Canon cameras have come a long way from the production of the Hansa Canon, the first 35mm focal plane shutter camera, in 1936, to the its advanced Canon XL1S digital camcorder. This beauty truly enhances one's filming experience with its revolutionary 'open architecture' design, full manual control, and wide range of devoted accessories combined combining to provide true to life results.

Its small structure allows for easy transportation, without compromising on quality of output. The device uses three CCD image sensors with 270,000 pixels, each representing a separate primary color, giving its user outstanding detail with precise color reproduction even when shooting under low-light conditions. Digital audio on the XL1S is recorded via two channels of 16 bit/48 KHz sound or four channels of 12 bit/32 KHz. A 16x optical zoom lens with image stabilization contributes to high quality video; the XL1S is also compatible with other XL camcorder lenses. The XL1S's body is based on a magnesium-alloy frame for the maximum durability. It features several added functionalities over its previous model, namely improved shutter and aperture priority modes, and a number of programmed AE modes.

The XL1S supports established industry standards MiniDV and IEEE 1394. The MiniDv format delivers approximately 500 lines of horizontal resolution, and allows near lossless transfer with digital editing surroundings for quick creation, and increased and improved production quality. The IEEE 1394 enables recording of digital video, copying and editing over a single cable, which is literally free from generation loss. The XL1S is designed to work with two types of analog video input and output i.e.: using the four audio/video cables with connections on the camera body or S-video. It also supports 16:9 shooting mode with an electronic line viewfinder for the composition of shots and later conversion to HDTV format. Interval recording allows the user to shoot time-elapsed video with 30 second to 10 minute intervals. The XL1S offers three shooting modes for a variety of shooting environments - Normal Video, Digital Video Mode and Frame Movie Mode. These modes allow video recording as well as still image captures.

The Canon XL1S camcorder supports interchangeable lenses, video and still imaging, along with extender zooms. This full fledged professional video camera provides a number of manual tweaks and adjustments to keep the amateur videographer engrossed.