did well... hope you got the personal warranty in writing:)

Kevin

Good Deal
 

Wow. I'd say you got a REALLY good deal if they threw in the tripod (I just bought a Libec w/fluid head for $1,000US. Those large Canon silver cases run quite expensive as well.

Good job.

Jonathan