Canon FS200

The best of camera. All camera from Cannon it the best. I have a mini camera and a 1 webcam.

Let's review the FS200's performance in relationship to its features, accordingly to the Canon USA website product description. Some features and functions that I will mention were researched by myself, while others learned from canon webpage and instruction manual.

Design: exterior and general design is excellent, although it lacks of more buttons in the button panel. It only has "video snap mode" button and a "Display" info button. On the other hand, the positioning and functionality of the shoot and zoom controls and the communication and power ports are excellent. Also the LCD buttons and joystick are good.

Zoom: The optical zoom works great, cause the control is variable in speed, its very silent and very powerful, without distorting the image or lowering its quality. The digital zoom is average in its performance. For the Advanced zoom function, i still don't understand what are the advantages.

Image processor: is excellent. The camera performs well while panning, there is no flickering and i have had hard time trying to find noise in the image. From what I have researched, the image processor is also responsible for all the other functions of the camera, not only the image processing and recording. From this stand of view, it performs quite fast and reliable, it is rare when the FS200 delays when doing some task.

Various features: I will review only those that I judge of any value.

Quick Start - Is a standby mode which is very useful, but should save more battery than it does, only half percent.

Quick Charge - The battery charges fast and the charge lasts long time. I hope the battery lifespan does not get affected by these functionalities.

Widescreen recording - the camera has a rectangular CCD with the same proportions as a widescreen (16:9), which adds authenticity to the format being recorded. I mean the camera is mechanically adjusted for a 16:9 recording, which has to throw good results in image quality. I only complain that the effective pixels are about the half of the existing ones in the most important modes. The still pictures can only be taken in 4:3 mode, not widescreen.

Image stabilizer - very reliable, refined and advanced feature for shooting in long zooms or in a moving environment. It's not available for still images.

Pre-record - useful feature that doesnt seem to affect the camera performance in unwanted ways.

Joystick control - Its better than the touch panel approach, cause its more reliable and simple. The manual focus function is controlled with the joystick, and it changes automatically from coarse to fine adjusting depending on the zoom level that has been chosen. Also when in manual, the focus function has a feature that lets you set focus for infinitely distant objects, but stops working if one changes zoom level. It doesnt say anything in the manual, but to set the infinite focus again after changing zoom, one has to set the focus to a closer distance and then try again the infinite focus function, and not simply indicating to activate the infinite focus function. Then it will work again. If one doesn't pay attention to this bug, you will realize later when reviewing your footage, that the focus didn't stay where intended (for an infinite focus situation).

Low light performance - in my experience, is better than the normal or strong light performance. Stills can be shot with confidence in a low light environment with this camera. Also it has a small head light LED that can be useful in extremely low light conditions.

Stunning digital photography: None of the such. Its good for a video camera of its kind, and all the manual functions are also available as in the video, but the images simply lack of detail when the zoom is not used. Note that the description in the website doesn't refer to a "stunning digital video", cause this cam doesn't have it. It has reliable video shooting, and good color reproduction, but i guess the 680,000 pixel count lets the definition pretty much down.

2.7 widescreen LCD: nothing to complain about the LCD. Its has very good quality, and it can rotate 270 degrees to upwards and 90 degrees downwards. It has five buttons for function menu and playback, plus the joystick which can be pressed for "Set" or OK command. The menu system is very good cause its quick and easy.

Color of the chassis: the colors are very good, granulated metallic like, but smooth on surface. I wish they could made one in clear blue, would be my favorite. I got the red one, i chose to look more dared this time.

Other features: the lens cover is automatic, it has a two channel mic and the quality of sound is extremely good. You can monitor the sound recording through the audio out port while recording, and has a sound level meter optional on screen. The software works fine in Windows, its required to download the video but not the pictures, and its very basic, you can only hope to make good cuts and this is almost as much as you can do with the software. Fortunately, the scenes can also be edited on the camera.

General comments: the camera has a manual mode for almost every function, at least the important ones, and can be quickly configured while recording, unlike other cameras, that can only be configured when not recording for some functions.

The color and reproduction qualities are good, but the detail one can see on the recorded video or image is poor. I guess this can be compensated with the zoom, but don't expect making too good scenery shots.

Functionality: excellent.

General reproduction capability: well achieved.

Image detail: below good.

Overall I dont recommend this camera for medium-high quality video. I only recommend it if what you're looking for is a very reliable, well made, good functionality and full of features camera, but don't expect extreme definition or detail in the images. The lenses and the system are good, but the pixel count is low. For some reason it works good in medium to low light environments, and not so good in broad illuminated environments, such as direct sun light. Maybe it has been me not knowing to handle the camera in strong lighting.

Until the next one!

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