Canon DC40 review

There are a few controls that I wish were available for both videos and stills, however. For instance, photo-only options such as selectable metering modes--you have a choice of evaluative, spot, and center-weighted--would come in handy for videos. And video-only options, most notably 16:9 operation and image stabilization, would be great for stills. Since the DC40 uses electronic image stabilization, you do sacrifice a bit of your 16:9 frame when it's active. But at least the camcorder delivers a true wide-screen view, rather than letterboxed 4:3. The Canon DC40 performs pretty well for its class, but remember that DVD camcorders are still in the remedial courses when it comes to recording lag. With a pre-initialized blank disc, start-up is virtually instantaneous; shutdown takes a few seconds. Initializing is another story. The camcorder requires about 15 seconds just to ascertain that a DVD-RW needs initialization and another 35 seconds to format for DVD-VR (rewritable) or 20 seconds for DVD-R. A partly filled DVD-R requires almost half a minute before the camcorder is ready to record. Once you're ready to go, you'll always have a couple of seconds of lag between pressing record/stop and the action occurring.

Aside from its media-related performance, however, the DC40 operates smoothly and quickly. It adjusts focus rapidly when zooming and panning, for both high- and low-contrast subjects, and swiftly adapts to changes in subject exposure. The zoom switch is quite responsive; in variable-zoom mode, the lens can go from wide to tele in a snap. The constant-rate zoom presets run at slow, slower, and unbearably slow, but I guess that's where you need them the most. The electronic image stabilization keeps the video steady through minor shakes.

Canon positioned the DC40's microphone in the front of the camcorder, below the lens. As such, it doesn't pick up the thock sound of the zoom switch being released or the profane utterances of the frustrated videographer. That said, the audio quality is just OK; I miss the level controls that were available on the soon-to-be-defunct Optura models.

The 2.7-inch LCD is a bit small and quite coarse but remains usable in bright sunlight and moderately dim environments. When played back in a relatively new DVD player, the Canon DC40's best-quality video looks extremely good: sharp and saturated, with accurate white balance and exposure. As long as you haven't panned or zoomed too fast, there are few motion artifacts. However, when I played my video on a several-year-old, basic DVD player, it randomly skipped frames; though it's likely the fault of the player and its inability to fluently read DVD-R, you should keep my experience in mind when you send discs to Grandma.

Low-light video quality came as a pleasant surprise. Yes, it's grainy, but not offensively so, and it retains enough color to look realistic. The video light provides strong illumination as far as about 6 feet away, but if you point it at a person, they'll be seeing spots for days.

Still photos display the same characteristics that make the video appealing--good white balance, exposure, and saturation--but without the image stabilization, you have to manually set the shutter speed a bit high in order to get sharp pictures. In Auto mode on a bright day, I couldn't snap one sharp enough to print.