Quick Review Camcorders : Canon Optura 400

At 3000 lux and other bright light settings, the Optura 400 performed well. Its large CCD and effective pixel count afforded the camcorder good performance results, showing good representation of colors. The Optura 400 correctly captured many colors at 3000 lux that many camcorders would misrepresent. Colors are crisp and well defined within a balance spectrum. The grayscale shows a balanced progression from bright white to pitch black, with no bleeding from other colors on the chart.

The only noticeable problem at 3000 lux is the amount of noise that the Optura 400 produced. It is unfortunate that a camcorder with such a large CCD and effective pixel count would turn up such a noisy image at such a bright light level. If one looks closely at the yellow tile, the high noise level can be discerned.

The Optura 400’s toggle operates well allowing for zooms at multiple speeds. The optical zoom is very quiet, which is nice considering Canon’s notorious noise, and the small compact nature of this camcorder. The manual focus can be controlled by the jog dial, as opposed to buttons under the LCD screen or something, which aides handling. Exposure, also adjusted on the back of the Optura 400, can be adjusted between a numerical window of 0 and -11 with an integral interval.

Manual Shutter speed options are 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000. It would be nice to have some really slow shutter speed options besides those available in night mode. Presets include sports, portrait, spotlight, sand & snow, low light, and auto. White balance options for auto, indoor, outdoor, and set (manual) exist.

With an impressive 2.0 Megapixels effective for digital stills, the Optura 400 matches the Optura 300 in still performance capabilities. Unfortunately, the Optura 400 and 500 do not improve upon the still photograph department of last year’s Optura 300. The Optura 400 and 500 both offer still resolution options of 1632 x 1224, 1280 x 960, and 640 x 480. Both camcorders capture to tape and to SD card, whose slot is located underneath the LCD bay. The Optura 400 ships with an 8MB SD card.

Three different focal points are available on the Optura 400. A drive mode is also available for still capture, in which the camcorder captures stills at normal and high speeds, as well as automatic exposure bracketing, which takes three pictures at once at different exposure levels. Also available is a Stitch Assist Mode, in which the user can take panoramic stills by capturing many stills to be merged later. The Card Mix function allows images to be combined and animated, with included novelty images. The Optura 400’s built-in neutral density filter is also available in card mode, which can be either turned off or set to auto, in order to prevent negative bright-light effects.

Under low light, the Optura 400 performs better than most Canon’s this year. Sonys with similar imagers, such as the DCR-HC85, do perform substantially better than the Optura 400; however, on Canon’s terms, the Optura 400 does well. The main drawback of the Optura 400 at 60 lux is the amount of noise could be enough for the user to disregard the fact that the colors are still pretty good, albeit significantly duller and not nearly as crisp. At 15 lux, the Optura 400 produces not only more washed out, grayish colors, but above all an image shrouded in noise.

The Optura 400 includes the standard ports of A/V input (headphone), FireWire, S-Video, and USB. The Canon Optura 400 offers a 16:9 widescreen effect. In order to approximate a true 16:9 chip, the Optura 400 slices the top and bottom of the frame and expands the sides, utilizing the full chip.

What sets the Optura 400 apart from the competition is the price. If matchbook is your game, JVC offers a surprisingly cheap and well-performing matchbook, but with these three digit Opturas, Canon packs them full of features.

Canon Optura 400 Compared to the...