Posted by David Ruether on 12/21/07 14:45

Canon certainly "got their act together" on this one - the HV20 is one heck
of a good tiny 1-chip HD camcorder! The picture at the wide end is superb
(very sharp to the corners, free of artifacts, and with excellent color and
color neutrality). Zooming through the (marked) zoom range away from WA to
about 1/2 way gradually introduces a tad of CA, but nothing bad and with
nothing else to complain about. Zooming to about 3/4 of the range toward the
tele end introduces still more CA, but it is acceptable, and sharpness,
while declining a bit, is still very good. Beyond that point, the image
quality declines rapidly, and the CA is excessive at the long end and
sharpness isn't all it could be (but I prefer WA, so this isn't a "deal
breaker" for me). In the zoom range that I will use most of the time, the
picture quality is astonishing when viewed on a particularly sharp 42" LCD
TV at 6.5', especially for the absurdly low price I paid for the HV20 ($750
at B&H, with no shipping and a $75 certificate to help cover accessories).
There are no evident oversharpening or MPEG2 compression effects, and it is
surprising that even with the high picture compression used, no artifacts
appear with motion (at least that I have seen so far). The HV20 uses Mini-DV
tape (tape has advantages over the DVD and hard drive recording systems for
image quality, editing, and storage - and I use the same Sony "Ex" tape that
I used for my Mini-DV camcorders). To my surprise, the "peaking" and 2X
magnification aids for helping with manual focus were quite usable (at least
under "easy" conditions...), though the AF appears capable of excellent
focus most of the time. The HV20 viewfinders show quite a bit less than the
full recorded area, and the various available VF grids and lines I find too
intrusive to use. I did find that the camcorder is not left-eye friendly,
and I also found it useful to put small sticky-backed bits of soft material
at the VF top corners to protect eyeglasses from the hard VF surround
material. Also to my surprise, the 24P mode is not as ugly with motion as
earlier versions (30P) that I have seen. The "film mode" did help with skin
color under some lighting conditions that resulted in a too-red color, and
it appeared to help with highlight blow-out (but I have not checked this
carefully, and I generally prefer the look of the "standard" mode...). "Film
mode" also appeared to smooth out motion with 24P, but at the price of
softening the image considerably during motion. There are some modest-range
picture-modifying controls, but I have not yet checked these out. There are
outputs for FireWire, RGB, headphones, etc., and various inputs, including a
stereo 1/8" microphone jack. Having a standard shoe on top is also nice. I
thought I would miss a Lanc input, but Canon has provided not only a nice
zoom control (unusual for a small camcorder), but one with an unusually slow
lowest speed - very good! And, there is a menu selection for choosing a
fixed zoom speed so that you can "mash" the zoom controller and still get a
predictable zoom rate. The optical stabilizer is excellent, but since I now
shake rather a lot, I use a large handle that extends up and forward on the
left side of this light and small camera, and I may add a belt pod (I have a
tank of a pro fluid-head video tripod, but I dislike using it).

-- Conclusion: The HV20 produces excellent image quality, and for the
money (or even much more), you cannot improve on its performance. The output
is a huge improvement over even the best Mini-DV (or any other SD format),
and while it is well short of the very best broadcast HD, it looks to me to
be at least the equal of "average" HD broadcast image quality, not a small
thing for such a cheap and simple camera. This camcorder is amazing!

-- The Canon HV20 with WA converters:
I went through many of my shelves full of WA lens converters trying them on
the HV20, and was surprised how good four of them looked - but all but one
were less than perfect. The VERY wide Sony ES-06 was very slightly soft in
the corners at wide stops and had some slight CA, but it is very compact and
light (but ***ANY*** dust on its front shows as big blobs in the image, so I
will not use it...). One generic fisheye adapter of many I have was quite
sharp and extremely wide, but my camcorder CCD is decentered top to bottom,
so the cropped circular image is not satisfactory without further cropping
in post. The Raynox .66X was quite good, but it was not fully zoom-through,
and at the wide end it was bettered a bit by the winner, a Canon WD-58. This
..7X was designed for the Canon GL-1, but was excellent on the various Sony
58mm-threaded Mini-DV camcorders (see comparison frame grabs from various
58mm WA converters on the VX2000 at
www.donferrario.com/ruether/WA-converters.htm). Though rather large and
heavy, it appears to affect the image in no way I can see, throughout the
zoom range. It may still be worth trying the far smaller and lighter Canon
$200 .7X made specifically for the HV20 camcorder, though.

--This preliminary review also now appears at:
http://www.donferrario.com/ruether/camcorder-comparison.htm#hv20

--
David Ruether
d_ruether@hotmail.com
www.donferrario.com/ruether

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