Canon Announces ZR100, ZR200 and ZR300

by Robin Liss
Published on Jan 5, 2005 8:15 AM



Canon has just announced replacements for their popular ZR line from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The new Canon ZR100 (Review, Specs, $219.95), ZR200 (Review, Specs, $120.99), and ZR300 (Review, Specs, $449) replace, respectively the ZR80 (Review, Specs, $284), ZR85 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $356.49), and ZR90 (Review, Specs, $229). Canon has made few alterations to last year's design, specifically making this year's ZRs slimmer, more portable, and generally more compact. Canon is also introducing the camcorders at a $100 lower price point across the board than they did last year - however the price reduction doesn't come without a cost in features.

This year's ZRs are approximately 2 oz. lighter than last year's models but feature a very similar body style. Canon was able to reduce the weight by taking in both the width and the height of each camcorder, and while this upgrade provides increased convenience in the areas of portability and handling, there are consequences. The ZRs have been stripped of their accessory shoes and now include slightly reduced 2.4" LCD screens. Last year's headphone ports and S-Video ports have been removed on this year's models as well. While the feature reductions have been partially done to reduce camcorder size, they are also an effort to make it possible to sell the camcorders at the lower price points.

"What we find is that people who are using the entry level, our $299, our $399, our $499 price points are really people who are looking for point and shoot simplicity," said Mike Zorich Director of Marketing, for Canon's Consumer Video Group in an interview with CamcorderInfo.com. "And those people are not the type of user who are largely concerned with having manual control or even adding lights to the camera or using an external microphone, so our emphasis in 2005 is to build those features into the step up models."

The ZR100 is the entry ZR model with no still capability and limited features. The ZR100 features a 20x optical zoom which is an upgrade from the 18x optical zoom of the ZR80 which it replaces. The ZR200 has the same 20x optical zoom as the ZR100. It also gains an SD card slot for saving digital stills onto, and 3 point selectable auto focus for stills, however the camcorder does not include an SD card like the ZR85 did. The ZR300 adds Canon's Super Night Shot mode and a 22x optical zoom and includes an 8 MB SD card.

Canon has maintained the same imaging system on the ZRs which has received acclaim for it's normal lighting shooting capabilities but had major problems in low light. Zorich stated that based on Canon's focus groups 90% of all shooting is done outdoors and in well lit situations, and Canon feels their performance in those conditions is competitive and very good.

"Canon has not done anything in the signal processing of the camcorder for 2005 to change the low light performance," said Zorich "If we look at the overall performance of the Canon camcorders, I want to be clear that our objective from an R&D perspective is to work on a very broad range of what makes good image quality in a camcorder, such as a good white balance system, a good automatic exposure system, good color saturation, good dynamic range."

Zorich went on to say however that Canon is working to improve the low light performance of their entry level camcorders. He explained that the imaging system and it's resulting performance has been maintained in the new line of ZRs largely to reduce the manufacturering cost in the highly cost competitive budget camcorder sector. By not having to retool their factories for new CCDs and imaging systems, Canon is able to pass that savings onto the consumer with the $100 price reduction across the board on the 2005 ZRs.

"A lot of the decisions that a company has to make is going to be dedicated to efficiencies. And when we use the same CCD or the same circuit board in a camcorder which is going to yield the same performance in low light as an example; it's largely because the R&D center is concentrating on other products or other technologies as well," said Zorich.

The ZR100, ZR200, and ZR300 all feature the same imager as last year's ZR's, a 1/6 inch CCD with 680K gross pixels, and 340K effective pixels for both video and still photos. The new ZR's feature the same DiGiC 1.0 processing that was featured last year, and feature the same still photo options as last year. The ZR200 and ZR300 can capture 1,024x768 still photos to SD/Multimedia card. The ZR300 ships with an 8MB SD card.

The manual control options on the ZR100, ZR200 and ZR300 have remained largely the same. Canon has kept the manual white balance, shutter speed, exposure and zoom which was found on the 2004 ZR models.

While each of this year's ZR's offers the same Firewire and A/V inputs and outputs found on last year's models, along with USB ports on the ZR200 and ZR300, however Canon removed the S-Video jack from the ZR300 which was present on the ZR90. The company has also removed the accessory shoes making it much more difficult to put an external microphone on the camcorder. In a move which might be considered a major downgrade, Canon has removed the microphone input on the ZR200 and ZR300 which were on the ZR85 and ZR90.

Along with all the feature downgrades, Canon has made some small upgrades from last year's ZR's. The ZR100, ZR200, and ZR300 all include the same higher resolution 16:9 function found on last year's Optura 400 (Specs, $999) and Optura 500 (Specs, $1199), utilizing the full width of CCD while cropping the top and bottom. The new 16:9 mode appears letterboxed on the LCD but not on the tape and caters to the growing number of wide-screen TV owners.

Additionally Canon has upgraded the zoom of the lowest ZR100 from 18x on the ZR90 to 20x. The ZR200 and ZR300's optical zooms of 20x and 22x respectively have stayed the same from last years models. Canon is clearly following the industry trend for bigger optical zooms in these low end models - making 20x optical and above zooms the standard.

Copying a note from Sony's playbook, Canon has changed their typical full auto mode green box marker to by titled simply "easy" Canon has also added a LCD backlight on / off option to aide viewing the LCD in bright sunlight situations

Canon continues to emphasize still performance with the new line of ZR camcorders. The ZR100 can capture stills to tape at a resolution with no external memory card. The ZR200 and ZR300 can capture 1,024x768 stills to SD cards. Additionally, the ZR200 and ZR300 include the option of three point selectable focus when taking still pictures. These two camcorders also include the ability to record MPEG video to SD cards at 15 frames per second, and at resolutions of either 320x240 or 160x240. The ZR300 also adds Super Night mode to the option of Color Night mode found on the ZR100 and ZR200. Canon is also attempting to create further product differentiation with the ZR300 by including a .6 X wide angle converter in the box.

While it appears that Canon has downgraded this years ZRs, and failed to address some of the major issues with the ZR camcorders, Canon contends that they had to make these changes to reduce the camcorder price and remain competitive in the budget camcorder category. The decreasing margins in the budget camcorder price range Zorich explained are also why the company has made so few changes in their ZR line over the past three years. He explained that every time the company changes the design or imaging system or any feature on the ZR line they need to the research and development dollars that were required to make the change. With the decreasing prices of low end camcorders, it makes it more and more difficult for Canon to make back research and development money.

Representatives from Canon also contend that while they have removed some features from the ZR100, ZR200 and ZR300 when you directly compare them to last years the ZR80, ZR85 and ZR95, that comparison is unfair because the 2005 camcorders are being introduced at lower prices than the 2004 models were introduced. While it is true that the introductory prices are lower, the street prices of the 2004 ZR models have dropped dramatically during the year putting their prices in line with the street prices which the 2005 models will be at meaning that the 2005 ZRs are effectively being introduced at the same price as the 2004 ZRs are currently selling at.

"We're maximizing the investments that have been made in the technology available now and the profitability, although the profitability scale is declining clearly for all manufacturers," said Zorich.

The ZR100, ZR200 and ZR300 will be available in mid February. The ZR100 will be introduced at $349, the ZR200 at $399 and the ZR300 at $499.

Matt Culler contributed to this article.

2005
2004

ZR100
vs
Upgrades: 2.0 oz lighter, zoom increased from 18x to 20x, added 16:9 mode, added backlight on / off LCD control,
Downgrades: Accessory shoe removed, smaller 2.4 in. LCD screen, headphone jack removed

ZR80

ZR200
vs
Upgrades: 2.0 oz lighter, added 16:9 mode, added backlight on / off LCD control
Downgrades: Accessory shoe removed, smaller 2.4 in. LCD screen, headphone jack removed, microphone in jack removed

ZR85

ZR300
vs
Upgrades: Added .6x wide angle adaptor, 2.0 oz lighter, added 16:9 mode, added backlight on / off LCD control
Downgrades: Accessory shoe removed, smaller 2.4 in. LCD screen, headphone jack removed, S-Video jack removed, microphone in jack removed

ZR90