Canon HV30

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/camcorders/0,39029967,49295752,00.htm

Reviewed 6 March 2008

Reviewed by Lori Grunin

The Canon HV30 is a very minor upgrade from the admittedly top-notch HV20. It has a sleeker-looking black body, introduces 25p progressive mode and supports the high-capacity lithium-ion battery, but otherwise remains the same as its 2007 predecessor -- making it a well-designed prosumer camcorder with a useful feature set, good overall performance and excellent video quality.

Design
It's relatively big, weighing 535g, though it fits into a large, loose jacket pocket. We like the black chassis more than the silver, but the tape housing feels a little flimsier than we remember. When gripped for shooting, the cover moves a little. In all other ways the build quality seems solid, with tethered covers over the Advanced Accessory Shoe, HDMI/FireWire ports and mic/headphone/component-out jacks.

On the left side of the body sit a few slightly difficult to feel controls: backlight compensation, display and video light, plus a manual focus toggle and loose focus dial

The 69mm (2.7-inch) widescreen LCD is on the small side and at 211,000-pixels not very high resolution, but it's sufficient for manually focusing. The eye-level viewfinder is relatively large, but doesn't pull out or up, and we wish it had a softer eye cup.

In addition, we just had to laugh at the Catch-22 diopter control. Since it's right on the viewfinder, you have to move your head away to get your finger on the switch, which means you can't set it with your eye pressed close. The HV30 supplies both a video light and a flash for shooting stills. As always, we really like the built-in electronic lens cover.

All the frequently used shooting controls -- except for manual focus and zoom -- fall comfortably under your right thumb

Shooting with the HV30 feels easy and natural. Canon places the most frequently used options -- notably exposure compensation and microphone level -- under the control of the set button/joystick. Other shooting options -- program, shutter and aperture-priority, cine and scene modes, white balance, image effects and still-image mode -- get called up via the function button and navigated with the joystick. Since your thumb controls all of the activity, it's pretty straightforward and fluid to use.

Features
The HV30 uses the same 1/2.7-inch, 3-megapixel CMOS sensor as the HV20, capturing 1,440x1,080-pixel (1080i) HD or widescreen SD video (despite Canon listing 1,920x1,080 resolution in its specs, HDV does not support 1920-pixel horizontal resolution). For SD, it downconverts to fit MiniDV 720x480-pixel format.

The camcorder also incorporates the same f/1.8 10X zoom lens as on the HV20, which uses the company's Super-Range Optical Image Stabilisation, a technology that tweaks the results based on feedback from its image processor. As long as you use the eye-level viewfinder instead of the LCD, which lets you to better brace the camcorder, the stabilisation works very well zoomed to its maximum. Since it's harder to keep the camcorder steady when held out in front of you, the stabilisation will likely be less effective.

You can set the HV30's zoom switch for variable speed or one of three fixed-speed zoom options

Performance
In retrospect, we think the HV30's video quality deserves better rating than we gave the HV20 at the time. In good light, the video rivals that of the Sony Handycam HDR-HC7, its primary competitor, delivering excellent colour, sharpness and exposure for its class.

Low-light video quality, while not spectacular, is still above average. It's noisy, but as long as you don't use the Night Mode preset the shutter speed doesn't drop so low as to be unusable, and the camcorder seems to have sufficient dynamic range to record in fairly dim conditions. Focus performance in low light is just OK. It's not terribly slow at finding and locking on still subjects, but if you're zoomed in the focus can continue to pulse gently even when locked.

Conclusion
As of this writing, the HV20 is still widely available, and costs significantly less than the Canon HV30, making it an excellent deal. Both are usually cheaper than the competing Sony HDR-HC7 -- and without the annoying touchscreen -- making either one a necessary addition to your short list of HDV camcorders.

Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday