The Legria HF200 is the cheapest model in Canon's revamped HD camcorder range, but at just under £600 it's still the most expensive model here.
It looks it, too, with a design that's both classy and reassuringly solid. It only loses ground to the competition by not having a touchscreen. This means there's no spot focus or spot metering, but in general use we found its mini-joystick to be quicker than the others' touchscreens.
There's every socket you could hope for, including a microphone input and headphone output. Sadly, Canon has followed Sony's example by coming up with its own proprietary accessory shoe; as a result, most accessories won't fit. There's an LED video lamp built in, plus a flash for the competent photo function.
The menu includes shutter and aperture priority modes. Using them with the manual exposure lock/compensation control gives reasonably effective full manual control, in a roundabout way. Our favourite feature is a PF25 mode, which records progressive scan video for film-like motion, but tags the files as interlaced to ensure software compatibility.
Video is recorded in AVCHD format at bit rates up to 24Mbit/s. This gives 45 minutes' recording on an 8GB card, although four lower bit rate choices down to 5Mbit/s extend this time. The top bit rate virtually eliminated compression artefacts in fast-moving scenes. More static shots exhibited incredibly sharp details, surpassing everything else on test.
Colours were impressive, too, thanks in part to responsive face detection - a new feature for Canon camcorders. The HF200 only lost its lead in low light, where it exhibited quite a lot of noise. Switching to progressive scan improved noise levels a little, but Samsung's VP-HMX20C and Sony's HDR-CX11E yielded better results in low light.
The HF200 comes very close to winning a Best Buy award, but the high price and disappointing low-light performance means it just loses out to the HDR-CX11E.
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Basic Specifications |
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Rating |
***** |
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Recording |
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Optical zoom |
15.0x |
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Digital zoom |
300x |
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Sensor |
1/4in CMOS |
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Sensor pixels |
3,890,000 |
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Widescreen mode |
native |
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LCD screen size |
2.7in |
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Viewfinder type |
none |
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Video lamp |
Yes |
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Video recording format |
AVCHD |
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Video recording media |
SDHC |
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Sound |
Dolby Digital Stereo |
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Video resolutions |
1,440x1,080, 1,920x1,080 (50i/25p) |
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Maximum image resolution |
2,304x1,296 |
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Memory slot |
SDHC |
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Mermory supplied |
none |
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Flash |
yes |
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Physical |
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Digital inputs/outputs |
USB |
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Analogue inputs/outputs |
AV out, component out, mini HDMI out |
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Other connections |
charge jack, microphone, headphones, Canon accessory shoe |
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Battery type |
7.4V 890mAh Li-ion |
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Battery life |
1h 34m |
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Battery charging position |
camcorder |
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Size |
62x70x124mm |
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Weight |
340g |
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Buying Information |
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Warranty |
one year RTB |
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Price |
£588 |
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Supplier |
http://www.kikatek.com |
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Details |
www.canon.co.uk |
Basic Specifications
Recording
Physical
Buying Information
