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| Click photo to see images of all the Editor's Choice 2007 products. |
As with Canon's other DC-series camcorders, this model doesn't use videotape at all; instead, it records digital video directly on Mini DVD disks, three-inch-diameter versions of the familiar, full-size DVD disk. Once finalized in the camcorder (a one-button process), the disk can be removed and played immediately in a tray-style DVD player or computer drive. (The disk fits inside the tray's smaller concentric inset.) There's no need to go looking for, and hooking up, AV or DV cables. What's more, when you slip one of these disks into your computer, the video it contains can be downloaded directly to your hard drive. A dual-layer Mini DVD can hold up to 108 minutes of video. Yet the Canon DC50 is extremely compact despite accommodating that three-inch disk.
Unlike tape-based camcorders, the DC50 and the disk it produces provide true random access to your video "footage." (Of course, that term really doesn't apply to disk-based video!) In fact, the DC50 generates a "visual index" of the disk's contents, displaying thumbnails of each scene's beginning; you simply click on the thumbnail to review or play that particular scene. You can even rearrange shots into a "playlist" in the camera itself. And there's never any risk, as there is with tape, of mistakenly overwriting existing video because the DC50 automatically records only to a blank area of the disk.
The Canon DC50 shoots in movie-style "wide screen" format. That 16:9 aspect ratio is seen not only in the camcorder's 2.7-inch flip-out LCD monitor, but in its eye-level electronic viewfinder as well. And unlike many other camcorders, which achieve a wide-screen effect by "cropping" the top and bottom of a standard-format (4:3) sensor -- and thereby sacrificing resolution -- the DC50 uses the full area of its 16:9-format image sensor. If you want to switch to standard 4:3 format, you just push a button on the screen.
The excellent picture quality produced by the DC50 is due both to the 5.39-megapixel sensor's 2716x1983-pixel resolution and to its sharp 10X optical zoom. The smooth-zooming lens's focal length range is about the equivalent of 44-440mm in the 35mm format, when you're shooting in Widescreen Video Mode. When you have access to focal lengths that long, image stabilization is a virtual necessity for smoothing out the distracting jiggle that would otherwise be caused by shaky hands. Unlike models using electronic digital stabilization -- which does its job by stealing pixels from the image, reducing resolution -- the DC50 features optical image stabilization, which works the same way as in Canon's IS (Image Stabilized) lenses for its SLRs. And photographers take note: The Canon DC50 can even shoot five-megapixel stills, saving them to a removable SD memory card. About $600.
American PHOTO Editor's Choice 2007
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