Canon Optura 200MC Camcorder Review

The Canon Optura 200MC includes a 1.33 Megapixel 1/4th in. CCD with 690,000 effective pixels for video. The video is sharp, but poor quality. It is very grainy, too grainy in well lit situations. The colors are not as vibrant as they could be. I feel that the video of the Sony DCR-PC120BT is better, but it’s a very subjective opinion.

Front
The front of the Optura 200MC contains the lens towards the top, with a manual focus around the lens. The lens has a detachable round hood which protects the lens from scratches. Located right below the lens is the recording tall lamp and the IR sensor, with the ''Super Night'' led located slightly to the right. Directly below the ''Super Night'' LED is a panel with many ports, covered by a hard plastic flap, which attaches to the camcorder by a rubber piece. I really like this hard plastic cover instead of the typical rubber cover. Located in the front of the camcorder behind the flap is the DV in/out port, the USB port. A Lanc / Control-L port, the DC / power in port, and a charge light which blinks when the camcorder battery is charging. When the battery blinks ones it means the battery is less then half charged, when it blinks twice it means it is more than half charged. This feature is nice, but it’s not as accurate as Sony’s InfoLithium system which gives you exact battery remaining times when the camcorder is charging.

Right
The right side of the camcorder contains very few controls, mainly because the right side is covered by your hand. Towards the upper left is the built in speaker for playback of video. On the upper right side are the photo button and the zoom control. I can’t tell you how much I hate the zoom control on the Optura 200MC, it’s backwards! The zoom control is at an exactly 45 degree angle. Then you pull the zoom control down and towards you the camcorder zooms in, and you push it up and away from you the camcorder zooms out. It’s totally backwards. When you pull the zoom control towards you it should zoom out, it’s very confusing and would likely take a long time to get used to. At the bottom of the right side is the handle. The handle rotates clockwise to another 45 degree angle. Once the handle is fully rotated it “locks” into position, though not too tight, it feels a little loose, however this rotation, originally found on the Sony IP55, which got it from the old 8mm film cameras, is very easy to use.

The right side of the Optura 200MC would be perfect if not for the input ports. I understand that on these small camcorders space is at a premium, but don’t put essential ports right where you’re supposed to put your hand! Towards the left, halfway down is another plastic panel which covers up the AV in/out port (which doubles for the headphone port when toggled in the menu), the S-Video port and the audio in port. The problem is these ports are completely covered up when you’re holding the camcorder in your hand. You can’t hold the camcorder by the right side handle and have something plugged into the side port at the same time. Now usually I could maybe sacrifice the AV in/out port and S-Video port during recording on a camcorder like this, but considering the terrible mic placement I could never sacrifice the audio in port. This is a terrible placement decision on Canons part.

Back
There’s a lot on the back of this camcorder. At the top is the control selector (auto manual). To the right of this button is the menu button. Below that is the rotary recording mode selector, letting you choose between camera modes, off, and play (VCR) modes. To the left of the rotary button is the SD card slot. To put in and take out the SD card you have to open up the LCD screen. Below the rotary dial is the card / tape selector which lets you choose whether video is recorded to the SD cards or the Tape.

At the bottom of the back of the camcorder is the color viewfinder. Below this are four buttons which make a circle. The top button toggles between auto and manual focus. The bottom button toggles between different digital effects. The left button toggles between manual and auto exposure and the right button turns the digital effects on and off. All these options are controlled by a dial which move slightly up and slightly down. The dial is located on the right towards the top of the camcorder. When I first held the camcorder, before it was on I thought this was the zoom control. When I turned the camcorder on, I started moving the dial up and down thinking I was adjusting the zoom (instinctively it’s the first thing I do when I handle a camcorder). This dial should be moved down with a larger, similar zoom control above it.

Left
On the left of the camcorder, is the LCD screen and the battery which combined take up all the space of the left side of the camcorder. Hidden behind the LCD screen are the recording control buttons and which double as the card controls.

Top and Bottom On the top of the camcorder, closest to the lens is the pop-up flash for digital stills. As you move towards the lens on the back of the camcorder you hit the top mounted microphone. On the 100MC, the 200MC’s predecessor, there was a hot shoe for attaching various accessories; Canon took the hot shoe away from the Optura 200MC.

There’s a lot (well two features too many) on the bottom of the Optura 200MC. Both the tape loading mechanism, the tape open and eject button and the battery release button are located on the bottom of the camcorder. Meaning you can’t change the battery or the tape while the camcorder is on a tripod. It’s a really annoying placement.

Manual Control
Canon always excels on putting a lot of manual features on their camcorders. You have two control modes with the Optura 200MC, toggled by the button on the back of the camcorder. You can work in full auto mode, or in semi auto / manual control mode which were more interested in.

Focus
The focus ring is easily accessed by your index finger when you are holding the camcorder in your right hand and is not too sensitive. The manual / auto focus is also easily toggled by the button in the back right.

Zoom
The next important manual control is zoom, and honestly I think the zoom controls on the Optura 200MC are terrible. The optical zoom is 10x power and the digital zoom, which you should never, ever use is 200x. As I explained above the zoom control is completely backwards, and where you think is the zoom control really is the menu toggle. The sensitivity of the zoom isn’t too bad, it’s not overly sensitive so you can get slow speeds. However, the zoom control is really small, it would be great if it was a rocker, but it’s a small sliding switch.

Exposure
With the Optura 200MC Canon has moved the exposure controls out of the hidden caves of the menu… yeah! You toggle the manual exposure on and off with a button located towards the bottom of the back of the camcorder. The exposure is increased and decreased with the sliding dial in the back of the camcorder. You can easily access the dial with your thumb. You have 20 levels of exposure, from -10 to 9, however it’s measured in arbitrary numbers not f-stops the true measure of exposure or aperture.

White Balance & Shutter Speed
The Optura 200MC includes white balance control which is set from the menu. You have three modes, auto, indoor, outdoor or “set” where you manual set your white balance. The Optura 200MC also gives you manual shutter speed, you can set it auto, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, or 1/8000.

Still Performance
The Optura 200MC includes a 1.33 Megapixel CCD, with 1.233 effective pixels for stills. You have two resolutions for stills, either 1,280 x 960 pixels or 640 x 480 pixels. In addition to the resolution you have quality options, superfine, fine and standard. The camcorder records the stills using progressive scan. As Canon explains on their web site, “A mechanical shutter used in combination with an interlace scan CCD produces still images with very little blurring.” So is quasi progressive scan. In my opinion the progressive scan improves the quality of the images but it’s certainly not as good as the real progressive scan included on a true digital still camera.

The stills are saved to SD card, which vary in sizes and can come larger than 512 MB. I’m impressed with the still quality of the Optura 200MC – when compared to other camcorders. Of course, you’re still going to find some grain and artifacts in the stills, and they don’t compare to most dedicated still cameras, but in general the stills are pretty good.

Stills are recorded with the photo button on the right side. Playback is controlled by buttons hidden behind the LCD screen. You can transfer your stills from your camcorder to the computer via the USB port, and the camcorder comes with the necessary software and cables to do so. I must comment that in general SD cards are my preferred type of media to record stills to, over Memory Stick and Smart Media because they are the most popular card type and supported by the largest variety of devices and manufacturers.

Frame Movie Mode
You can record MPEG video to the SD card at either 160 x 120 or 320 x 240 still resolutions. The video is okay, but the frame rate is pretty poor and it won’t be usable for anything more than web video.

Handling
I like the addition of a rotating grip. I constantly complained for the last few years that horizontal camcorders were hard to handle. The manufacturers are just now beginning to fix this problem. Canon has added a rotating grip, following Sony’s lead with the Sony DCR-PC120BT. In general you can handle the camcorder with just your right hand. You can access all the manual controls with your fingers. Holding the camcorder stable is also pretty easy with the addition of the rotating grip. It is especially easy to hold the camcorder stable when you cradle it with two hands. The camcorder is pretty light which makes holding it in one hand for a long period of time very doable. It’s a very subjective opinion but I feel that the handling of the Optura 200MC is slightly easier than handling the Sony PC-120BT, however I feel that the button placement on the DCR-PC120BT is far superior.

The tape mechanism and tape and battery eject buttons are located on the bottom of the camcorder, making it so you can’t change either while the camcorder is on a tripod. Now on most other horizontal format camcorders the tape mechanism is located on the bottom, but it’s not common for the battery eject button to be on the bottom. The zoom control is also terribly placed and backwards, as I mentioned when I talked about the zoom control.

Optical Stabilization
One of the highly talked about features of the Optura 200MC is it's optical image stabilization, a feature Canon has taken the initative to put on consumer camcorders more than any other company. Now I was impressed with the image stabilization but in today's market, I don't think the benefits of Optical stabilization are as great as they were a few years ago. It used to be that electronic image stabilization seriously degraded pictures, however now with supersized CCDs we don't have that problem, and the super image stabilizations on other manufacturers camcorders are just as good as the Canon. You might be able to say that the Optical image stabilization is slightly better than other comparable electronic ones, I did notice that it was good, however I don't think you would be able to tell a difference unless you were doing a very hard side by side comaprison.

Low Light
I’m pretty disappointed with the low light performance of the Optura 200MC. Most likely caused by the smaller CCD, the camcorder produces terribly grainy pictures in moderately lowlight situations, and somewhat grain pictures in dimly light situations with more light.

If you’re disappointed with the low light performance like I am, you can use one of the two night shot modes. The first night mode decreases the shutter speed and increases the exposure to brighten up the image. The second mode does everything the first does but also turns on a really bright LED to light up the scene. Both modes decrease the shutter speed to a practically unusable level.

The light for the Super Night shot is really bright, and really cool! I don’t recommend staring into it… I did it for a few seconds and there was this really bright spot on my eye for a few minutes later… maybe Canon should put a warning that this light could blind you. When I was writing this review the camcorder was right next to me. When I left the camcorder on for a while it went into demo mode, and in demo mode the camcorder triggers the Super Night Shot light on. It honestly made me jump a few times, it’s somewhat surprising. From now on I’m calling the Optura 200MC ET, because I have a deep down childhood fear of the movie ET and I’m really afraid of this camcorder when the light randomly turns on. I really wish that you could manually turn the light on. The problem is that the light can only be turned on in the Auto Exposure Super Night Shot mode, where you are forced to have an extremely low shutter speed. I would like to seed the camcorder shoot with the LED and a reasonable shutter speed around 1/60th or 1/120th , I think it could produce a good picture.

LCD / Viewfinder
The 200,000 pixel 2.5 in. LCD screen is bright enough to help you see the images. The viewfinder on the camcorder is color (which as I complain about on every single review) should be black and white.

Audio
The audio situation on the Canon Optura 200MC is very disappointing. Although the microphone is standard quality, with not a ton of background noise, its placement is terrible. The microphone is located on top of the camcorder, which is common with horizontal camcorders, however it makes no sense. If you have a microphone it should point towards the action you are shooting. The microphone is just as prone to pick up noise from the operator as it is to pick up audio from the people in front of the camcorder.

The situation is made even worse with external options. Typically I would not recommend using the on camera mic on almost any camcorder, but you practically forced to on the Optura 200MC. You can’t really use the microphone in port because of its terrible placement on the right side of the camcorder. They should be moved to the left side when they won’t be obstructed by your hand. The audio situation is made even more terrible now that Canon has taken away the hot shoe on the top of the camcorder, where you would usually attach an external microphone. You’re pretty much forced to use the on camera microphone because you have no where to plug-in or attach the microphone that isn’t obstructed.

The audio situation is only made slightly better with the inclusion of an audio dubbing mode. The audio dubbing mode allows you to record over the existing audio on a tape. You can also select between 12-bit and 16-bit audio recording.

Compared to Sony DCR-PC120BT
The most obvious competitor to the Canon 200MC is the Sony PC120BT. The camcorders are very similar and I would recommend doing the comparison yourself because the biggest difference might just be how the camcorder feels in your hands. I think the Optura 200MC feels better in my hands; however that is completely dependent on the size of your hands and the buttons are placed horribly on the 200MC. I think the video quality is “slightly” better with the PC120, however, again this is a very subtle difference and you’d have to compare for yourself. The manual options on the Optura 200MC are better; however the audio options are much better on the DCR-PC120BT.

Compared to the Optura 100MC
The Canon Optura 200MC replaced the Optura 100MC. When news of the 200MC first came out, many people questioned the improvements, and they are slight, in fact the two are practically the same camcorder. Canon removed the accessory shoe with the 200MC. I'm not going to even try to make a comparison to the Optura 100MC with video quality, yes the size of the CCD decreased which means in theory the video should not be as good, especially in low light, but they are so close (I haven't done a side by side comparison of video quality) that I can't make a judgment without in depth study.

Conclusion
The Canon Optura 200MC is a good, but not great camcorder. In general I’m disappointed with the video quality on the camcorder. The image is very grainy and does not have particularly vibrant colors. The manual controls on the camcorder are great, and better than its competitors. However the image is less than desirable. The situation gets even worse in low light situations.

The zoom control on the camcorder is awkwardly placed, which seems to be a trend with the general button and port placement on the Optura 200MC. The audio options are terrible, the bad microphone placement coupled with no feasible external audio options make the camcorder a bad choice for anyone wanting to have quality audio. If find it ironic that Canon delivers excellent manual video control but outright fails with the audio control and options.

The Optura 200MC is a good camcorder, I wouldn’t steer everyone away from it. It’s lightweight and has some nice classic manual video control. However, Canon has fallen behind Sony with the video and low light quality with this camcorder, and I would recommend the Sony DCR-PC120BT over the Canon Optura 200MC. As for upgrading, it’s not worth it. Canon has changed little and fallen behind the competition.