>> Hi, I'm Will Greenwald, Assistant editor at CNET.com and this is the Canon DC50 digital camcorder. This is a DVD-based camcorder and sits at the high-end of Canon's consumer DVD Camcorder line. It has a 5-megapixel sensor, although it only shoots in standard-definition video. And has a lot of interesting features especially for still-photography surprising on any camcorder. Now, for starters, this camcorder has a 10x optical zoom lens, which is a bit different from the lower-end DCs that have 35x lenses, but the lens on here is a bit higher quality and it features an optical stabilization systems, so when you're zoomed in there's going to be reduced image shake and it's a lot handier. Of course whenever you zoom in you should always try to use a tripod, but if you can't this gives you just a bit of an edge. Now, besides taking video, you can take 5-megapixels still-photos. Now, that's kind of low these days when even budget cameras have 6- to 8-megapixels, but this actually proves to be a surprisingly robust still camera. It features a program mode, so you can change aperture priority, shadow priority. You can choose different ISO settings, all very interesting features to find on a camcorder, which usually tend to skimp on the still-photos modes. Also surprising, when you take the photos, they look pretty good. You're not gonna be able to blow them up really big or crop them really low because of the resolution and because this is still just a camcorder. But if you just want photos to email to friends, post to Web sites and make small prints like 6x4 this is a good choice. This actually works pretty well. You can take snapshots, you can take good video and if you don't mind the price, this might be all you need in your bag for recording memories. I'm Will Greenwald and this is Canon DC50.
