Canon XA60 - Professional 4K Video Camcorder with advanced Auto Focus, 20x Optical Zoom, 5-Axis Stabilisation, HDMI Out & HD Live Streaming over USB-C

EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED!

My Husband is very pleased with this camcorder. You have to download the handbook which isn’t perfect. It is straight forward to use but once you read the handbook there is a lot more to it. I was just pleased that I could do a video of the Great Granddaughters doing some painting.

This is a fantastic bit of kit. The night shot in particular is incredible in complete darkness. The footage I’ve been getting from the camera is far superior to any other camcorder I’ve used. Can’t fault this product at all.

The media could not be loaded. This is a camcorder that sits in a slightly peculiar place. Its small, lightweight handicam style device with a crop sensor. But then it has professional features like dual SD recording, timezone and top handle containing 2 XLR inputs - and a price that sits closer to the pro end than the amateur end. So who is this for?I mostly film dancers. This involves lots of moving shots. Light conditions are variable but moody and atmospheric is the preference. I normally use full frame mirrorless, so using this has been an adjustment.** Stabilisation **This is important to me. I almost always use a gimbal with my mirrorless cameras. With a camcorder this is more difficult because of the form factor although not impossible. The camera has a couple of different stabilisation modes and both seemed as useless as each other. The top handle doesn't make any difference either. It's a light camera and it is what it is.** Image quality **It depends. In low light there is a lot of noise. In overcast daylight conditions, I still get quite a bit if noise in 4k. In situations where you can control the light more- interviews or such like its fine. There are 'scene' modes and one isna 'night scene' which i assume is optimised for low light but i manually expose and i want that control, so i cant speak to whether this improves the noise performance or not.Data rates are not the highest but not awful - you max out at 160mbps in 4k using XF-AVC or 150mbps in MP4. Bit rates in 1080p are much lower. 45 mbps in XF-AVC and 35 mbps in MP4.4k 25p is the only 4k option. Switch to 1080p and 50p is also available.** Focus **There is some nice auto focus. It's relatively sticky even with quick moving subjects. It does focus hunt quite a bit especially in the "instant focus" mode.Being able to manual focus and also pull focus via the rocker switch is also really nice and relatively smooth. You can control the autofocus speed and the manual focus speed if using the rocker switch. I rarely get out of auto focus as its pretty reliable. If you do manual focus, rejoice in the inclusion of focus peaking.** Audio **Worth a mention given the inclusion of a detachable top handle which includes dual XLR inputs. Each channel can be controlled individually and there us also a shotgun mic holder included in the box. There is also a timecode feature built in to the camera too.It's possible to record up to 4 channels at 16 bit and there is a headphone jack for external monitoring.** Other features **- 20x optical zoom- There are Scene modes covering a variety of things like sports, snow, fireworks etc.- Infrared mode foe night shooting (I tried it but don't have any use for the infrared look)- Mini HDMI out.- Battery life is great. I got over 1.5 hours on a single charge.- Web cam feature** Conclusions **Having spent some time with this I still don't understand the purpose of it. It needs stabilisation or a tripod but has 20x zoom. It has 4 channel 16 bit dual XLR audio but a form factor of something you take on a family holiday. I think that if you are doing interviews, recording well lit shows or streaming online this camera might be..... an option. There are no flat profiles so limited flexibility in the picture for post processing. It's an audio-first handi-cam so think carefully about the mix of features and whether this ticks the boxes.

This Cannon ax60 is not compatible with the Ninja V it's fair to say that the camera is ok as a stand alone recording to it's own card however when we tried this camera up against our older novice camera the novice camera came out on top this xa60 camera is no way worth the money as it has limitations so vey disappointed