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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 13 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Small; good zoom lens; impressive sound quality and color; easy to use.
The bad: Wimpy battery; cheesy digital effects; minimal bundled software.
The bottom line: Perfect for vacation videos and home movies, as long as you stock a spare battery.
Specifications: Video input type: Camcorder ; Optical sensor type: CCD ; Optical zoom: 12 x ; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 08/10/2004
- Released on: 05/23/2004
Editor's note: We have changed the rating in this review to reflect recent changes in our rating scale. Click here to find out more. Like most four-door sedans, horizontal MiniDV camcorders all look about the same on the outside. The Canon Optura 30, with its two-tone silver-and-gray finish, is no exception. It weighs less than most, however, tipping the scale at about a pound and a half. I found it very easy to figure out most of the functions without using the manual. It passed the five-minute test: I ripped the camcorder out of the box, threw the manual behind the couch, ran outside, and was able to start shooting immediately. If you do need to refer to it, however, the manual is pretty well written, so you might want to toss it on the coffee table where you can find it later.
The Optura 30's controls are right where you'd expect them. On top of the camera by the zoom switch is the shutter button for use in still mode. You access this mode by flipping the SD card switch right next to the photo button. When you pop open the LCD screen, all the transport buttons are right at your fingertips, along with the digital effects.
Canon gets brownie points for the top-loading cassette design on the Optura series.
The menus on the Optura 30 are easy to understand and logically organized, though you'll need to check the manual to find all the features and the seven different shooting modes. Make sure you have the strap snugly attached to your hand, or you'll be testing the durability of this baby sooner than you think.As a professional photographer, I would rather have great image quality than a raft of features I'll never use. The Canon Optura 30 provides a good basic set, along with a few goodies that really come in handy. Its 2.2-megapixel sensor delivers 2-megapixel still photos and captures 1.2-megapixel videos (which are then downsampled to DV resolution, as on all consumer camcorders). For newbies, the Optura 30 offers seven recording programs and an Easy Recording mode that lets you just point and shoot. You can't activate 16:9 mode in the Easy Recording mode, but I still got great results immediately. Though the camcorder provides manual focus and exposure modes, they seemed unnecessary--the camera's automated settings worked fine.
Across its entire camcorder line, Canon has added one-button support for PictBridge direct printing.
The Optura 30's 240X digital zoom is fun to use, but it's excessive unless you make a regular practice of spying on your neighbors. Should you decide to use the digital zoom, a tripod is a must. Image quality degrades a bit, but it will suffice for providing evidence of Bigfoot or UFOs. If you require a bit more than the Optura 30's 12X zoom, take the next step up the product line to the 14X Optura 40.
You get a ton of photo capabilities with this camcorder. In addition to capturing pictures to an SD card, you can connect to your Mac or PC to use the Optura 30 as a Webcam. Though the process is documented only for Windows--Canon supplies Windows-only DV Messenger software--it worked fine on a Mac using iChat AV. Via the USB port, you can also print directly to a printer equipped with Canon Direct Print or PictBridge.
One of my other favorite features is the ability to zoom up to 5X during playback. This provided a great way to check focus and shadow detail and was a real help when the camera was mounted on a tripod.
Many of the in-camera digital effects, such as Wave and Mirror, are pretty cheesy. I limited my use of them to the fader and black-and-white modes. Of course, if you're into editing at all, you'll probably end up using a more advanced video-editing program than the extremely limited and surprisingly not video-oriented software that comes bundled with the camcorder.I enjoyed shooting with the Canon Optura 30. I'm spoiled by the current crop of digital SLR cameras, so I really appreciate the camcorder's smooth, fast autofocus; only when ambient light was almost absent did it have to hunt for focus.
The LCD viewing screen was very easy to see, but in bright light I had to switch to the pop-up viewfinder. Fortunately, the viewfinder is also quite good; the view appeared less grainy than with some others I've seen.
The 720mAh (milliamp hours) battery that ships with the Optura 30 doesn't last very long; you'll have to buy an optional double-capacity battery to get a tape's worth of juice.
Under low light, Night mode--which works by slowing the shutter considerably--lets you shoot in as little as just over one lux of illumination. Keep in mind that this produces something of a Blair Witch Project effect, but it will allow you to capture video.
The audio noise filter worked quite well, and the onboard mike performed impressively both indoors and out. The Optura did, however, deliver significantly better sound quality in 16-bit mode (as opposed to the default 12-bit mode) using an inexpensive external mike from RadioShack.
Unfortunately, relatively short battery life and the lack of a bundled external charger marred an otherwise great shooting experience. Canon claims 60 minutes of battery life, but I consistently ran out of juice at the 40-minute mark--about half the length of a tape in SP mode. Plus, the camcorder takes a couple hours to recharge. Though this type of weak performance isn't unusual for a consumer camcorder, to avoid getting caught with your battery down when the bride kisses the groom, it's worth budgeting about $125 for a spare battery and an external charger.I really like the Canon Optura 30's video quality. Images generally looked sharp, and even those shot with digital zoom fared pretty well. Canon's Digic DV postprocessing really delivers the goods, producing a slightly warm, yet quite accurate white balance. Everyone who saw my test footage remarked on how good the color looked. We have a definite winner here.
The lens worked extremely well overall, most notably under high-contrast lighting. It even produced great images when shooting backlit--almost straight into the sun--with minimal flare.
Still captures display good color and may be suitable for small prints, but some noise and aliasing (jaggies) are still evident.
Under all but the dimmest conditions, the Optura 30 produced low-noise videos with very few color artifacts. The auto white balance adjusted from daylight to indoor lighting quickly and accurately, and manually white-balanced shots were quite neutral. Using Night mode made the indoor colors a touch cooler but produced some interesting blurry zooming effects.
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