A short while ago, I was in the market for a new camcorder. There were a number of criteria I used when deciding on my replacement. Essentially, price, image quality and system compatibility were the important factors. After reviewing various models for a while, I came to the conclusion that the Canon HV40 was the camera to fit my needs. Now that I've used it for the past year, and having tested it in a number of situations and environments, I thought it'd be helpful to share my views.
The HV40 costs around about $700, and often less these days. It records HD footage to MiniDV tapes. Although there are other models out there that record AVCHD to SD cards, they're more costly. The Canon HV40 has HDMI, Firewire, USB and component connectivity. When you connect it to a HD TV via an HDMI cable, then you really experience the picture quality which is just wonderful. However, you need to consider that footage that isn't captured directly onto your computer via an HDMI connector won't be of quite the same quality as the signal is compressed to HDV on the tape. This isn't much of a problem though. One of the very first projects I did was for chroma keying and despite the HDV compression, I achieved nice, clean key.
Basically for me, the Canon HV40's most winning feature, is that it shoots in 24P. This means 24 frames per second progressive which is the same frame-rate that film is shot with. It offers motions and movements similar qualities to film. I'm not saying that your images will be completely 'film-like', though it will be close to it. The HV40 is highly sought-after by many indie film makers and reality-tv shows.
The external mic input is another major plus with the HV40. This allows the microphone to be plugged directly into the camcorder producing a superior sound quality than merely using the built-in camera mic. Most consumer camcorders don't have this, so it's great that the HV40 provides it. There's a headphone jack too with the ability to display audio levels on the viewfinder, therefore easy to monitor audio while shooting.
A couple of drawbacks I've found are unlikely to worry most users of the HV40, but I want to mention them anyway. I've done quite a bit of work with professional and prosumer units and a couple of things with this model took me a little while to adjust to. For example, the manual controls. There aren't any iris or focus rings so exposure needs to be adjusted via the menu and focus with a small dial. I found that this made it a little more difficult at times to get a really precise exposure level. Things varied depending on the brightness of objects in the scene. So very light colored clothing for example, existing alongside a dark object and a green background created certain challenges. When the camera took the exposure information from the dark object then the whole scene was overexposed and if the exposure information was taken from the very light object, then things were underexposed. The whole thing just took a bit of getting used to for me.
All in all, I think the HV40 is a great camera, especially at its current price point. It contains enough features to make it usable by professionals, but not enough to make it difficult for others. I recommend it for anyone really - from a hobbyist to low-budget filmmaker.
The HV40 costs around about $700, and often less these days. It records HD footage to MiniDV tapes. Although there are other models out there that record AVCHD to SD cards, they're more costly. The Canon HV40 has HDMI, Firewire, USB and component connectivity. When you connect it to a HD TV via an HDMI cable, then you really experience the picture quality which is just wonderful. However, you need to consider that footage that isn't captured directly onto your computer via an HDMI connector won't be of quite the same quality as the signal is compressed to HDV on the tape. This isn't much of a problem though. One of the very first projects I did was for chroma keying and despite the HDV compression, I achieved nice, clean key.
Basically for me, the Canon HV40's most winning feature, is that it shoots in 24P. This means 24 frames per second progressive which is the same frame-rate that film is shot with. It offers motions and movements similar qualities to film. I'm not saying that your images will be completely 'film-like', though it will be close to it. The HV40 is highly sought-after by many indie film makers and reality-tv shows.
The external mic input is another major plus with the HV40. This allows the microphone to be plugged directly into the camcorder producing a superior sound quality than merely using the built-in camera mic. Most consumer camcorders don't have this, so it's great that the HV40 provides it. There's a headphone jack too with the ability to display audio levels on the viewfinder, therefore easy to monitor audio while shooting.
A couple of drawbacks I've found are unlikely to worry most users of the HV40, but I want to mention them anyway. I've done quite a bit of work with professional and prosumer units and a couple of things with this model took me a little while to adjust to. For example, the manual controls. There aren't any iris or focus rings so exposure needs to be adjusted via the menu and focus with a small dial. I found that this made it a little more difficult at times to get a really precise exposure level. Things varied depending on the brightness of objects in the scene. So very light colored clothing for example, existing alongside a dark object and a green background created certain challenges. When the camera took the exposure information from the dark object then the whole scene was overexposed and if the exposure information was taken from the very light object, then things were underexposed. The whole thing just took a bit of getting used to for me.
All in all, I think the HV40 is a great camera, especially at its current price point. It contains enough features to make it usable by professionals, but not enough to make it difficult for others. I recommend it for anyone really - from a hobbyist to low-budget filmmaker.
About the Author:
Learn more about the Canon HV40. Stop by Pippa Brogan's site where you can find out all about the best camcorder for your needs.
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