Canon DC40 Camcorder Review

Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (7.5)
Automatic controls on most Canons are good. Of course, Sony is the top performer in this category, but Canon puts up a fight. Shifting the camcorder into auto mode is as easy as turning the mode dial to Auto. Canon’s auto mode is not quite as stripped down (idiot-proofed) as Sony’s Easy mode: you are still able to change the video quality and still in the Function menu, as well as a number of features in the administrative menu (for a full breakdown of the menus, see the Overall Manual Control section below). Manual exposure and manual focus cannot be engaged.

The camcorder also offers a number of Program AE modes, settings that are tailored to aid in specific shooting situations. Each mode is represented by an icon on the mode dial. They include Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Slow Shutter, Night, and Special Scene. This last, mysterious setting contains all the other modes Canon wanted to include without clogging up the dial. To access these, put the dial in Special Scene and use the joystick to get to the Function menu (for an explanation of the menu, read the Overall Manual Control section below). Special Scene modes include: Foliage, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks.

While the DC40 does not offer fully independent aperture and shutter speed control, it does have Aperture and Shutter Priority modes, which allow you to control one (either aperture or priority) while the camcorder automatically adjusts the rest of the controls. Both priority modes are also icons on the mode dial.

There is also a bank of Image Effects, found in the Function menu, that give you a small bit of control over image quality. They include Vivid, for boosting contrast and saturation; Neutral, for decreasing contrast and saturation; Low Sharpening, for decreasing sharpening along edges and outlines; and Soft Skin Detail, for softening the colors associated with skin tones of certain races (call Canon USA for full details on which races need apply). The final setting, Custom, allows you to create a custom setting with control over brightness, contrast, sharpness, and color depth (saturation). Each of these aspects has a sliding scale of -1, 0, and +1 – not an immense level of control, but not too bad. You’ll want to be careful using these: the control is not too fine, and you might kill the image with too much contrast, too little saturation, etc.

Overall Manual Control (7.0)
The manual controls on the DC40 are fairly good. There are two parts to the menu, each with a button on the rear of the camcorder. The Menu button brings up the administrative menu. Here are the controls that you will not likely need on the fly: auto slow shutter on/off, wind screen, zoom speed, menu language controls, and so on.

The Function button, just below the Menu button, brings up the Function menu, which contains manual controls that relate to image quality: white balance, image effects, digital effects, image quality, and still quality (for stills taken during video mode).

Navigating through the menu is done with the joystick control, probably the best possible control for a consumer camcorder. Canon, Panasonic, and JVC have all widely accepted them, while Sony remains bound to its touch screen LCDs. The DC40’s joystick is located on the rear left side, which has the unfortunate effect of curtailing one-handed operation. Unlike some of the JVC joysticks, however, the Canon’s is large enough to operate comfortably.

Animated gifs of the administrative menu (above) and Function menu (below)

The menus themselves are clearly organized and easy to scroll through. The administrative menu is the more straight-forward of the two, and the Function menu can take a little more time to get used to. One note on the admin menus that can be frustrating. Typically, when options are unavailable in a menu, they are in grey or white text, while the options that are available appear in black. On this menu, they are reversed; black text items on the menu are unavailable. It's a small but noteworthy confusion.

The joystick also has some double-functions. If you are not active in a menu, pushing up on the joystick will engage the exposure control (in EV steps). Pushing down on the joystick engages the manual focus.

Zoom (7.0)
The DC40 has one zoom control, a large, comfortable toggle on the upper rear of the camcorder. It allows for about 3-4 speeds, depending on the pressure exerted, from a very slow crawl to a fast clip. In the menu, you’ll find the Zoom Speed control, which allows you to fix the zoom speed – Speed 1, Speed 2, and Speed 3 – or let it remain variable (pressure sensitive). We like to see zoom toggles this big and comfortable, and one of the small luxuries afforded you by this pricey purchase. By contrast, the entry-level DC100 (Review, Specs, $305.1) has a smaller, cheaper-feeling zoom control.

Zoom Power/Ratio (10.0)
The Canon DC40 comes with a 10x optical zoom and an additional and optional digital zoom with range limits of either 40x or 400x. With 1/6th inch single chip models, the zoom range can be far greater, and consumers will find cheaper ultra-zoom camcorders on the market with up to 32x optical zoom. The larger chip size found on camcorders like this one reduces zoom range but does increase image quality, accuracy, and resolution. Users should be careful when using the digital zoom feature, since image quality will degrade quickly at higher zoom levels. This inverse relation will become quickly apparent, even when at around 20x.

Focus (5.5)
On the whole, the automatic focus is good. And, unless a camcorder has a focus ring, you’re probably better off leaving it in automatic. If, for whatever reason, you need to engage the manual focus, the DC40 can accommodate you. Pushing down on the joystick (if you are not in a menu) will bring up a small pairs of letters, MF, on-screen. This lets you know that manual focus is engaged. Moving the joystick left and right shifts the focus. There is no scale, plus or minus signs; or other visual indicator of where in the focus you are, aside from the actual subjects in the screen. While a 2.7 inch 123K LCD might be good for getting a rough idea of image quality, it is not large enough or sharp enough for fine focal adjustments. As we said before, you’ll probably want to leave the camcorder in auto mode. By comparison, Sony and Panasonic are not much better. The D300 (Review, Specs, $534.89) relies on a joystick, and the Sonys have touchscreen controls, which take up a large chunk of the screen.

Exposure (Aperture) (4.75)
The DC40 offers two types of exposure control. By pushing up on the joystick, you bring the exposure lock control up on-screen. This is a sliding scale, controlled by the joystick, which goes from +11 to -11 and adjusts exposure in EV steps. Moving the slider on the scale and pushing up on the joystick again locks it.

The camcorder also offers an Aperture Priority mode, which allows you to set the aperture while the camcorder automatically adjusts the rest of the image quality controls. Aperture settings include: f/1.8, f/2.0, f/2.4, f/2.8, f/3.4, f/4.0, f/4.8, f/5.6, f/6.7, and f/8.0. These modes do not provide the same flexibility as a fully independent control, but they are useful.

Panasonic offers fully independent aperture and shutter control via the joystick, which offers much finer control. The Sony DVD405 (Review, Specs, $649) has touch screen-operated plus and minus buttonsm, which function much the same as the DC40, but take up a portion of the screen while you're looking at the picture.

Shutter Speed (5.0)
The DC40 does not offer independent shutter speed control. There is, however, a Shutter Priority mode, which allows you to adjust shutter speed while the camcorder automatically corrects all other controls. The shutter speeds include: 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000 of a second.

White Balance (7.5)
White balance is the first item in the Function menu. There are a number of white balance presets: Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Fluorescent H, as well as an auto setting and a manual setting. Manual white balance adjustments take several seconds; Sonys tend to be faster. However, once adjusted, the colors look very good.

Gain (0.0)
There are no gain options on the DC40. At this price, and with such middling low light performance (see below for more), the DC40 really could have benefitted from one. But none of the Canon consumer camcorders offer it, and the DC40 is not breaking rank.

Other Manual Control (2.0)
Level Marker – The Canon DC40 offers a Level Marker Feature which creates a thin, horizontal line across the middle of the screen.