Canon ZR500 Camcorder Review by David Kender Published on Feb 15, 2006 4:00 PM

Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (5.0)
On the ZR500 (Review, Specs, $224.8), as with most Canons, there is a prominently-located switch for Easy mode. In this case it is on the upper right side of the body. When in this mode, your cares are over when it comes to shutter speed, exposure, gain, iris, and focus. And in many ways, that’s not a bad thing. Entry level camcorders should excel in automatic controls; their audience is likely far more interested in them than the manual controls.

When in Easy mode, the menu is curtailed to the essentials. To access the menu, push the FUNC. button on the LCD panel. All the categories titles in for manual controls will appear – white balance, Image Effect, Digital Effect – but they will not work. In order to engage these, switch from Easy to “P” mode. The last item on the list, Menu, brings up the administrative menu. Here you can make changes such as setting the recording speed, audio mode, language, and adjusting other settings. Even in the administrative menu, though, certain features are hidden if you are in Easy mode. This is for your own protection, if you are the type of user who cannot be trusted to turn on your own TV without a how-to guide.

The ZR500 does not excel at automatic controls, exactly, but they work adequately. The camcorder takes 3 seconds on average to find the correct focus. While this lag time can be a “drag,” the adjustments are accurate. It even does well in low light, which is where most camcorders will start to fail. The ZR500 could accurately decipher fine print text at light levels of only 4 lux, and this is without the Auto Slow Shutter engaged. This feature, when turned on, will allow the shutter to drop to 1/30 of second in low light conditions. We recommend keeping the feature off, however, as it will cause blurring.

The auto white balance has a similar lag time of about 3-4 seconds. Unlike focus, once it settles, it may not be that accurate. For instance, a subject sitting by a window with indirect sunlight will appear far too blue (the color temperature of sunlight). If the camcorder is in Easy mode, the manual setting and automatic presets (Daylight and Tungsten) cannot be selected. We recommend leaving the comforts of Easy mode and performing a manual adjustment of the white balance. If there’s only one control that you choose to learn, let this be it.

Auto exposure, like auto exposure on the ZR100 (Review, Specs, $219.95) of last year, had quick, abrupt shifts in extreme lighting conditions, although such dramatic changes in conditions are probably unusual in everyday shooting. It did very well with a strongly backlit subject, even on densely black surfaces.

If you switch from Easy to “P,” you’ll gain access to a number of controls that fall under the automatic controls category. Pushing the FUNC. button brings up the manual control menu, with the letter “P” appearing yet again at the top of a list of options. P, in this instance, is short for Program AE (Auto Exposure) – a series of preset modes optimized for certain shooting conditions. They include: Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks.

Two other categories in the manual control menu – Image Effects and Digital Effects – are also quasi-auto controls only available in “P” mode. Image Effects include Vivid, Neutral, and Soft Skin Detail. These are not highly evolved controls; there is no “more Vivid” or “less Vivid” scale. You turn them on or off, and you select only one at a time. Upper-end Canons like the Opturas offer a Custom setting here, which allows you to set each of these levels manually.

Digital Effects include the type of wipe, if any, you wish to use. You’ll also find a gamut of cheap-looking effects like mosaic and sepia-tone.

Overall Manual Control (5.0)
The manual controls on the ZR500 are, again, average for camcorders in this price range. Canon exists somewhere between the two extremes of manual control. On the one side, you have Sony, which offers virtually no manual controls, and Panasonic, which gives you the kitchen sink.

All manual control is controlled with the joystick and Function button located on the lower edge of the LCD panel. We love the joystick. This navigation control is easily superior to Sony's touch screens and JVC's four-way touchpad controls. Unfortunately, it does require you to have the LCD open during operation, which cuts down on battery life. In truth, you'll be using the LCD anyway. The viewfinder has been reduced to an unusable size.

It's worth mentioning here why we like the joystick over Sony's touch screen. You can read our revivew of the DCR-HC26 for full details, but in short,  the LCD is your primary viewing device to judge picture quality. But rather than having a nice, clean image, you've gone and gotten your greasy fingers all over it. In addition, you're constantly puttin pressure on one of the most sensitive areas of the whole camcorder, and the one most likely to break first. Trust us, stick with a joystick.  

The ZR500 includes manual white balance and two white balance presets, manual shutter speed, manual exposure (in EV steps), and manual focus. On the whole, Canon does not present an easily accessible way to get the picture you want. Most controls require a tedious rocking back and forth of the joystick. While a joystick is probably the best of all possible interface controls at the consumer level, when you compare it to JVC’s microscopic touchpad or Sony’s touch screen, it never quite seems good enough. You’ll know what I mean once you’ve handled a pro-level cam with a fat, rocker zoom and a focus ring. Sigh…

Zoom (8.0)
The zoom control on the ZR500 is a raised toggle switch located on the right-rear of the top, in perfect placement for the index finger. The raised toggle has a distinct advantage over the sliding switch found on Panasonics, as it allows for delicate, controlled adjustments. A new feature on this year’s Canons is the adjustable zoom speed. Found in the administrative menu, this feature allows you to fix the speed of the zoom, no matter how hard you push down on the zoom toggle. The ZR500 has options for Speed 1 (the slowest), Speed 2 (intermediate), and Speed 3 (the fastest). There is also a Variable option, which returns the control to your deft little hands.

Zoom Power/Ratio (25.0)
The Canon ZR500 offers 25x optical zoom and 800x digital zoom. The digital zoom can be capped at 100x, which is a higher cap than you’ll usually find. Most often, the cap will be set at 40x or 50x, where image quality might not be severely degraded. At 100x, though, pixilation will definitely start to show. A 25x optical zoom is good - more than enough for most purposes. The Sony HC26 offers 20x zoom, while the Panasonic PV-GS29 (Specs, ) and GS39 (Review, Specs, $212.8) offer 30x zoom.

Focus (4.5)
The manual focus control is as disappointing as you would find on nearly any budget camcorder, and therefore, undeserving of too much scorn. We can’t expect focus rings on every camcorder, now can we? Instead, the ZR500 has you push in on the joystick, which calls up a mini-menu in the corner of the screen. The menu has two options: exposure and focus. When you select focus, Canon gives you the old “Man and the Mountain” scenario. If you’re unfamiliar, the schema consists of two icons – a man on the left and a mountain on the right. Translated, this means that if your subject is close, you want to push the joystick left until it appears to be in focus. If your subject is far away, go right.

The problem with this control is simple, yet glaring enough that we find cause to mention it in nearly every review: a 2.7-inch LCD screen is simply not large enough, or of a high enough resolution, to spot a focus error in really tricky shots. And what you miss here will definitely show up on a full-size television screen, I assure you. You’re better off leaving this control in auto.

Exposure (Aperture) (4.5)
The manual exposure is accessed in the same way that focus is (described immediately above). It works better than the manual focus, however, because exposure adjustments are more apparent on a small screen. The ZR500 offers a sliding scale of +/-11 steps away from the auto setting. This should be enough of a range to get the exposure level you need. The control is adjusted in EV steps, which is a combination of shutter speed and iris adjustment. A fully independent iris and shutter speed method would be the best control, but this should suffice for the weekender crowd.

Upper-tier Canons offer Aperture Priority modes that allow you full iris control while automatically compensating the shutter speed. Panasonics, such as the PV-GS29, give you total iris and shutter speed controls.

Shutter Speed (3.0)
The Canon ZR500 offers shutter speed options of 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000 of a second. For some reason, Canon has chosen to bury this control in the administrative menu rather than bring it up to the first level, which instead gives you far less useful controls like Fader and Digital Effects. Even so, it’s good to have faster shutter speeds when you need to shoot fast moving subjects. Just be sure that the light is sufficient. A faster shutter speed means that light has less time to enter the iris and exposure the picture.

White Balance (7.0)
The ZR500 does offer manual white balance, which is a blessing, as the auto white balance leaves a lot to be desired. Canon has been considerate enough to put white balance at the top of the list in the manual control menu. They only offer two preset white balances – Daylight and Tungsten – and since most real-life lighting will never perfectly match with how these presets were calibrated, it’s best to go ahead and do the white balance yourself.

Gain (0.0)
There is no manual gain control on the Canon ZR500.

Other Manual Control (0.0)
There are no other manual controls on the ZR500.