Canon XF305
Well, some while ago our rep sent us an article about Canon’s pending camcorder models that were going to use MPEG-2 4:2:2 codecs (like those used for television, so, broadcast quality for those of you who, like I had to, are scrambling to load that in Wiki and see why it’s a big deal), which I declined to blog about then, because 4:2:2 isn’t a big deal depending on what price point you position it at.
So, with today’s announcement of the XF300 and XF305, two sub-$8,000 camcorders with MPEG-2 4:2:2 and dual UDMA hot-swappable CF slots, I think it’s OK to mention it finally.
The models further have 18x L zooms with OIS and are of course triple-CCD. They also tout audio specs inline with what you’d expect.
Now, what the difference is between the XF300 and the XF305, other than the MSRP of about $6,800 on the former and just under $8,000 on the latter), I’m not yet sure, since the press release spends a lot of time talking up the features they have in common, and not a peep about where they deviate. So, more to come. Hit the link to read the full press release full of details that make my still photo mind swim but are likely terribly important to your video workflow life.
Sandisk has gone official with its new lines of high-performance memory cards. At the top of the pack (if not at the top of the world) is the new Extreme Pro line. Available only in CompactFlash, the Extreme Pro line sports maximum write speeds of up to 90 megabytes per second (that’s 600x, for those of you used to the older terms). It’s also the not only UDMA, but it’s the newer UDMA 6 spec (which means it’s actually faster than your hard drive, very likely). As if to reinforce that these are, indeed, just for pros, they come in three sizes starting at 16 GB and working up to 64 GB.
And, lastly, we have the Extreme line in its SDHC flavor. Now extending up to a rather impressive 32 GB in capacity, these new SDHC’s feature 30 MB/s maximum write speed (200x), and, if Sandisk is using its classes properly, the note that it’s Class 10 should intimate that the slowest it’ll go is 10 MB/s. The SDHCs are available in four capacities.
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