Canon FS200 First Impressions Camcorder Reviewby David KenderPublished on Jan 10, 2009 4:55 PM
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Auto ModeThe Canon FS200 should have decent automatic responses, given what we saw on last year's Canon FS100; the specs are unchanged. On the FS200, the auto exposure, focus, and white balance adjustments were not stellar, but they did the job sufficiently. Focus in darker areas was not great, and we saw a lot of bouncing back and forth without resting on the final, correct area for focus.
Low Light Modes
The Canon FS200 offers an Auto Slow Shutter menu that allows the automatic shutter to drop below its normal minimum of 1/60th.
Scene Modes
The scene modes on the Canon FS200 include Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks.
ZoomThe zoom controls on the Canon FS200 are adequate for the purpose. The tiny rocker offers a good action, and we had no trouble getting a slow crawl.
For a little more control, Canon offers the option to fix the zoom speed on all its models. Rather than relying on pressure-sensitivity, you can set the zoom toggle to slow, medium, or fast. It's a useful feature, especially if it's important to get a slow crawl through the entire zoom range.
Zoom Ratio
The Canon FS200 offers a powerful zoom, and is one of the camcorder's selling points. The optical zoom reaches up to 37x. It's not the most powerful on the market, but it's certainly good enough for zoom enthusiasts to consider.
The FS200 has a return of the feature Canon introduced last year called Advanced Zoom. By using only a portion of the CCD sensor when the zoom lens is at its farthest out, the camcorder is able to increase the zoom power to 41x without sacrificing image quality. Apparently, the idea was good enough that nearly every manufacturer stole it. You can also activate a digital zoom that extends out to 2000x.
Focus
The manual focus on the Canon FS200 is limited, as it is on most camcorders in this price range. Essentially, it's just you, the low-resolution LCD, and the joystick. It's difficult to gauge fine focusing decisions with this LCD, but if your subject is large enough you should be able to make a go of it. In most instances, however, it may be advisable to simply rely on the automatic focus system.
Exposure
The exposure control is located in the joystick menu, which is fairly easy to access. The exposure can be adjusted up or down 11 increments. This is more or less on average with other camcorders in its price range.
Aperture
The aperture cannot be adjusted on the Canon FS200.
Shutter Speed
The FS200 offers a Shutter Priority mode, located in the Function menu. In this mode, you set the shutter speed and the camcorder automatically matches with the aperture. The shutter speed ranges from 1/8 to 1/2000, which should gave you all the range you need for shooting in low light all the way up to fast-moving sports.
White Balance
The white balance options on the Canon FS200 are not as wide as those on the HD Canons models. You'll only find settings here for Auto, Daylight, Tungsten, and Manual. The upper-tier models include more specific settings for different types of indoor light.
Gain
There are no options for gain control on the Canon FS200, though there has been some interesting steps forward for Canon on the new HF S10 and HF S100.
Color & Image Control
The color controls on the FS200 are somewhat lessened compared to upper-end Canons, but still better than what you'll find on most camcorders in the price range, which tend to offer absolutely no control over color.
| Color/Image Control | Description |
| Vivid | One-touch setting for increasing color saturation |
| Neutral | One-touch setting for decreasing color saturation |
| Soft Skin Detail | One-touch setting for improving appearance of skin tones |
Other Manual Controls
There is just one other manual control on the Canon FS200. The upper-end models offer more, like zebra patterns, color bars, and more.
| Control | Description |
| Onscreen Markers | Lines appear onscreen to help you set up a shot. Options include a single, horizontal line (in white or grey) or a grid pattern (in white or grey). |
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