Canon ZR830 Camcorder Reviewby John NeelyPublished on Mar 22, 2007 4:00 PM
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Still Features (4.65)
The Canon ZR830 (Review, Specs, $240) offers very basic still camera functionality – just enough to make you consider choosing it over the ZR800, which does not take stills at all. In our opinion, the trade off is not worth it. The ZR800 has a mic input, which is far more useful than an under-1MP camera. Cracker Jack toys can shoot over 1MP these days.
That said, the ZR830 has some pretty decent features when shooting in still mode, matching the step-up ZR850 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $265) in every area but resolution, which maxes out at 1024 x 768 (versus 1152 x 864 on the 850). To switch to still mode, move the switch on top of the camcorder from the tape icon to the memory card icon. Stills are saved to SD and SDHC cards, which load on the upper right side of the camcorder. SD cards are available in capacities up to 2GB. SDHC, or SD high capacity cards, are currently available up to 8GB, but 32GB cards will be on shelves soon enough. Image resolution can be set to 1024 x 768 (around 0.8MP) or 640 x 480 (around 0.3MP) in three quality settings, Normal, Fine, and Superfine.
Stills can be captured when the camcorder is set to memory card recording. The small recording format selector switch is on top of the camcorder’s body, with options for tape icon and card. Still images are captured to SD/SDHC/MMC cards, which are inserted into a slot on the upper right side. A card is not included in the box, but they are cheap and readily available. In addition to 1024 x 768, a low resolution VGA-quality setting is available (640 x 480 or about 0.3MP), and photo quality can be set to Normal, Fine, or Superfine.
In still photo mode, the Function and main menus retain most of the features available in video mode. In the Function menu, you’ll find scene modes, white balance, image and digital effects, MPEG-2 video recording to card, still resolution and quality. All the options mirror those available in video mode. The main menu is accessed by pressing the Func. button and navigating to the menu icon at the base of screen’s left side. These options include: shutter speed, with a more limited set of choices than are available in video mode: Auto, 1/60, 1/100, and 1/250; and Auto focus type, which has options for Artificial Intelligent Auto Focus (AiAF), Center weighted, and auto focus off. In contrast to Canon’s digital still cameras, the AiAF cannot be set to 9-point, 5-point, and 3-point. AiAF on the ZR Series is automatic, and it seeks out regions with the greatest contrast to set focus.
Stills can be captured to card while recording or playing back video, but resolution is capped at 640 x 480, and the stills will utilize a video color space. This means they will look like video stills rather than digital camera stills and may strike you as unnatural in tone. The ability to capture JPEG movies to card is an interesting feature available on this camcorder, but its utility is limited to capturing low resolution video at 320 x 240 or 160 x 120 for ultra-fast upload to your favorite video sharing site.
Still Performance (8.16)
The Canon ZR830 was tested for color accuracy in its stills by shooting a Gretag McBeth Color Checker chart, then running those stills through Imatest imaging software. Full auto mode did not produce the best possible still. Rather, we found better results by bumping down the exposure 1 increment. In this setting, the image produced a mean color error of 7.35, with a saturation decrease of -5.29% (aperture = f/2.4, shutter speed =1/120). Despite the fact that the imager with the higher pixel count is in the ZR850, the ZR830 appeared to produce more accurate stills. As you’ll read below, however, the ZR850 produced the higher resolution.
Still Resolution (3.6)
The camcorder did not oversharpen as much as the ZR850, but it didn't have as good a resolution. Imatest ignores sharpening, which can create the illusion of increased resolution by increasing the contrast along borders and edges.