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Judo Chop!
Recently, I had the good fortune to travel to Germany for, of all things, a Tae Kwon Do festival. What on earth do you do at a Tae Kwon Do festival, you ask? There were the grueling, 3-hour long seminars conducted by Grand-Master Kwon. There was also the main event, during which I, a mere green belt, sat in a very comfortable seat while 600 black belts from around the world jumped, kicked, sparred, and sent their fists through cinder blocks. As if that wasn't cool enough, I got it on film.
The sleek Canon Optura S1 makes traveling so much fun.
Getting the festival on film may not sound special, but for me, whose last use of a filming device was when I was nine — the camera nearly outweighing me two to one — this was a minor victory. At just over four inches long, two inches wide, and almost a pound in weight, Canon's Optura S1 is indeed a minor miracle of modern physics. Really, how did they get 2.2 megapixels of resolution and a full array of features packed into a box the same size as a can of soda?
The battery just slips right into the side of the camcorder, and — voila! — where'd it go?
Design ingenuity
Well, I'll tell you. Most camcorders, including other Canon Mini DV cams, slap their battery packs on the back of the camera and place their function buttons on the side, or on the inside of the flip-out screen. The protruding battery adds considerable length to the camera, and throws off the weight balance as well. What Canon has done is streamline the battery and fit it right into the middle of the camera, behind the flip-out screen. They've moved the buttons which would have been there to the back. This all just makes so much sense: the battery's no longer an obvious attachment; its placement keeps the camera's weight in balance; and the buttons are now in a place where the thumb has easy access to them. The battery life is incredibly long, too. On a week-long trip, I only recharged the battery once, and that was four days in.
My wallet dwarfs the S1, but both fit neatly into the camera bag.
The advantage of the S1's tiny size? It was so small that I carried it everywhere, no matter whether I thought I was going to use it or not. It just stowed so neatly in my little camera bag, which doubled as my purse for the trip. (As a side note, my wallet takes up more room in the bag than the camcorder.) Indeed, the fact that I could fit my camera, wallet, and other small sundries in the "camera bag," an item normally made to fit snugly around an average camcorder, should tell you just how compact this Canon is. I also got the added benefit of being a very discreet tourist, since I wasn't sporting some gawky backpack that stored the camcorder, nor was it dangling round my neck. This happy circumstance left my mind free to worry about more important matters, like…did I remember my passport?
Really see what you're filming
The Optura S1 has a 2½" color TFT screen — large for its size, I thought — which will brighten for outdoor use at the touch of one button. This was especially helpful on those bright European mornings when I was trying to film Munich from the top of a tower and the sun was at my back. But even if the extra screen brightness didn't help, I could still see through the viewfinder, which has a nifty feature that allows you to adjust its focus to suit your own eyesight. This little upgrade, called the diopter adjustment, might seem like small beans to some, but for one who typically wears glasses (and we all know you have to take off your glasses to see through a viewfinder properly), this feature was a huge help. I simply pulled the viewfinder out or pushed it in to get the right focus for my prescription, like using an old-fashioned telescope.
Swivel and zoom
Another great feature of the S1 is the 10X optical zoom, which is a great deal farther than the normal 3X or 4X zoom. At one stage, I was in a crowded, standing-room-only gym, at the very back. Naturally, I couldn't see what was going on in the middle of the room, so I just swiveled the screen so it was parallel to the floor, extended my arm upwards, and zoomed in. You can also digitally zoom up to 200X. Obviously, it would be advised to use a tripod if you plan to zoom in that close, as even the image stabilizer can't help you master the shakes at that level of zoom. The resolution quality is also more degraded at 200X digital zoom, since at that point the camcorder is just making the pixels larger, rather than the picture. However, the resolution at 40X digital zoom, the mid-level zoom setting, is still good.
Video quality
The video quality — color, accurate lighting, resolution, focus — is magnificent. This high quality is helped, in part, by what's called the RGB Primary Color Filter. The light that enters the lens is separated into red, green, and blue light, the same set of color filters that is used to recreate all the colors on your computer screen, and a similar technology to that found on professional video cameras. When these colors enter the camera as separate wavelengths as opposed to grouped wavelengths, the colors become more vivid and true to life. Even when I was underground touring a silver mine, I had the help of the video light and the "night" mode to bring out a realistic rendering of the surroundings. Playing it back on the TV was like reliving it again. Well, except for the sound quality. But that's to be expected, right? The S1 has the standard 12-bit and 16-bit stereo sound recording. And that's OK. We're not making Hollywood movies here.
Snapshots
While traveling, I found that there were occasions when a photograph was all I really needed. Such was the case for the human statues that were everywhere on Marionplatz, the main pedestrian thoroughfare of Munich. A statue doesn't make for exciting video, but it'll make a great picture. Thankfully, I didn't need the patience of a human statue to get to the camera setting on the Optura S1.
The mesmerizing statue at Marionplatz — snapped in an instant.
The camcorder has a Mini SD (Secure Digital™) card slot and comes with a 16MB card for storing still images, as well as short video clips. All you have to do to take a photo is turn the switch from Mini DV tape mode to Mini SD card mode, point, and shoot. Like many digital cameras, the Optura S1 has an auto focus, but there's a manual focus setting too, as well as several different aperture and shutter speed settings, such as portrait, sports, night, snow, beach, sunset, spotlight, and fireworks. These "scene" settings (available only when the mode dial is set to "SCN") are specially designed to get the best photo quality in each specific "scene." In other words, the "snow" setting anticipates a lot of glare and fast-moving objects, while the "sunset" setting anticipates low light, vivid color, and slow-moving objects. These same settings are available in tape mode as well.
Photo quality
The photo quality, as far as color and lighting is concerned, is excellent because it benefits from the same technology as the video recording. Photo resolution, however, is merely adequate. But this is also to be expected. The Optura S1 makes a great choice for shooting video footage, and has the added benefit of snapping photographs, but it was not made to be a high-end digital camera. Anyone interested in capturing high-quality digital images should invest in a dedicated digital camera, and not rely on the camcorder's camera function for anything other than snapshot-quality images.
Areas for improvement
There was one consistent complaint I had while using the S1. The play, pause, rewind, etc. buttons were in an inconvenient place and struck me as difficult to operate. They are on the left-hand side of the camera, above the TFT screen. They are small and recessed into the camera body. To view the screen and press a button at the same time takes some dexterity, since you have to come at the buttons with the left hand, which blocks the screen. If I wanted to see which button I was actually pressing I could no longer see the screen, because I had to turn the camera. A screen that swiveled out more than 90 degrees would easily solve this problem, I think.
The playback buttons are small, hard to read, and in a difficult place to access easily.
Another small complaint is the fact that Canon uses Mini SD cards instead of the more popular and more common SD cards. That meant I wasn't able to use the SD card I already had from my other Canon digital camera. The S1 does come with a 16MB card, but anyone who's ever used a camera before knows that that's not much storage. S1 owners will have to invest in a card with greater storage if they don't want to worry every time they snap a photo whether that's the last one.
Conclusion
Canon has made a camcorder fit for home-movie novices and old hands alike. The intuitive controls let just about anyone pick it up and start recording. It also has more sophisticated functions for video aficionados who want to personalize their recordings more. But no matter how many bells and whistles this camcorder has (and it has a few), not enough can be said for its size. Canon seems to have found just the right balance of size and weight to make this camcorder completely tote-able, yet with enough bulk to make it shoot smooth and steady video — and feel satisfyingly substantial in your palm.
As I found out during my short time in Germany, there's a lot to think about when you're trying to make meaningful videographic memories, and the fewer distractions you have, the better. If I'd had bulky equipment, I would have been less likely to use it often, and endless searches for important functions would have made me regret even bringing a camcorder along. But the S1's combination of user-friendly features and good design made things effortless, so I could get on with enjoying my vacation.