Canon Vixia HV30 Camcorder

Canon HV30 Camcorder is, just like Sony Handycam HDR-HC9 to HC7, the newer black paint version of its predecessor, Canon HV20, with small lists of upgrades. We already know that the HV20 is the best in its year for its image quality, and you have to spare me by not reviewing it here, because you'll get the idea by reading the Canon HV30 Camcorder. Let's continue...

The good thing about this little fella is that you can get better image quality white cheaper price than Sony HDR-HC9 or even HC7. But ergonomically, HV30 has poor quality.

Shooting with the HV30 feels easy and natural. Canon places the most frequently used options--notably exposure compensation and microphone level--under the control of the set button/joystick. Other shooting options--program, shutter- and aperture-priority, cine, and scene modes, white balance, image effects, and still-image mode--get called up via the function button and navigated with the joystick. Since your thumb controls all of the activity, it's pretty straightforward and fluid to use.

The HV30 uses the same 1/2.7-inch 3-megapixel CMOS sensor as the HV20, capturing 1,440x1,080 (1080i) HD or wide-screen SD video (despite Canon listing 1,920x1,080 resolution in its specs, HDV does not support 1920-pixel horizontal resolution). For SD, it downconverts to fit MiniDV 720x480 format. The camcorder also incorporates the same f/1.8 10X zoom lens, which uses the company's Super-Range Optical Image Stabilization, a technology that tweaks the results based on feedback from its image processor. As long as you use the eye-level viewfinder instead of the LCD, which lets you better brace the camcorder, the stabilization works very well zoomed to its maximum. Since it's harder to keep the camcorder steady when held out in front of you, the stabilization will likely be less effective.

You can still find the HV20 in stores with significantly less price than the HV30. Well, both are usually cheaper than Sony HDR-HC7 or HC9 anyway. In my review, I forgot to mention that HC9 and HC7 have this annoying touch screen issue. Well, if you ask me, I'd put Canon brothers on my buying list and put Sony brothers to someone-with-more-money's buying list.

image source: www.ces-show.com