Canon HV30 Camcorder Reviewby David KenderPublished on Jan 28, 2008 5:00 PM
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (8.5)
The automatic control on the Canon HV30 are very good. To start, the baseline video performance is excellent. The automatic responses to exposure, focus, and white balance are quite fast, though you’ll see a noticeable drag when recording in frame rates other than 60i.
To put the HV30 in auto mode, locate the switch on the right side of the body and move it to “Auto.” When in auto mode, a lot of the menu items are restricted to prevent accidental adjustments. It’s not quite as idiot-proof as Sony’s Easy mode, but you could safely hand it over to a newbie for point-and-shooting.
The auto focus is enhanced with Canon’s Instant AF, which has been in use since the first generation Canon HV10. This system uses a second, external sensor located on the front of the camcorder to perform gross focus adjustment, leaving the primary processor to only deal with the fine focusing. Mind you, this increases focal adjustment time, but not focal accuracy. Using this feature has one tendency that you may or may not like. When the camcorder decides on a focal point, it snaps into focus. If you want a smoother transition without the snap effect, go into the menu and turn off the Instant AF.
In 60i mode, the HV30 takes an average of two seconds to adjust focus, which is great. In 30P mode, you may notice a slight delay. When switching to 24P mode, the auto focus delay gets very large. In some instances, we were seeing adjust times as long as 10 seconds. This is on par with some of the very poor camcorders we’ve seen. Because this is an alternate frame rate, it doesn’t factor into the Automatic Controls score, but its something you should be aware of if you plan on shooting in 24P.
The auto exposure was fast across the board, though we did see a slight drop in the progressive modes compared to 60i. The white balance adjustment was much the same.
The Canon HV30 is also equipped with Scene modes; one-touch adjustments that prime the camcorder for specific shooting environments that are typically difficult. The options include Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks.
Overall Manual Control (7.75)
The manual controls are identical to last year’s HV20, offering a full and powerful range of options that will meet the needs of most demanding consumers. Let’s get the problems out of the way first.
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The joystick on the Canon HV30. |
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Canon compromises with the small control dial on the left hand side. Despite its small size, it moves well. Canon missed an opportunity by not stealing from the better parts of the competition. Sony’s HDV models, the HDR-HC7 and new HDR-HC9, have a dial that looks nearly identical to the HV30. It allows control over focus, exposure, AE Shift, and White Balance Shift. However, the dial is inset just deep enough to make it difficult to grip. Canon offers a better feel, but only uses the dial for focus.
The joystick on the HV30 is far from the best joystick we’ve seen. It’s placement indicates that you should use a thumb to manipulate it, but larger hands will have to contort to get a good grip. The joystick also lies flat against the body, and a little protrusion would have gone a long way in comfort. Canon could take a tip from 2007 Panasonic and JVC camcorders in this regard.
The menu system and navigation have drawn mixed reviews from the CamcorderInfo staff. The consensus is that Canon definitely makes you walk the learning curve, learning all the hidden places in which various controls live. Once you know the lay of the land, making changes is easy, but it may be time for Canon’s design team to overhaul the menu. For instance, the majority of manual controls are located in the Function menu, accessed by hitting the FUNC. button on the back. However, exposure and audio levels are accessed simply by pushing in on the joystick. How about manual focus? That’s activated by hitting a button way up towards the front on the left side. And what about everything else, like changing the frame rate or activating zebra patterns? To do that, first go to the Function menu, then scroll down and hit Menu. This opens the larger Administrative menu. See what we mean? It’s not intuitive, but it works well.
Zoom (6.5)
We’re quite pleased to see that Canon has improved the zoom toggle on the HV30. Last year’s HV20 was a tiny plastic nubbin with barely enough surface area to grip. This year they’ve expanded the grip area, a small change that makes a big improvement in handling.
As with all Canons, the HV30 offers the ability to alter the zoom speed. In addition to the standard zoom control that alters zoom speed based on finger pressure (Canon calls this the “Variable” setting), you can choose to have a fixed zoom speed. Speed 1 is the slowest, Speed 2 is a nice middle ground, and Speed 3 is the fastest. When the camcorder is in Variable mode, we were able to achieve about three distinct zoom speeds. The slowest crawl was not as slow as we’d like, but will suffice for most users.
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The zoom toggle on the Canon HV30... |
... and the zoom on the HV20. |
Zoom Power Ratio (10.0)
The Canon HV30 features a 10x optical zoom, the same as its HV20 predecessor. This should suffice for most users who prefer image quality to ultra-high zooms. There is, of course, the option for digital zoom. It can be set to 40x or 200x. We recommend leaving digital zoom off, as it is a digital distortion and detrimental to image quality.
The focus dial on the Canon HV30.
Focus (6.5)
The manual focus on last year’s Canon HV20 was deemed to be very good, second only to the much larger and more expensive JVC GZ-HD7. This year’s Canon HV30 is identical to the HV20 when it comes to focus. Manual focus is controlled via a small dial on the left-hand side of the camcorder. In some regards, the dial is poorly placed. The LCD panel will invariably block your view of the dial, so you’ll have to feel it out. Also, depending on the angle of the LCD, it can physically block the dial.
That said, the dial is just large enough to offer a grip. It’s better than the similarly-shaped dial on the Sony HDR-HC9, which is indented enough to prevent your finger from finding a good purchase. However, it will be thrown some new competition from Sony’s new HDR-SR11 and HDR-SR12. These HDD camcorders are equipped with a much larger dial.
Canon still has an ace in the hole, though. To make up for the small form factor of the dial, the HV30 has a great Focus Assist feature, activated by a button on the LCD panel. When engaged, the Focus Assist instantly zooms in to about 2x so you can better see the subject. At the same time, it activates a Peaking tool which severely increases the sharpening. This draws out the edges of objects much better – a useful tool when you have to rely on a small, low-res monitor for your focal decisions. Neither the zoom nor the Peaking is recorded to your footage, so you safely use it while you’re recording.
JVC offers a better Peaking tool on their GZ-HD7 and GZ-HD3, which can cast the noisy sharpening in tones of red, green, or blue for even better contrast. Sony lacks any tool like this to assist with manual focus, though the HDR-SR11 and HDR-SR12 have much improved LCDs with a resolution of 921,000 pixels, which should make less guesswork out of manual focus.
Exposure & Aperture (7.6)
The exposure on the Canon HV30 can be adjusted in two ways. The simple method is by using the exposure compensation tool. Push in on the joystick and a small menu appears in the lower right corner. Use the down direction on the joystick to toggle through options, then push up when you see EXP. Exposure compensation is activated. A scale appears on screen. Push the marker left to make the image darker, and right to make it brighter. Using this tool, you don’t need to worry about apertures or shutter speeds. There are 23 increments on the scale, ranging from -11 to +11.
The second, and more powerful method, is setting the exact aperture. To do this, go into the Function menu and change the first item on the list from “P” to “Av,” short for Aperture Priority. In this mode, you dictate the aperture value and the camcorder automatically compensates for exposure by adjusting the shutter speed. 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.
The exposure tool in action
Shutter Speed (7.1)
The shutter speed can be adjusted much the same way as the aperture. In the Function menu, change the first item on the menu to “Tv” mode, or Shutter Priority. In this mode, you dictate the shutter and the camcorder automatically adjusts the aperture to compensate for exposure changes. Shutter settings vary depending on the chosen frame rate. In 60i and 30P modes, the shutter speeds include: 1/8, 1/15, 1/30 1/60, 1/100, 1/250/1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000.
In 24P mode, the shutter speed options are: 1/6, 1/12, 1/24, 1/48, 1/100, 1/250/1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000.
White Balance (7.5)
The white balance settings are located in the Function menu. Canon offers a wide range of choices here that should cover a lot of shooting environments. Presets include: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Fluorescent H. Of course, the most accurate color will always come from a proper manual white balance setting. To do this, point your camcorder at the white or grey card, select the Manual option, then push in on the joystick. The adjustment will take about 2-3 seconds.
The white balance menu
Gain (0.0)
There is no gain control on the Canon HV30. Only Panasonic offers gain control in the consumer realm.
Other Manual Controls (5.5)
Image Effects - The Image Effects set of controls comes standard on high-end Canon camcorders. They offer a great deal of control over the color in sharpness in your video – not nearly as much as you’d expect from a pro camcorder, but more than what most consumer models provide.
The Image Effects menu
There are four options in the Image Effects submenu (located in the Function menu): Vivid boosts saturation, Neutral lowers saturation, Low Sharpening decreases in-camera sharpening, and Soft Skin Detail softens the look of colors in the skin tone range. There is a fifth option, as well, which is the most powerful. The Custom setting allows you to create your own personalized look. There are four parameters: Color Depth, Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness. Each of these can be set to -1, 0, or +1.
Zebra – The Canon HV30 offers the ability to monitor exposure levels by creating small black and white zebra patterns in overexposed areas. Settings include 70 and 100, which correspond the IRE level thresholds.
Peaking - The Peaking tool creates heavy amounts of in-camera sharpening, meant to exaggerate the edges of objects, thus making it easier to manually focus. The effect is not recorded onto the final footage, so you can safely leave it on whenever you like.
Markers – The camcorder offers the option to draw lines on the LCD screen to help you line up your shots. These “screen markers” are not recorded to the final video. Options include a single horizontal line running across the middle, or a two vertical and two horizontal lines making a 9-sector grid. Either of these can appear in white or light grey.
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