Canon ZR850 Camcorder Reviewby John NeelyPublished on Mar 6, 2007 3:42 PM
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Still Features (4.75)
The Canon ZR850 offers the best still features of the entry-level ZR series, but that’s not saying much. So many camcorders offer still shooting as a token feature, particularly the cheaper models, as a way of justifying price points. Think twice before buying in. Most take terrible stills at low resolutions you’d never settle for in a digital still camera. Don’t settle for it in your camcorder either.
The Canon ZR850 captures stills by moving the switch on top from the “tape” icon to the “card” icon. Photos are saved to SD/SDHC/MMC cards, which load into a port on the upper right side. No card comes included, though the price of media is constantly dropping and the capacity always expanding. Still resolutions can be set to either 1152 x 864 (about 1MP) or 640 x 480 (about 0.3MP), and each of these can be set to a quality of Normal, Fine, and Superfine.
As in video mode, there are two menus: Function and main. The Function menu contains options for scene modes, white balance, image effects, video light on/off, digital effects, MPEG-2 (low quality) video recording, and still resolution and quality. All the options in these items are the same as in video mode.
The main menu, or administrative menu, has some of the more interesting and useful features, and those that should have been included in the Function menu. Shutter speed control is here, which can be set to Auto, 1/60, 1/100, and 1/250. The auto focus method is also here, which has options for Artificial Intelligent Auto Focus (AiAF), Center weighted, and auto focus off. Unlike in Canon’s still cameras, the AiAF cannot be set to 9-point, 5-point, and 3-point. The detection is completely automatic, looking for the areas with clearest contrast, then automatically honing in on them, and snapping the picture.
The ZR850 also allows you to record stills while in video mode, even while simultaneously recording video to the tape. In this mode, the still resolution maxes out at a meager 640 x 480.
Still Performance (6.7)
The Canon ZR850 was tested for color accuracy in its still images by shooting a GretgaMcBeth ColorChecker chart and running those stills through Imatest imaging software (big thanks to DigitalCameraInfo.com, from whom we coopted our new testing). At best, the camcorder produced an uncorrected mean color error of 9.02. In order to get this score, we had to lower the exposure by an increment of -1. Colors were oversaturated by an average 7.1%.
This color accuracy is not very good, but within the range of a cheap point-and-shoot camera. Certain colors get better treatment than others. The skin tones get more saturation, and the blues have been shifted far from their ideal, likely to get better sky tones.
Still Resolution (4.42)
The Canon ZR850 was tested for the resolution of its still photos by shooting an Applied Image ISO 12233 resolution chart and running those stills through Imatest imaging software to determine line widths per picture height (LW/PP). For the horizontal, Imatest found an approximate resolution of 575.9 with a overshapening of 7.38%. For the vertical, the resolution was approximately 635.1 with a oversharpening of 33.2%.
The sharpening on this camcorder is exceptionally high. Sharpening occurs in the processor as a way of increasing contrast along borders in order to simulate increased resolution. Too much sharpening, as was the case here, creates artifacts like halos around the high contrast borders. It can also skew the resolution tests into boosting the score, so beware scores with unusually high oversharpening percentages.
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