The Messy, Bizarre Canon L1 Camcorder

I've had this thing for ages and finally knocked out a video about it. I was trying to find Just The Right Presentation and I just couldn't because I had so little info beyond the object in my hands.
Sorry if this one's a little rough and has some, uh, "plot holes." I reshot it three times and finally put something together from the scraps and called it finished.
FOOTNOTE: I realize now that a lot of people aren't aware that by "throw away" I meant I dropped the cameras off at the local ewaste store, which almost certainly put them back out on the sales floor where they were snapped up the next day by someone else. That's where everything goes when I get rid of it, and I used to work at that place so I can assure you, they don't throw out anything unless it's literally total garbage.
Contribute to my channel: ko-fi.com/grav...
Support me: / gravisvids

[@mickeythedart]

I am staring at my 1989 L1 as we speak. I used it recording over 400 High School Basketball, Football, and Hockey games on Martha's Vineyard in the early 90's for the local TV channel.. I can tell you for its time, the L1 was pretty special. The audio (PCM) was revolutionary for its era. Hi-8 tape was a step up from standard 8mm. I paid about 2,400 for the camera and 15x lens, adding the 3x wide angle later on. The camera still turns on, but the lens finder is caput. I will be replacing the "watch battery" that appears to power the sensors, I dunno. You are dead-on when it comes to design, although the images were great...a tripod was used 90% of the time with this clumsily put together over-priced doorstop because of the top heavy design. I will say that in 1990 it was the BOMB! In 2020? It's like a Yugo.

[@weeardguy]

The only thing that the coin-battery powers is the internal clock: if you set the date and time right, that battery keeps that information stored when the main battery is removed. As soon as it runs out of juice, the viewfinder will display a flashing 'BATTERY' notifying you that you need to replace it. It could be that the viewfinder's high voltage supply is defective: do you hear the high pitched whine when you turn it on? (To be honest... as I write this, I'm replying from PAL-experience, where the 15,625 kHz whine is easily heard.... I have no idea about NTSC) If there's no high-pitched whine, your HV-supply is most likely dead. Unfortunately, many are suffering from bad caps...

[@RobExperiment]

Hi! Did you use the canon hi-fi zoom microphone with 2 jacks while recording?

[@RobbyGamingW]

@@RobExperiment i would like to know that too. What voltage gets the mic

[@martinryter]

I work in the adult industry and in the early 90s this camera was on tons of sets.

[@supercompooper]

I wouldn't touch that with a 70 millimeter lens... Er I mean 10 foot pole. Or 8 inch ...

[@mrb692]

That fits perfectly with the semi-pro, straight to DVD market he thought this targeted

[@kai990]

dont most people work in the adult industry since child labour is illegal in most places?

[@user-gs6wt5op7p]

@@kai990 child labor is definitely illegal in his industry

[@user-gs6wt5op7p]

@@rhettmarcel4056 youre a shill

[@MikeJohnson-yh4lg]

When I sold video cameras in the mid-90s, we were advised to steer clear of Canon. My boss called them, “Boomerangs,” and explained that, “they always come back.”

[@herzogsbuick]

heh, in 2002 I worked in proaudio at a Sam Ash music store. That's what they said about Behringer. Was true then, but when I run sound or gig, at least half of what I encounter is Behringer or Midas (who weren't making the digital consoles I've been encountering for the past 5 years when Behringer bought them)

[@everlastingphelps]

Used an L2 for years in industrial video. It was a prosumer camera, with about 95% industrial video and 5% douchebag with too much money. I was trained up on full blown TV production (ENG cameras and studio cameras on pedestals both). This camera gave us what we were looking for and did it well. First, it was canon's first real video camera, but NOT their break into video. They were making the top of the line video lenses for the pro market, and that is what they were wedging in with, which is why they made sure that this lens was also interchangeable. I remember it being wildly successful because the glass was top notch canon work, it absolutely drank in light, and was tiny. The grip didn't matter much because we show 100% from tripods, and the odd SLR style grip was easier to use than some of the grip styles. (Don't remember if it had a top-mounted start/stop button, but those are the pro standard for tripod use.) It also had a surprisingly useful IR remote. On the EOS lens adapter, I didn't know anyone who had one because you didn't need one unless you were the mythical still photog you were talking about. That camera is EF lens compatible out of the box. You can take any full frame EF (red dot) lens and use it (unless it was so stubby that the handgrip got into the shot.) You didn't get all the auto (like the follow focus wouldn't always work right), but if you were using one, you usually had a special need and didn't care. Good glass plus the really good Hi-8 deck (which ended up giving you nearly the same results you would get from Beta-SP once you had edited it down to VHS, which is what almost all industrial video was delivered on) made it a hit. To put it into perspective, Sony was selling Hi8 decks to go with professional sony heads to make camcorder packages around the same time. I think most people would put Hi8 on the same level as 3/4 Umatic at the time (maybe more if you were using the digital audio.) There was complete media saturation at the time, but you aren't going to find it online. It was all in trade magazines and niche print magazines like Videography or Videomaker. If you could get your hands on those, that would be a fun rabbit hole for you. Also, you might be one of the few people around who has put together the equipment you would need to run a Video Toaster -- or even better, one of the mixers like the Panasonic MX-50. Just genlocking and timing/phasing the cameras would be a whole video. (And if you need it, I could walk you through how old-timers like me did timing/phasing for multicam live-on-tape EFP shoots without using scopes. All you need is an FX mixer with a horizontal wipe. The WJ-4600 was the workhorse for that kind of EFP.)

[@CathodeRayDude]

Ever since i posted this video, I've been getting informed that, yes! This camera actually did have significant uptake, it's just utterly invisible to my POV, and I appreciate every single ounce of perspective that I've received. The contemporary love sony had for Hi8 is absolutely remarkable. I have an EVV-9000 here, the dockable Hi8 deck (transport's broken and i haven't tried docking it to my 3ccd head yet, but what else is new) and it's absolutely wild to see the Hi8 transport in a completely pro design style. I actually have a WJ-MX50, by the way! I used it and its titler to generate the title cards for my "History Of Home Video" documentary, also on my channel. Thank you so much!

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@CathodeRayDude Yah, for a while Sony tried to push Video8 and Hi8 as next-gen successors to VHS and Beta. They caught on well in the camcorder market and with airline in-flight entertainment systems, where the small cassette size and longish runtime worked well. But VHS itself was too well-established to easily displace, and Video8 and Hi8 weren't enough of an improvement to really take over like DVD did. (You probably saw Techmoan's video about Video8 already -- kzbin.info/www/bejne/ppWyk5h8brt7n6M ) Just discovered your channel a few days ago -- great stuff!

[@tombskater3000]

Imagine shooting Hi8 with a 24mm or 35mm prime L lens. Hi8 bokeh?

[@julianbrowne7026]

Exactly back in early 90s shooting in wild live scenes low light it was a blessing particularly the frame grabbing effect worked well because the lens was so great. s​@@tombskater3000

[@Toxicity1987]

8:16 I used such a lens once, it was at an Hacker Conference and i was the camera man, the lens was a pretty old one from SD TV Times fitted to an HD TV Camera. Those lenses have a big feature and that is Parfocal ability, it stays in focus even if you change the focal length. This is very important for TV Production especially in Live TV.

[@ailivac]

Now the autofocus systems can just fake that in software. On the Canon 10-18, if you move the zoom back and forth while powered it sneakily adjusts focus to compensate (you hardly hear anything because the STM drive is so quiet), but if you turn the camera off the focus will shift wildly enough to see easily in the viewfinder.

[@weeardguy]

@@ailivac Yes, photo-lenses hardly ever are parfocal, but professional VIDEO-lenses are parfocal for decades already. Stop comparing apples to pears.

[@chrismofer]

specifically they have an adjustable backfocus ring so you can dial in the parfocal-ness to suit your camera's focal length to the sensor.

[@weeardguy]

@@chrismofer Uhm... no. Backfocus is the minute tolerance in distance between the sensor's plane and the first lens-element, that differs between (even) two cameras of the same model and has to be adjusted when the lens is exchanged. Even cold-weather can knock the backfocus-adjustment off. Parfocal means that during zooming, the lens-elemens that take care of focus, are shifting position as well to accomodate all the changes that happen in the lens as it zooms in or out.

[@chrismofer]

@@weeardguy thats essentially what I said, if your backfocus is incorrect then the lens will not behave parfocally. Focus at one distance and zoom and it'll lose it unless backfocus is correct due to differences in focal length to the sensor. . But I'm probably misunderstanding how my old Ike lenses behave.

[@awesomeferret]

For better or for worse, this is a GREAT example of true innovation. I get frustrated when people conflate improvement with innovation. I think there's a fruit flavored company that could take some lessons... Cough cough. It's also a lesson in how innovation isn't inherently good.

[@weeardguy]

Amen.

[@ps-fun1000]

This was used in The Jackal as the camera on his giant gun thing. I was watching wondering what the hell this weird blomby SLR-like thing was.

[@CathodeRayDude]

I forgot about that for the longest time and then rediscovered it shortly after I got this camera. It was really a masterstroke for that movie.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

"I mean run. Now."

[@BenHelweg]

I think the L2 was in Godzilla.

[@frankdogau]

I've just recently discovered you and I'm loving all your videos. As a 35 year broadcast industry veteran I'm especially loving the broadcast related topics. As an Aussie, I especially love your use of the phrase "built like a brick Shithouse" in this video. Have you ever been down under? If you ever do look me up. I'd love to have a beer with you 👍🏻

[@CathodeRayDude]

Hahaha, thank you. I wish I'd been outside of the US more, but I hardly ever have!

[@HamousIceCreamTruck]

i saw this thing several times now at our local museum and it never stops being messed up. Thank you for the lovely video, I love your style as always

[@triptheroad]

I honestly was convinced that it was metal until you started crunching it around, looks like the metal they make lab equipment out of

[@lishd]

15:39 FESTOONED WITH BUTTONS i love when your language is /just perfect/ edit: proving my point: 17:11 LAMENT CONFIGURATION

[@ignatgrz]

Low price of this fast lens is also helped by the smaller sensor, so the image circle doesn't have to be as big and the focal lengths involved are smaller making a fast lens smaller and cheaper to manufacture.

[@griffog2001]

I owned one of these. They look weird but the form factor made them great to operate. They were very unusual for the time in being a prosumer camera that had swappable lenses.

[@RobExperiment]

Hi! Did you use the canon hi-fi zoom microphone with 2 jacks while recording? Are the jacks one for audio signal and one for power?

[@griffog2001]

@@RobExperiment As far as I recall yes, one was audio, the other power.

[@RobExperiment]

@@griffog2001 Thanks for the info

[@rrho170]

Your presentation style rocks. If I had a product I had to sell, I'd kill to have someone with your talent to present it.

[@DJMICA-bz3qz]

The 80s - 90s was a great time for electronics, it's was in between two times, one where pride in quality was distinctive (old fashion) where things were built to last, and the other is the the computer era where tens of thousands of what used to be separate electronic devices were getting balled up into a single system. Remember recording studios? Now it's a padded room with a mac.... anyone smell what I'm stepping in

[@76SRV190]

I have been doing video and film production since 1987. I had one of the very first Canon L1's the week of release. I can tell you everything about it and it's design theory, as well as how it worked for me. I was the video and film producer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium from 1987 till 1995. If your interested Ill be happy to fill you in on some history, accessories, and the L1's benefits, and shortcomings.

[@RobExperiment]

Hi! Did you use the canon hi-fi zoom microphone with 2 jacks on this camera? Are the jacks one for audio signal and one for power? If one is for power, do you know what voltage it needs? I have one of those mics and I wanna use it with different camera, but i don't know how. Please help. Thanks!

[@Di3mondDud3]

Your comment on cameras not being ambidextrous hit home for me. As a lefty, that standard handle is pretty hard to get used to. My Canon XC-10 is SO heavy held in my non dominant hand.

[@danekeating5224]

Your comment is weak. A camera operator uses both hands, one to hold the camera, one to focus and zoom. The left hand does more work than the right. If you can not use both hands in everyday life, that is your lack of skill, not a design fault.

[@Di3mondDud3]

@@danekeating5224 nope, using the controls with the wrong hand sucks even using both. You must not have friends. Stop liking your own comments lol.

[@danekeating5224]

@@Di3mondDud3 So you have poor hand motor skills then. That is your own lack of skill and coordination which you can improve on. Every camera operator I know can use both hands equally, it is just part of the job. Just like normal people can use both hands in everyday life, it is a basic life skill you seem oblivious to have learnt.

[@Nabeelco]

Common misconception. F-stops have nothing to do with the amount of light that passes through the lens. The F-stop is simply the ratio between the size of the aperture and the focal length. While a lot of people use it as a short-hand to estimate the amount of light that comes in, that is not it's purpose. You can have two different 35mm F1.4 lenses that will allow vastly different amounts of light in. If you want to talk about light transmission, you need to talk about T-stops. F-stops are purely a focal length to aperture ratio, and have nothing to do with amount of light.

[@billymonkey111]

But for a given focal length your f stop is just a representation of your apeture.....which is how much light you have. It's not a direct measurement - but you can't say it has nothing to do with it.

[@Nabeelco]

@@billymonkey111 No, aperture has nothing to do with how much light you have. Aperture is the size of the opening at the back of the lens. That's all. If you have a 800mm lens at f1.4, it's not going to have as much light as a 16mm lens at f1.4, because it will transmit less light due to the higher transmission losses of light in the extra optical elements. T-stop would be how much light you'd get.

[@stolorz]

It is worth mentioning that there was also Canon Canoviosion A1, a camera with a very similar body concept, but feature set much more oriented towards the consumer market.

[@CathodeRayDude]

Yeah, I've been thinknig of getting one for a while.

[@MoseyingFan]

Dad used to own an A1, he used it for a couple of years, then the magic smoke leaked.

[@jscott1000]

@@CathodeRayDude It Will be nearly impossible to find a working A1, all the capacitors leaked out all the magic juice and none of them work at this point.

[@NonCompete]

I had an L1 for a few weeks because it was super cheap on ebay, it was weird and fun but I ended up selling it for what I paid for it because it wasn't a digital format. Planned to use it as a B camera but capturing was just too much of a pain in the ass. My first camera was a GL1, I loved that thing so much. Got it the summer before I started film/broadcast school right after graduating from high school with the money I made selling cell phones for Sprint when that market was first exploding (2002). ALL my classmates were constantly trying to borrow the GL1, and we ALL lusted after the XL1. I finally got my hands on the XL1 years later, after they were basically obsolete. It was such a weird layout but very easy and fast to use. Kinda wish I could get an XL1 layout camera today HD digital media. Thanks for the strolls down memory lane!

[@roxics]

There was the Canon XL-H1 which was basically an HD (HDV on DV tape) updated version of the XL1. global.canon/en/c-museum/product/dvc717.html Never owned or used myself, but like you I owned an XL1 at one point around the turn of the millennium (2001 I think). I did convince the company I worked for to buy a Canon XH-A1 in 2007/8. Which was like the handycam style little brother of the XL-H1. Also HDV. As the L1 and L2. I remember seeing them in Videomaker magazines (later in movies like The Jackal and Titanic) when I was a teenager in the 90s and really wanting one, but I was a broke teen. By the time I was older and making some money, the DV revolution had begun and the VX1000 and XL1 were out. At that point it didn't make a lot of sense to own one. I did pick up an even older Canon A1 for free off Craigslist a couple years ago. Didn't work. Even after ordering a power adapter for it on ebay. I was trying to find a camera to playback my family's old 8mm tapes. Just so happened to be an A1 someone was giving away. So at least a got a small first hand taste of that early Canon camcorder style.

[@Zenodilodon]

Early image stabilization in camcorders was interesting, I only took apart one older camcorder with this feature and it was a piezoelectric disk with quartz material on both sides of a thin copper wafer in the middle. The full diameter is about 50mm with a 15 ish mm hole in the center that contained an additional lens in the center. The piezoelectric disk would quickly modulate to adjust for movement to minimize shake/out of focus effects. I still have the piezoelectric disk for future optical projects requiring high stability such as touch free laser resonator assembles that can be tuned with simple inputs. I do wish optical zoom was possible in mobile cameras but that's an insane feat of engineering and most consumers don't need that either. I'd use a professional camera but I kind of fry cameras on a regular basis.

[@CathodeRayDude]

Huh! I've wondered for a long time how IS was done back then.

[@Zenodilodon]

@@CathodeRayDude If you're interested in seeing the disk I can email you pictures but I figure you probably have a good mental image given your knowledge. I am enjoying your videos. Optics and analog electronics are certainly crossover topics of interest in our given fields.

[@weeardguy]

@@Zenodilodon Ahah, that was the piëzo-TTL auto-focus system, not the stabilisation: The piëzo-covered disk could only move in 1 dimension, namely back and forth. When I tore apart my first EX2Hi (called the L2 in the USA) I specifically tore it apart that it kept working until I got to the sensor, as I really wanted to know how the AF-system worked. Once the housing was gone I could hear it work (just like you can on some older photocameras, where the AF-system makes a distinct 'druuuung' sound (hard to put down in words) as it either moves the sensor or a small lens-element. Optical image stabilisation done the electronic way like today was out of the question: processors and motors were by far not small, capable and efficient (With power) enough to do that in a videocamera. Stabilisation was done optical-mechanically with a lens-element in a kind of fluid, that would compensate for motion.

[@Zenodilodon]

@@weeardguy Ah that does make sense. My thinking was that auto-focus was done by all the motor in the optical train with little adjustments as one of them was tied to the focus adjust linkage for the outer ring that you turned for manual focus. The PZT had multiple wires, 3 of them the center contact and 2 more for a crystal layer on both sides. I figured there might of been some voodoo wave form that generated standing waves to cause deflection in multiple degrees as I have seen similar self resonant systems capable of multiple axis of movement with just 2 wires, so 3 well in the right hands that can do a lot right?, maybe not lol. I have never seen any sort of fluid based optical adjustment for image stabilization. I would certainly be interested to see one or a diagram just to get an idea of how exactly that would of worked. Thanks for the corrected information!

[@weeardguy]

@@Zenodilodon You're welcome. I should still have the manual of my L2 somewhere, which (if I remember it right) showed a dimensional drawing how it was built. I do remember you could see it work on the lens: I have the 10-100 mm lens with stabilisation and as you turn the ring to the 'on' position, you see your view looking down into the lens shift slightly. I vividly remember that I could see it compensate quite well when in use, but could not see a distinct movement. Maybe I'm confused with my newer camera's... I do know that it could stabilise the image very well but when you were pointing at bright light sources, the motion-compensated, reflected image would dance around in the stabilised image ;) I'll probably have some footage somewhere that shows that. > Yes, I do: 12 years ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZoS1gYR5lK-HkJY Look at the greenish reflections dancing around in picture. Those were the reflections the lens-element that compensated for movement threw around inside. It also gives you a good idea how well it worked. And yes... editing was still quite a learning process back then ;) If I find the manual again, I'll take a picture of it.

[@hardyr]

The L2 showed up in the 1998 movie Godzilla, where it was presented as a camera personally owned by a professional news camera operator played by Hank Azaria. It makes sense, given its prosumer status. Tracking that model down led me to your channel.

[@jochenstacker7448]

It never ceases to amaze me how bowelevacuatingly expensive pro video equipment is.

[@tookitogo]

A lot of that price is due to the extreme reliability of it. All precision, all incredibly robust, so that it can handle the rigors of daily use and abuse. So everything is made out of machined or die-cast metal. The rest is the high performance of the optics and electronics, none of which comes cheap.

[@imabigsandwich1292]

@@tookitogo High performance electronics only if we are talking cinema cameras, because a lot of these 80k dollar ENG broadcast cameras still have an ancient 3ccd or 3cmos design with shit dynamic range, that's why they look so videoish and bad when compared to digital cinema cameras that shoot log, of course this is changing with more and more demands for HDR in the broadcast market, with more cameras like the uc4000 from panasonic shooting Vlog L. But their techincal imaging performance still can't beat a simple 1700 dollar lumix s5.

[@tookitogo]

@@imabigsandwich1292 Thanks for the added info! Pity that they aren’t pairing 3-sensor designs with the better image processing of cinema cameras (and DSLRs...).

[@imabigsandwich1292]

@@tookitogo Because the problem with a 3 sensor design is that it takes 12x the space that a usual single sensor design takes, first you need 3 sensors with 3 sets of cooling and powering and wires, then you need a mirror which is very expensive to fine tune at the factory for max resolution, and lastly these three sensor mirror produces rainbow bokeh, if you watch Collateral's night scenes that was shot on a early 3ccd digital cinema camera, you can see how the rainbow colors creep into the out of focus area's highlights.

[@tookitogo]

@@imabigsandwich1292 Thanks for the detail!

[@donkmeister]

In 1996 I worked Saturdays at a photoshop in West London, and the shop owner had one of those! He was mad about lenses and cameras so it was his perfect camcorder.

[@weeardguy]

But it really WAS a great camcorder and especially the optical-movement-stabilised 10-100 mm lens (if I remember it right, > just grabbed it (still got it) yep, right) gave you such a crisp image WITH great stabilisation, especially when you think about the fact it was a completely non-electronic system (just checked that as well, couldn't measure any increase in current draw at all when the stabilisationring is clicked to 'on') This was (for quite a long time) the best thing to have if you were after broadcast-grade image quality.

[@tombuck]

I was able to get an EOS adapter for my recently acquired XL1 and it’s totally bizarre. I love it, and using modern EF lenses on that 20 year old camera is really fun, but it’s a super strange design.

[@whoislookup]

A friends dad was a courtroom recorder in Southern California back when it came out.and its what they used for a couple of years...... it was less intimidating then an ENG. I remember him bringing it by and yeah the weirdest design ever.

[@Tshasta4449]

I bought an L2 in 1996. Canon had stopped making them and I had to call around to find a new one. It was used on the the space shuttle, plus some cinematic productions used it to shoot major films. It had great low light capabilities as it had a 1.4 aperture. They also made an awesome optical stabilized lens that was rock steady, only problem was it was $5000, when new. The biggest problem with the camera was they used miniature surface mount capacitors by the hundreds that eventually had issues with leakage which shut down the unit. That’s what happened to my camera after 6 years. I was able to find a guy that would replace the bad capacitors, but it cost me $500.

[@UNSCPILOT]

That would go to explain tge widespread failures of remaining units

[@KeljaSamiNation]

I had one of those for a while! Super expensive,,, over kill,, kinda unwieldily,, complex mediocre video quality,,, loved it! People knew you were not screwing around when you whip that thing out!

[@UnOrigionalOne]

I love the ratio of information over set design. Never change.

[@CompuKonstantin]

I have two of these things including the system case, several lenses, a lot of accessories and the original documents like manual, receipt and warranty card. Yesterday I ordered the 300 capacitors to get these cameras completely working. Wish me luck.

[@JBarraza]

Let me know how it goes!

[@ethanpoole3443]

Having opened Sony camcorders before I hope your recap went well. I expect the recapping itself to be quite simple, the challenge was likely getting to the circuit boards to begin with, then getting it all back together and in working order when finished. It always amazed me how good Sony was back in the day at manufacturing devices with remarkably little wasted internal spaces as back then you would have been hard pressed to fully simulate the circuit boards (and especially so for pre-90s devices) to verify that the height and width of every component would not interfere with the fit and it is likely that a number of different teams worked on different aspects of the design and yet they all had to fit together come manufacturing time. Nowadays many PCB design suites include full simulation of the final assembled board to help with that modeling.

[@EliFleming]

Can you “recap” the recap?

[@jackkraken3888]

Please upload the manual to Archive.org if you can.

[@volt1309]

this camcorder looks so cool, it looks like tech used on moon or something :D

[@RappinPicard]

My video production teacher in high school had one of these cameras and swore by it because of the interchangeable lenses. I’ve never seen anybody else who knew what this think was or confused it with the XL-1

[@gbraadnl]

31:45 quite impressive to have this on a 'cheap' camcorder. It looks to target a semi-pro market... like the XL1. Always felt like a camera the wedding photographer would use to provide an additional service, while gently the water with his toes.

[@weeardguy]

It díd target a semi-pro market, just like it's successor, the L2 (EX2Hi in Europe, I've had two in the past). It was about the best thing you could get if you wanted broadcast-image quality and direct control over basically anything without spending even more money on the toys the big boys and girls used in the professional AV-industry.

[@MarkHoltze]

Titanic, Paxton has one when he's under water "vlogging" he says "that's enough of that bull shit" lol.....it's genius. Great video Ray dude!

[@MichiganPeatMoss]

2021: I drooled over the L series when I was younger (the old days) and of course priced way out of consumer range so never got to mess with one. LOL - I remember The Jackal. Great review. Thanks.

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

6:12 Yeah the effect of the super low resolution also quadruples when you shoot videos of UFOs.

[@ignatgrz]

In therms of canon stills lenses all L lenses have the red stripe, but only the telephoto ones are white.

[@tookitogo]

But sorta irrelevant, since these aren’t “L” lenses, in the sense that they’re not EOS (EF mount) lenses. It’s VL mount, which is different, so the whole line of lenses is different.

[@DeputyNordburg]

Thanks for making this. I have always been fascinated by this camera system. Canon made some image stabilized lenses for this camera. They even made a mirror lens like a small telescope, something they never made for the EOS line.

[@MenaceGallagher]

I've been binging your videos, you're fucking rad! You deserve the same amount of subscribers as behemoths like Techmoan and Technology Connections. Amazing presentation quality, and a friendly vibe

[@pamdemonia]

This was THE camera me and all my film school buddies wanted more than anything! (NYU UGF/TV 1989).

[@nasanasa3]

"Mirrorless hasn't quite replaced DSLRs" and that statement was closer to expiry than we realised...

[@miguelalbuquerque8450]

They basically predicted DSLR filmmaking

[@daviddd_edgar]

I owned a L1 many years ago!! It was such a cool camera, probably one of the best 8mm camera out there ☺️

[@RobExperiment]

Hi! Did you use the canon hi-fi zoom microphone with 2 jacks on this camera? Are the jacks one for audio signal and one for power? If one is for power, do you know what voltage it needs? I have one of those mics and I wanna use it with different camera, but i don't know how. Please help. Thanks!

[@daviddd_edgar]

@@RobExperiment Hi! From what I remember, one of the jacks was used for phantom power (I believe it was the smaller one). Knowing how Canon used to make things in the 90’s and 2000’s, I would assume it’s probably not the standard 12v phantom power (like what is commonly used in the industry; Canon used to do things their own way…). I Know the standard directional mic provided with the L1/L2 was also compatible with smaller consumer camcorders so it likely runs on lower voltage, I’m not sure why but I somehow think it might be 6v. I hope this can help, it was a great microphone but also not “amazing” so I would not advise you wasting too much time/money trying to build an adapter.

[@deanisplemoni]

Your lens construction diagram caption had me dying with laughter. 😂

[@dytractiate]

30:19 ive seen that symbol on the album cover for "black earth that made me" by white ring white ring makes witch house so its probably some edgy symbol that might have loose satanic meaning or something

[@jdaiseyphoto]

A guy walked into the camera store i work in with the lens from one of these. He thought it was an EF-mount L lens and was a little disappointed to hear that we didn't sell any cameras that could fit it.

[@35mmShowdown]

I’m an auctioneer and handled the estate of a former NASA employee down here in Florida- evidently, NASA was an early and VIGOROUS adopter of the L1. The guy have several bodies, all marked with lots of aluminized NASA inventory stickers, and some were labeled “NOT FOR FLIGHT” which was tantalizing to say the least- sort of implied there WERE some earmarked for flight, maybe even to space. At any rate, as a consummate camera collector and overall a/v nerd I was fascinated by the discovery, as I had likewise never seen or heard of the L1. Far as I could tell, NASA seemed to prefer the 15x and the 3x- but curiously, there were lots of the EOS adapters in the collection too. I was able to review some of the tapes in one of the bodies that powered up, but the viewfinder had become so horrendously degraded it was just a hazy white blur. From the scant documentation I found, they were primary used for filming training material in and around Kennedy Space Center.

[@chrismarshall6096]

I just stubled on this video and realized I used to work with you. Awesome content. Ive always been curious about this model Canon.

[@chrismarshall6096]

First time I saw one of these was in Hank Azarias hands running around filming stuff in the 90's Godzilla movie. I've wanted to get my hands on one ever since. And boy did I ever lust over the XL1 and its HD successors.

[@tylerkeerans6984]

I have a near perfect condition canon L1 and its sat for years and I finally got a battery for it today and turned It on and everything works but I am having a tough time opening up the cassette tray in the back , i dont want to break it but didn’t know if there was a trick to doing this if the eject button on the left side wasn’t doing anything . I was definitely surprised to see thru the viewfinder when I powered it on since that seemed to be an issue lots of people have with these cameras being older and most likely sitting around for years.

[@CathodeRayDude]

Hmm, I wish I could help. One of mine had no trouble opening with the eject button, the other didn't work because it wouldn't power on - so my best advice is to make sure it's powered on when you try. Good luck!

[@weeardguy]

Don't know if this is still an issue, and don't know if it's the same across the different models (I'm talking about my EX2Hi, the L2 in the USA, here) but most likely: turn the viewfinder 180 degrees, so it's facing in the same direction as the lens. THEN use the eject button. The viewfinder had to be rotated to a certain amount of degrees (but just following the manual that states 180 degrees leaves no room for error) before it would even accept input from the eject-button. But my first EX2Hi at some point started to have trouble ejecting. The first attempt would fail (with the eject-indicator blinking on the LCD and the operate-LED blinking as well), the second attempt would always succeed. Before I got the chance to find out what was wrong, it died completely. Got a second EX2hi shortly after it, that one still works ;)

[@jscott1000]

I bought three of them before I finally got a working one. Now if only I can find a working charger. I have three dead ones. I had an A1 Digital that I bought brand new in 1991 that I loved. I had it repaired twice to extend it's life but it finally became damaged from old age beyond repair. I always wanted it's big brother to carry on the legacy and now I have a working L2. These cameras were used extensively by prosumers and semi-pros to shoot corporate and wedding video type stuff. It's hard to imagine how difficult it was to shoot video in the early 90s with the hardware available to consumers. What I liked about my A1 is that 99% of the time I held it like a still camera and it didn't freak people out like a shoulder mounted video camera did. I have a copy of Videomaker from 1993 and this camera was on the cover as the best thing since sliced bread. I think you underestimate it's popularity at the time. All Canon cameras from the 90s are broken today because they all used substandard capacitors that leaked out and rendered them useless. I had all the capacitors replaced on my A1 and it extended it's life but eventually succumbed to mechanical issues. That smell is actually your camcorder leaking.

[@keithwiebe1787]

I bought the A1 right before my son was born. Lasted perhaps 5 years and started to give problems. Eventually bought another Canon and than went Sony digital 8 after that. I did buy a Son EVW 300 Hi8 but did have all the capacitors replaced replaced in it. Recorded video from the EVW 300 to my digital 8 Sony to get best recording and camera.

[@bucharestbiketraffic]

The XL1 is in a different ball park. A much better camera in all respects. It's nice to see where the series started.

[@simoncowbell.6783]

I had a Canon Optura MV1 miniDV camcorder from 1997. It had that SLR-style grip only. Since the camera was about the same weight as an SLR it was very comfortable to hold. In addition to an optical viewfinder the camcorder also featured a small LCD-screen on top of the camera. The grip and the screen allowed for a variety of shooting techniques, like "shooting from the hip." The image stabilization was phenomenal. According to the manual there was some kind of optical fluid between lenses and that during a flight air bubbles might appear but they would go away after returning to normal pressure. Loved the camera but after video went progressive it didn't make much sense filming in interlaced anymore.

[@Vokabre]

I've begun personal videography with a Canon DSLR camera, and looking back i could say for sure that the grip alone made the footage much more shakier than what one gets with mirrorless or camcorders, especially when the hands are getting tired, and the only solution what pro videographers have is to use all sort of contraptions that change the grip. That really is a bizarre design. For most of the video i was thinking "why the hand grip is so unergonomical, is it also a battery holder?", at least that made sense. Even access to the lens seem awkward considering the plastic slab covering some of the rings. Also, while i'm not sure about lenses of the 90s, i'm pretty sure some of those EOS ones simply wouldn't have fit considering the plastic slab.

[@weeardguy]

Access to the lens is always done from the left, just like on todays ENG-cameras. So the plastic slab is of no concern ;)

[@broggiemonstermonster3385]

I had an EX1 which is what it was called in the UK, had it several years used 6 times before it failed...the problem was the circuit boards were tiny and thus the components could not be replaced....also the electrolytic capacitors were the main problem, they would leak, rendering the camera useless, replacement boards were practically non existant which turned a relatively expensive video camera in comparison to others in the day to scrap.... I also had the UK version of the cheaper version known as the A2Hi here....I had less problems with it and never got to see it expire....

[@CantankerousDave]

Same thing happens to Panasonic AG-1980 industrial grade S-VHS decks. The way it was designed, you were meant to replace entire circuit boards when the capacitors inevitably fail. But they don't make those boards anymore, and there are fewer and fewer technicians who know how to fix them.

[@weeardguy]

@@CantankerousDave That's why I always advise people who want to dive into old video-technology to either know someone who knows how to fix equipment, or be ready to learn how to do that yourself, as that is just an issue with many old pieces of equipment, especially tape-units that just tend to be plagued by worn rubber rollers, belts, broken cogs, dirty heads and hardened fat/grease.

[@jackstewart7664]

"Look at him and tell me there's a god!" "hE mAdE mE iN hIs OwN iMaGe."

[@infodump-withallib4385]

I almost spit my fucking coffee out when I heard "f/1.4" because JESUS CHRIST THAT'S A LOT OF LIGHT ON A ZOOM

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

I wonder how popular this camera was among indie filmmakers back then, before MiniDV was around? This camera seemed to have been the next best thing to shoot on if you could not afford 16mm but didn't wanna rely on lowres Video8 or VHS-C. Kinda a "pre-Dogma 95" style camera for that genre.

[@olsonspeed]

I still have an A1 and two L1s, they were the favorite of low budget and Indie filmmakers back in the 90s. The downfall of these cameras is the capacitors which dry out over time rendering the camera inoperable. In retrospect you can be critical of the design but they were about as good as it got in affordable prosumer camcorders.

[@ondrejsedlak4935]

Clerks was actually filmed on 16mm B&W film stock. On a slightly different note, Smith went with B&W mainly so he didn't have to spend time on colour balance, colour timing and all the associated headaches that come with filming in colour.

[@olsonspeed]

@@ondrejsedlak4935 An Arri SRII Super 16 to be exact, I stand corrected.

[@ondrejsedlak4935]

@@olsonspeed No worries mate. The Arri is a great piece of kit. I used it in film school myself and can understand why Smith went with that instead of a video camera. It would have killed the whole mood of the film. Also I believe a similar camera to the L1 was used in the film Sneakers, which is still one of my all time favourite hacker films.

[@TheMokeleMbembe]

That lens could be so much cheaper because it's F/1.4 *on that camera/sensor* but not in 35mm equivalent terms. If the numbers I saw are right and I did the math correctly, that lens is actually an f/7.5-f/11 (roughly) in 35mm terms. (Saw online somewhere that the VL mount was about a half inch sensor, with a crop factor from 35mm terms of 5.41.)

[@tombuck]

Just wanted to say thanks- I bought a “parts only” L1 a few weeks ago and after watching your videos (especially the one about how video heads work on portable recorders) I was actually able to get it up and running! It can record run on battery power and record to a tape for the first time in I have no idea how long. One of the workarounds was to use Canon’s lens adapter, which means I ended up using one of my nice Canon lenses and the footage is shockingly not terrible. 👍

[@CathodeRayDude]

whoaaaaa I wanna see! does the viewfinder even work?

[@tombuck]

@@CathodeRayDude yes! I can even plug in a mic and get audio.

[@RobExperiment]

Hi! Did you use the canon hi-fi zoom microphone with 2 jacks on this camera? Are the jacks one for audio signal and one for power? If one is for power, do you know what voltage it needs? I have one of those mics and I wanna use it with different camera, but i don't know how. Please help. Thanks!

[@edgarwalk5637]

That lens would be perfect for the Pentax Q camera, the sensor is a similar size.

[@Aaron48219]

You are slightly wrong about something...not all L lenses are white. Typically only the longer than 70mm telephoto L lenses are white. There are quite a few wider L lenses that are black, but retain the red stripe.

[@dhpbear2]

31:50 - At least it HAS a focus-ring on the front of the lens! A feature that disappeared from (consumer-grade) camcorders around 1993 :(

[@weeardguy]

Yep. Just like it provided (or at least, the EX2Hi (L2) did) a rotary dial (encoder) to control the exposure manually. Out of all the things that's what I hated the most of small sized (semi)pro-camcorders from these days: they almost all feature a ring, but it's either assignable to one function at a time, can only be set to focus or zoom ánd 9 out of 10 times, they are fully digital: there's no mechanical connection with the lens-element inside, providing feedback on 'where you are' with focus and zoom. That's why I was disappointed that my GY-HM100 did provide a ring for focus control, but I could only set it to focus or zoom. If the zoom would perform faster when using the ring compared to the zoom-rocker at the wrist-grip, it would make sense, but as it zooms just as fast using the room as with using the rocker, there's (for me) hardly any use in having the ring to control that and I would have loved a ring for the iris. Fortunately, when my GY-HM100 died (well... I still don't like it that it's malfunctioning now) and I found the GY-HM200... That camera DOES have 2 rings, with 1 fixed at focus and the other assignable to zoom or iris-control. Downside (for me) is the fact it uses a CMOS sensor... That just sucks for lightning-videos and fast moving objects...

[@dommovedchannels6268]

Fun fact: this is the camera bill paxton uses in titanic to shoot his dive in the submarine

[@muchosa1]

A friend of mine had a L1 with a 2x multiplier and a huge telephoto lense. You could zoom with clarity an incredible distance.

[@plunder1956]

It was as a result of seeing one of those weird things that I bought a Canon XM1 and later a Canon XL2. They were very much domestic cameras I could use for low budget commercial tasks.

[@Camell513]

Hey, I dunno if you're still interested in this... but I've managed to collect all of the lenses, adaptor, and 2x converter + a carrying case! Minus that one 100mm lens, you spoke of. I would love to send some videos/photos of these if you want to see them. The 250mm reflex lens is by far the coolest! Its aperture is managed the same way they do the vision test for glasses! Its four fixed stops and you change out this little lense to be smaller.

[@donaldfischer4818]

Thanks for a great video. I have an L1 totally operational. Hardly ever used it. Don't know what to do with it now. Goodwill?

[@javaguru7141]

Ebay if you can stand the wait. Advertise it as Mint at a good price and the next person that looks for one will buy it.

[@visualrhythmsfromthechillv5191]

So I remember reading about the camera when it first came out and I may be wrong but what I thought was revolutionary was the it had "eye control" you could access some menus through the viewfinder buy looking at them. Maybe Levi or Bill could verify this?

[@ethanpoole3443]

That would not surprise me at all as their SLR line from the early to mid 1990s on had eye control incorporated into the design of certain models for choosing the desired focal/exposure spot in a scene (my film EOS-Elan II of the early to mid 1990s period supported such, as does my more recent digital EOS 5D). It worked best for those who did not wear eyeglasses as the targeting wasn’t as reliable and instantaneous with eyeglasses as without (but then there were a number of selectable focus boxes since a film camera may be used in portrait and landscape orientation so it had to detect eye position on 2 axes). But in a menu where there only need to be a few focal points to detect, possibly all on a single axis; such as up/center/down) I imagine it likely worked fairly well by comparison.

[@weeardguy]

Well.. I can't speak for the L1, but as the EX2Hi (the European equivalent to the L2) did not feature eye-control, I can't even imagine the L1 to support it. I doubt it even worked at all as a strong magnetic field, high voltage and other signals were so close to electronics that would have to take care of that. Besides, the autofocus/motorized focus was S L O W on those machines.

[@egadgetguy]

I just found this video and I need to comment. You see, I had 3 of these. I was in the TV industry and I had done a few wedding videos with consumer cameras. In 1998 I wanted to do it as a sidline. Sony's prosumer video cameras had horrible video quality. I bought 3 of these used from a TV studio. I loved them and eventually upgraded to an XL-1 and 2 GL-1s. They were a dream to use and I loved using them with a monopod for the reception and such. Now, to the reason there aren't any working ones today. The late 90s were plagued with a trend in electronics called surface mount components. The CAPs on these cameras were of that type and most of them failed redering the cameras unusable. To finish, I have seen you video about the XL-H1 [HD version] and in 2005 and 6 that was my dream camera, which I couldn't afford and that was a main leader into me getting out of wedding videos.

[@CharlezRichard]

I started my career in cinematography with the Canon L1 which I still have with an L2 as well. I also used the EOS adapter. Now they sit inside my vitrina as ornaments from the past.

[@RobExperiment]

Hi! Did you use the canon hi-fi zoom microphone with 2 jacks on this camera? Are the jacks one for audio signal and one for power? If one is for power, do you know what voltage it needs? I have one of those mics and I wanna use it with different camera, but i don't know how. Please help. Thanks!

[@SpaceSquid420]

I had an L1 it was my first somewhat professional camera. My dad got the camera for me on ebay with a few lenses 15 and I think the 8 we even had the 2x converter. We bought a super heavy tripod one for a camera twice it's size. I was in middle school at the time and that camera enabled me to do so much. Mine unfortunately got stolen from school. I was super bummed but it was all covered by insurance they ended up replacing the camera with a brand new xl2 and all the same lenses and all they even replaced my fabric bag with a pelican. Still have the xl2 to this day and still use it. Upscaled to 1080 properly still looks great as long as you pull the single from the firewire. I remember using the 2x with the 15 on some bleachers in a high school gym it was a private school so the church had services In the gym. I could get really nice close up face shots of the pastor about 110 ft away. That fx fades and image hold stuff was awesome we used them to fade to another camera. We could only hard switch the camera but the fade outs helped hide thst so much. I really enjoyed that camera as a first camera for what it was. The unintentional upgrade was welcomed though. The xl2 was more appropriate to record high school stuff 😂.

[@henryokeeffe5835]

I love the use of the probe compensation tool / pot turner in the middle section taking us over the features!

[@williamdlc3]

This camera looks like the grandfather of the popular c100 and c300 cinema series used today professionally!

[@billymonkey111]

My parents had one of these, donated by a wealthy friend who bought it and got bored. We used it to make a top motion of our teddies in the late 90s. Might still be in their loft. I'm in the UK, for what it's worth

[@oldnewstock]

Canon made top line super 8 cameras in the 70s and 80s. Ergonomics on those were superb. They must've fired the designers when the 90s came rolling around.

[@bitrage.]

lmao i wasnt expecting the f bomb but it was sooo welcome and properly used!🤣

[@CircsC]

I love this. It's a great idea without any usability review.

[@panqueque445]

This looks like someone couldn't figure out if they wanted to make a camera or a camcorder and decided to just glue the 2 designs together.

[@msylvain59]

I purchased one for peanuts on ebay once, because it was missing the lens and the battery. But it came with a lot of bad capacitors. I ended scrapping it, interesting stack of circuits boards inside.

[@RamLaska]

One thing I haven’t heard mention yet is aperture. Cheap zoom lenses have an incredibly tiny aperture. Nearly a pinhole. Want to buy a lens that can zoom 10x and still give you F4 through the ENTIRE zoom range? That’s some serious dough.

[@LowellMorgan]

18:09 made my skin crawl.

[@Cal7812]

I owned the L1 after using a Canon A1 for wedding and event video. It worked great for that type of client and we usually shot 90% on tripod. I had a problem with tje auto audio and sent it out as it was still in warranty but Canon said it was working properly. The auto focus was not great but I would do all that manual anyway. After a year or so I went to a Sony EVW 300 3 CHIP hi-8 camera until we upgraded to 2 Panasonic AJ-215 DVC Pro cameras and now I am back with Sony HD equipment and will probably retire without going to the dslr video route. Enjoy your videos and hope you keep it up. I still have all my old stuff including a Panasonic AG-DV300P that I bought for get this...$6.00 from the last company I worked for including the AB batteries annd charging system.

[@betacam22]

I had on of this in 90's early. Hi8 format. Bealtiful Cam but the image was very weird look. I sold this Canon and bought a Sony EVW 300.

[@keithwiebe1787]

Loved the EVW 300 but the one I bought (for like 300 bucks) needed all capacitors replaced so sent it off to someone in Florida a couple times but sold it after that. Good concept but hi8 wasn't that great (try to record a red color against a different color and it bleed so bad compared to DV).

[@kuzadupa185]

Last Sunday at Church at 8am the priest discussed the importance of repressing the urge to sin in our lives and to those of us in the design world, not placing camera hand holds in weird places. Was a very interesting discussion, especially when discussing how the devil influences us to put handholds in strange areas, as a "gateway" to bring sin into our lives.

[@zingaman]

I have an A1 that was used in the 90s at the TV station where I work. it was mounted on a stand shooting down to capture still images and photos. Money well spent :)

[@Tshasta4449]

You made a mention of the 10x optical stabilized Canon lens. When I bought my L2 that lens cost around $5k which was more than the camera. Years later I was able to buy one on eBay for a few hundred dollars. It definitely made it possible to hand hold at 15x with very little movement. It definitely was a great lens.

[@dannywie6282]

hi:) i have it and i wanted to ask if i can use only the lens in some way? may be with a stils cam of cannon?

[@CathodeRayDude]

Hi! I think I understand your question, but I'll give two answers to be safe. I DON'T think the lenses from this camera can be used on anything else. They are very old and rare, so I don't believe anyone has made an adapter to mount them on another camera. Also, they make a very small picture, so you would only be able to use them on, say, a mirrorless camera. There IS an adapter for using Canon still lenses on THIS camera (look up "EOS to VL" on eBay) but usually they are so heavily zoomed in that they aren't useful. I hope that answers your question!

[@skyshorrchannel3474]

@@CathodeRayDude Cool Video of a weird old Cam. Was the lenses wide angle actually 8mm? Or did the little old sensor have crop factor? I was gifted a 15x and am looking at the Raspberry Pi HQ cam. Or maybe my Nikon V1 with C mount adapter.

[@weeardguy]

@@skyshorrchannel3474 The sensor did not crop anything as the lenses were designed to fit that sensorsize. So the 8mm was the focal length for that sensor size, which one has to calculate to a 35 mm equivalent. I just took a test with my EX2Hi (The L2 in the USA) and my GH5. With the 8-120 mm lens on the EX2Hi, I had to zoom to roughly the 25 mm mark on my GH5-lens. As that sensor is twice as small as the 35 mm equivalent I have to double that number so I'm at a 50 mm focal length in 35mm land. That equates to a factor 6,25. The 8 mm on the EX2Hi thus equates to 50 mm in 35mm terms.

[@mar4kl]

It's interesting reading over the comments to see who this sort of camcorder appealed to. Speaking for myself, this model came and (mostly) went before my prime videography days began. (Translation: I didn't perceive any need to own a camcorder until my eldest child was born. No, make that until she was almost a year old, because let's face it, until babies become seriously mobile, most of them don't do anything that makes for interesting video.) I guess the time was right for this model when it was released: 8mm camcorders were still expensive, and people were still used to seeing VHS camcorders that were big and heavy, so the size of this one might not have been off-putting. All the other ergonomic fails and overly complex controls that you pointed out probably steered casual videographers to smaller, simpler models. I got my first camcorder, an RCA Pro808A, in 1995, and then only because my parents bought it for me so that I could send them videos of our kids, the first (and only, at that point) of whom was just over a year old. The RCA Pro808A was a fairly inexpensive and unremarkable 8mm camcorder. (In fact, I can't think of a single thing that was "pro" about it, and I really wish companies would stop using "pro" in their product names. It's misleading and very dishonest. But I digress.) The main things that made it attractive were that it was very simple to use and relatively compact for the price. Those are key considerations for camcorders aimed at parents. You have to lug around plenty of bulky stuff when you go places with baby, and a bulky camcorder just won't be a priority. You also need simplicity, because if you have to fiddle with too much just to get the thing ready to shoot, you'll miss whatever it was that you were intending to record. Those are all reasons why I wouldn't have been looking at a Canon L1, or anything like it, back in the mid 1990s, but even if those things hadn't been turn-offs for me, the flimsy feel that you described probably would have been. As always, awesome video.

[@actionvideostudios-bloodreflex]

You mentioned that the design died out and they never looked back, but have a look at the C300 line. Someone must have been feeling nostalgic

[@weeardguy]

Yeah, and then look at a Sony FS-7 and all those other bodys out there... The C300 really doesn't look all that different than the others, and that's not strange, as professional cameras all feature the same basic settings in the same place. It doesn't really matter which camera you give to a professional, the gain and whitebalance buttons, just like the switch for zebra usually reside in the same spot on EVERY camera. It's the color-scheme, passed-the-lens grip while also providing a photocamera-like grip at the front and the fact the lens was interchangeable that made it into a quite odd looking thing.

[@thomasfx3190]

Excellent analysis! I love the goofy camcorder!

[@fryode]

I saw L1s and L2s used for skateboarding videos. The form factor made a lot of sense for filming skate tricks, especially when the cameraman was often riding a board right next to whomever he was filming.

[@diegoochoa572]

Bruh, this is the third time I've subscribed to you.... Wtf KZbin???

[@denverpolly6868]

Yeah I just found this camera in a storage unit with the original canon case and manuals and warranty paper work with two lenses and a wide lens don't really know if any one would want this but if so let know

[@hansa3580]

Great review, enjoyed your description of the lens! Just found one of these for less than 3 Wendy's "4-for$4" specials, had the 15x lens from the one I bought, in 2000, not working, with the EOS adapter, at the time I couldn't resist, LOL! Sold it soon after. I'm waiting for my battery to come, then, I can begin my short career in video graphics! Your description of the lens and the "L" reference reminds me of a Canon 35mm compact camera, the AF35ML, has a 40/1.9 fixed lens, and, with the characteristic red ring around the lens, unusual for an automatic 35mm camera. Thanks for posting this!

[@sheldonspock5566]

Came here while googling the weird camera i just saw on behind the scenes footage of The Phantom Menace. I could tell it was a Canon because of the colors. And tadaaa it was indeed this

[@444mrjimmy]

this camera would be great for wildlife videographers that need to zoom in on something super far away and have that DSLR grip to move it around because the tripod is usual mounted to the lens rather than the camera body like shooting stills on a DSLR Edit: I googled image searched the phrase “canon L1 wildlife” and the 15th, ish, pic is of a brochure/add saying “WILDLIFE AS CANON SEES IT”

[@mrnmrn1]

I liked the video, it was very interesting, as I've never seen this camcorder before, just its younger brother, the Canon 'Chainsaw' (XL-1). What I don't like is you tell us you're gonne throw away this quite rare oddity. Both the fact that you're doing it and that you're telling your audience about it. People who watch videos like that are interested in video tech, and/or vintage video tech, most of them (including me) probably feels bad when they hear this poor thing will be recycled instead of displayed either in a private collection or in a museum. Even the completely dead one. Probably even that one could have been repaired, or served as a parts donor for this one to make the deck and the viewfinder working. I understand if you won't bother repairing or ask someone to repair something like the Sony camcorder you've shown in this video, because they are very common. But this Canon is really unique and quite rare, and should be preserved. I hope you did not throw away at least the lens. If you really don't need something, why don't you sell it or give it away? Pretty sure this one would sell on ebay, Craigslist, or Fb marketplace. Even in non working condition.

[@CathodeRayDude]

I realize now that a lot of people aren't aware that by "throw away" I meant I dropped it off at the local ewaste store, which almost certainly put it back out on the sales floor where it was snapped up the next day by someone else.

[@weeardguy]

Funny how this thing was (apparently) called the L-camera in America, while it was designated as EXxHi in Europe (I owned two EX2Hi's in the past)

[@kanalnamn]

I'd say the ~$500 Nikon COOLPIX P900 with it's 35mm-eqvivalent zoom of 24-2000mm actually exceeds to broadcast quality requirements of the distant past. I'm stunned each time I pick it up. The P1000 even more so. Heck, even the B700 are impressive.