Canon Elura 70 First Impressions Review

by Nathaniel Hansen
Published on Mar 22, 2004 12:00 AM

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The new Canon Elura 70 is at the high end of the new Elura line at $799.99, and has some intelligent upgrades from last year's Elura 50. The biggest improvement, which will likely improve both picture quality and low light performance, is the boost in CCD size. The Elura 70 is a compact camcorder with a host of options that are, for the most part, bound to please.

Video Performance
The Elura 70 includes a 1/4.5-inch CCD, with 1,330,000 gross pixels and 690,000 effective pixels for video and 1,230,000 effective pixels for still. Since this is based off a pre-production model I can't really make any conclusions about the video performance of the Elura 70, however it's large CCD is certainly worth noting. Last year's Elura 50 had a 1/6 in. CCD, and many of the sub $1,000 Canon camcorders include 1/6 in. CCDs. Typically larger CCDs produce better video quality so are likely to see good results out of the Elura 70's1/4.5in . CCD.

The Front
The most prominent feature on the front of the Canon Elura 70 is its 18x variable focal length (zoom) lens which has a 3.5-63mm range and a lens filter diameter of 30.5mm. Situated directly below the lens is the stereo microphone, which is covered by a metallic looking (gray) plastic cover with its accompanying wind screen holes. Immediately beneath the microphone is an attractively embossed Canon logo. The logo subtly stands out from the rest of the gray plastic, and indeed the entire front, with its faux brushed metal appearance.

Continuing down the front appear the symbols S (for S Video) and DV (for DV/Firewire in) which are engraved into the hard gray plastic port cover. If you move down to the bottom of the camera and to the underside, the cover has an edge which allows the user to pull the port cover off. Overall the port cover and hinge feel a little fragile. The color and finish of the plastic cover give the impression of solid durability, but when the thin cover pops off, that notion is quickly deflated.

To the left of the lens/microphone/port cover (if looking directly at the front of the camera) is the light sensor and half moon shaped infrared sensor.

The Right Side
The right side of the Canon Elura 70 is, in respect to design, right on par with the rest of the Elura line. At the front of the right side is a small notch in the plastic which, when pried open, reveals MIC, AV/Headphone, USB, and DC ports. Toward the back of the right side is the speaker. On plane with this but at the immediate back are the Power/Mode dial markings. The dial itself is located on the back of the Elura 70. Perhaps the most important part of the right side is the intelligently placed hand strap. It is made of a nice suede type of material and has the Canon logo printed in white onto the adjustable Velcro strap.

The Left Side
The majority left side of the Elura 70 is taken up by the adjustable LCD. Canon placed the product name at the top left of the outside of the LCD. Next to this they placed the logo MiniDV and the acronym NTSC which my British friends tell me stands for Not The Same Color (In case you've always wondered, it's for Short for National Television System Committee). Moving on to the front of the left side, directly under the lens, is the depressible jog joystick/dial. It moves up and down and is used for making selections within the menus displayed in within the viewfinder and on the LCD. Below this dial is the menu button which when pressed gives the user access to the internal menu system.

When the LCD is unfolded from the Elura 70 body a series of menu buttons is revealed. While in camera mode, these buttons allow access to the manual controls such as focus, exposure, digital effects, etc. The buttons are double labeled, and when the camcorder is in VCR or playback mode, the symbols on the buttons and in most cases the label affixed on top connotes the action.

Beneath these buttons is a small dark gray plastic cover that when flipped down reveals the multimedia card slot.

The Top
Positioned at the rear left of the Elura 70 is the viewfinder which can be lifted up (45 degrees) and has an extendable eye cup that pulls out about an inch. Moving towards the front of the camera, directly in front of the view finder is Canon's Advanced Accessory Shoe. This allows the user to attach external microphones or lights without cables, as the "shoe" draws power directly from the camera. All the way to the front directly above the lens is a metal plate with "MEGA PIXELS" engraved on it. Though technically, mega pixels is incorrect as the Elura 70 only has 1.33 mega pixels. However, we do caution that this is a Pre-Production model, and we would be delighted to see any of the following names engraved as an alternative: Mega Pixel +, Mega/Mini-me mega pixel, Mega Pixel: Super Sized, Mega Pixel and then some. Maybe we'll put it to the users for a vote.

The right side of the top is graced with a top loading tape mechanism which, in today's camcorder market is a diamond in the rough. Having a top loading tape feature is invaluable and other manufactures should take note. A dual action technique is needed to open the tape drive by first sliding the open/eject button forward and then, making use of the well placed rubber grip, pushing away from the camera body.

The grip part of the camera body stands out from the rest of the camera both in look and feel. The thumb just naturally adheres to the rubber and helps in handling and in utilizing the tape eject mechanism. The before mentioned dual action engages the tape eject function. Moving to the back of the top, directly behind the rubber eject grip pad, is the wide angle/telephoto zoom toggle. The toggle is made of hard gray plastic and has slender grove/lines over the top. Why Canon didn't make this piece out of the same rubber material as the eject pad is a mystery. Behind zoom toggle is the still photo and print/share button. At the very back of the top is the metal clip to which a user could attach an additional strap.

Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control
The Elura 70 has both manual and automatic control. A variety of automatic settings can be accessed by depressing the jog dial at the front left of the camcorder, above the menu button. The options listed are Auto, Sports, Portrait, Spotlight, Sand and Snow, and Low Light. In general, the automatic control seemed to meet the needs of a variety of recording settings.

Overall Manual Control
Overall, the manual control options work well. The potential problem is accessing them quickly and doing it on the fly is near impossible. If the user sets up the camcorder to the desired settings, s/he should be able to tweak the image to their liking. But for those functions the user might want to have quick access to, such as shutter speed, button placement couldn't be worse.

Zoom
The zoom control, which was mentioned earlier, is constructed out of hard plastic. When I held the Elura 70 with one hand (point and shoot style controlling the zoom with index finger), and with two hands (from the belly, controlling zoom with thumb) I was able to get three variable zoom speeds: Painfully slow, medium and slightly faster than the medium. With some fussing and over time of use I got the sense that a user could get really good at accomplishing any of these zoom speeds or a variation. If you toggle all the way left (wide angle) or full right (telephoto) the zoom has a slightly noticeable acceleration. If you use the digital zoom feature (which distorts the video by enlarging the pixels), you'll notice that the zoom speed slows considerably.

Focus
Focus control on the Elura 70 seemed responsive in automatic. Standing still, the camcorder had no problem maintaining focus while zooming. Throughout my testing, there was some jogging back and forth while the camera attempted to make adjustments. However this is normal for most camcorders and most people would be hard pressed to do a better job in manual (especially with the jog dial used to control the focus).

Focus control in manual is extremely difficult to adjust, as one does so by moving the jog/dial, at the front left of the camera, up or down. The range of motion for the jog/dial is so small that fine tuning the focus is impossible. In my attempts to adjust focus between two spaced objects, I soon lost interest in trying. It would be nice if in manual focus the jog/dial focus adjustments were slowed as by the time I got my finger off the dial, the desired focal setting was long gone. It's high time these models had a focus ring.

Exposure (Aperture)
Exposure works great in automatic, and is very responsive. If you want to manually control the exposure settings, you have to access it through the touch buttons tucked away behind the LCD and then make adjustments with the depressible jog dial at the front of the left side of the camcorder. The exposure settings range from -11 to +11.

Shutter Speed
Shutter speed is accessed through a series of LCD menu options. When you finally reach the shutter speed page, it has shutter speed options of 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, as well as auto. As with the other manual settings, getting to the shutter "page" takes some patience. Once the user is there, everything should go smoothly, but it's the getting there that I don't like, and is sure to annoy anyone who likes quick access to the manual controls.

White Balance
The Elura 70 has White Balance settings of Auto, Set/Manual, Indoor, and Outdoor. Again this menu is accessed by pressing the menu button at the front left of the camcorder, then using the jog dial to select camera setup, then scrolling down to the White Balance option and choosing the desired setting. The white balance can/should be set up before shooting commences, so it is not a huge problem that it is tucked away under several menu layers.

Gain
The Elura 70 has no gain options.

Still Performance
Canon advertises the Elura 70 as the answer for getting great still performance out of a hybrid camcorder through a combination of the DIGIC DV processor, the 1.33 Mega Pixel CCD, genuine Canon optics, and by providing print/share buttons. Still pictures are captured to the memory card (approximately 1,230,000 pixels) and email ready pictures can be taken and saved to the card while recording on the fly. I can't make any conclusions about the still performance of the Elura 70 because I was looking at a pre-production model.

VCR Mode
When the Elura 70 is in VCR mode, the menu and depressible jog dial reveal menus specific for playback setup. The camcorder doesn't really make a good stand alone playback viewer as the LCD has to remain flipped out in order to access the playback options.

Low Light Performance
The Low light performance should be improved from the previous Elura line, as the CCD size has increased significantly, however, we haven't done any testing so it's premature to make any conclusions. Low light performance has traditionally been a weak point for Canon camcorders however this may turn things around.

LCD/ Viewfinder
The LCD screen measures in at 2.5 inches and contains approximately 123,000 pixels. The LCD can rotate like the other Elura models, and most every other camcorder on the market. One problem is the placement of the menu and depressible jog dial. If you rotate the camcorder too far in one direction for viewing, access to the menu button and the jog dial is restricted and the LCD has to be moved out of the way. Not the end of the world, but could certainly be seen as an inconvenience.

The color viewfinder measures .33 inch, and has approximately 113,000 pixels. The viewfinder rotates upwards roughly 45 degrees and has an extendable eye cup, which pulls out about one inch. The view finder also has a focal adjustment slider.

Audio
The Elura 70 is equipped with a Stereo electret condenser microphone and is covered by a hard plastic wind screen. The Elura 70 also comes equipped with a 3.5 mm stereo mini-jack. The Elura 70 also has 16-bit (48 kHz/2 ch.) and 12-bit (32 kHz/4 ch.) audio recording options.

Handling
The Elura 70 was very comfortable to hold and the hand strap fit nicely with no adjustment. The rubber grip on the top of the Elura 70 helps in stabilizing the camcorder both in a one handed point and shoot posture and in a two handed "from the waist" position. My only critique of the handling of the Elura 70 is the placement of the menu and jog dial at the front left of the camcorder body. These buttons are difficult to access if the LCD is in a good viewing position. Obviously the position of the LCD depends on the light source hitting the surface (sun light forces the user to tilt the LCD down for more contrast) as well as a host of other undeterminable variables, but in my limited time with the camcorder I noticed it straight off.

The record button and camera/VCR dial at the back of the camera are well placed and in natural reach of the thumb. The zoom toggle is easily accessible by the index finger/thumb depending on the recording posture. The photo buttons are also with easy reach. All of the necessary buttons are easy to access and within a shot time, any user could do it without much thought.

Ports
The ports on the Elura 70 are elegantly hidden away. At the very front of the camcorder are the DV and S Video ports and on the front right side are the MIC, AV/Headphone, USB, and DC ports. The plastic covering on this set of ports is difficult to open, if you have more finger than nail.

Other Features

Skin Detail The Elura 70 offers a Skin Detail setting, which makes close ups of skin/faces appear more even than they normally might on screen.

DV Messenger 2 Canon also included, with the Elura 70 only, DV messenger 2 to be used with MSN for webcam/video internet chatting.

Top Loading Tape Mechanisim The top loading tape mechanism is listed as a feature as it is, and always was, the most convenient way to change a tape.

Night Shot Mode The Elura's also come with the ability to shoot in Night Mode. There are two Night Mode settings: Super Night Mode and Night Plus Mode. Super Night Mode makes temporary use of the white LED lamp at the front of the camera while Night Plus Mode permanently enables the white LED lamp for continuous shooting. Both of these options are accessible through the LCD menu.

16:9 widescreen mode Digitally manipulated 16:9 "wide screen" mode is supported on the Elura 70.

Webcam The Elura 70 comes with DV Messenger software allowing the user to use their camcorder as a webcam with Microsoft Windows Messenger through a firewire connection. This is a cool feature and the picture quality is reportedly much better than most web cams. The firewire connection allows the user to control zoom and focus on both ends of the chat (provided the other user has the same set up. According to Canon's website, this option is only available with the Elura 70.

MPEG Like the Elura 60 (Specs, $429.99), the Elura 70 can capture MPEG onto a multimedia card, and the length of the MPEG is only restricted by the size of the card.

Analog to Digital Pass Through The Elura 70 is equipped to function as an analog to digital (and vice-versa) converter. Canon boasts the power of their connection circuit VIC chip, which allows for seamless hassle free transferring.


Who's it For
Point and Shooter's
Point and shooters will be happy with the Elura 70, all of the automatic settings are responsive.

Budget Consumers
The Elura 70 will be listing for $799.99, which is a bit steep for a consumer on a budget. You get a lot of camera for this price, but for a few less options a budget conscious consumer might want to down size to the Elura 60.

Still Photo / Video Camera Hybrid
Canon is highlighting the Elura's ability to capture an email ready photo (640x480) to the memory card without interrupting recording video to tape. This is an intelligent feature, and for the consumer looking for a hybrid camera that doesn't force them to record photos to tape, or switch settings to get that perfect picture, this might be the answer.

Gadget Freaks
There are enough gadgets to keep the gadget freak occupied and the Elura 70's sleek appearance is enough to give any gadget geek plenty of sex-appeal.

Manual Control Freaks
Manual control on the Elura 70 is decent but, as mentioned before, requires fumbling through the manual buttons behind the LCD and then using the Jog dial to make selections and/or adjustments. However, if the user sets up the camcorder in advance, the focal adjustment is the only one that proved difficult to fine tune.

Pro's/ Serious Hobbyists
As for the pro's and serious hobbyists, the Elura 70 could be that unobtrusive answer. It could double as a great back up camera and any pro could make use of one for video story boarding or shot run through's.

Conclusion
The Elura 70 is a very well rounded camcorder, especially with the increased CCD size.. It has good hybrid functionality. The feel/handling of the Elura 70 is very comfortable and feels right at home in a variety of shooting postures. The adjustable view finder is a plus, and the hot accessory shoe is always useful. Canon has struck, in this price range, a nice balance between an easy to use one chip camcorder with high quality video/still capabilities. There are enough manual options to allow the experienced user to tweak, and the auto functions are relatively responsive. The increased CCD size of the Elura 70 gives it a lot of potential. If the larger CCD in the Elura 70 allows it go against the trend of Canon camcorders in the past and perform well in low light, it could be a great buy - however we'll have to wait until we can do full, hands-on testing.