Canon MV6i MC

The MV6i is built around a 0.8megapixel CCD sensor. The lens offers 10x optical zoom capability and a massive 400x digital zoom, which seems excessive when you consider that even a 5x digital zoom severely impacts on image quality.

The 2in LCD screen folds out of the left of the unit and can be rotated through 270 degrees. It gives a clear image and copes fairly well with movement. You can shoot up to 10 seconds of footage at 320 x 240 resolution, or a 30-second movie clip at 160 x 120 and there's a choice of two image resolution settings for still images, 1,024 x 768 or 640 x 480 using the supplied 8MB SD card. No tape is provided. On test, image quality was fair, but the MV6i coped much better with subjects at close range.

The unit itself is very compact, with dimensions of 49 x 89 x 106mm and a weight of 380g. Using the adjustable hand strap on the right-hand side of the unit, the photo capture and zoom controls sit just under your fingertips.Meanwhile, the project switch sits under your palm. This lets you choose to save your video clips and photos to the card or tape.

Just under the viewfinder at the back of the unit, the mode dial gives access to movie and still image capture and playback modes and sits within easy reach of your thumb with a menu button, slideshow button and focus/datacode buttons below. If you've got larger hands, you may find that your fingers inadvertently cover the light sensor under the lens and the microphone, which is mounted at the top of the unit rather than at the front where it would be directed towards your subject.

The menus are not intuitive though, so newcomers to digital camcorders may struggle here.

Contact: Canon 0870 514 3723
www.canon.co.uk

Specifications:

• 0.8megapixel CCD
• 1,024 x 768 max resolution still capture/320 x 240 max resolution video capture
• 10x optical/ 400x digital zoom
• 2in LCD screen
• Micro DV tape/SD card formats
• 380g
• 49 x 89 x 106mm (w x d x h)

See also:

Panasonic NV-GS120

This camera has great image quality that makes it stand out from the crowd.  27 Jul 2004

Panasonic NV-GS10

A small digital camcorder with a matching price tag.  05 Sep 2003

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