[Nicholas De kock]

I just bought the Canon XHA1. I have two PD170’s I use for events and weddings. I hooked both cameras up onto my HD 32″ LCD. At first I was blown away by the detail of HDV this was my first real HDV experience and I was sold, the fine detail is simply incredible, I might even have said in my excitement that I’ll never go back to the PD170. Then I split viewed my TV, the two camera next to each other and composed identical images. I set both cameras through different settings trying to match to the images up.

My words were barely out before I took them back. The XHA1 is not a good low light performer for wedding work, light simply disappears. The PD170 had an illuminated image with vivid colors. I tried matching up the colors, XHA1 had dull color under the same lighting conditions.

Now this is where things got interesting, clearly the PD170 won hands down with excellent color reproduction but the XHA1 had superior detail from my view point, I was sitting directly in front of my TV. I sat on the couch 2m away and the fussy picture of the PD170 turned into an image I preferred over the XHA1! The viewing distance made it impossible to see the fine detail the XHA1 has, and the book I composed in my shot was clearly readable with the PD170 and closely matched the look of the XHA1.

I primarily shoot weddings, I’m not convinced that the XHA1 is a good replacement for my PD170, the dull color and light hungry sensor is a problem. Even with a 10W light the XHA1 still struggles to match the color and light of the PD170 without any light.

I think I’ll keep the PD170’s for the reception, in daylight and controlled light situations the XHA1 will perform well however in a medium lit room the PD170 wins in my opinion. The PD170 stills has life and I wont be able to replace it with the XHA1 completely if at all.

The new Sony EX1 might prove me wrong however price of memory is ridiculous and the rolling shutter dilemma might just turn out to be nothing once people get use to it. The PD170 + viewing distance almost turns it into a HD camera, HD is a marketing point though and a reason to push up prices, however my clients wont be happy with the XHA1 image quality during reception.

Nicholas