Canon MV960 review

Apparent heir to the Canon's well-regarded MV850i, the MV960 offers more compact-camcorder goodness to budget-minded home moviemakers. The new model maintains a palm-friendly design while adding a widescreen LCD, simplified controls and a bump to 25x zoom -- one of the highest we've seen in an entry-level camcorder. But although the Canon MV960 delivers the same top-notch colour reproduction as those of its predecessor, it's equally bad at low-light video and still photos.

Design
Even with a longer zoom and slightly larger screen compared to the MV850i, Canon kept the MV960's weight down to just less than 450g with its battery (720mAh) and a tape installed. The grip and right-hand controls are fairly standard, with Easy/Program mode and Tape/Card switches grouped near the zoom rocker. An SD card slot resides below the zoom and to the left of the AV, USB and FireWire ports. We were disappointed to see that tapes load from the bottom, though it's common for such a compact design.

The camcorder's left side is dominated by a 69mm (2.7-inch) widescreen LCD -- a natural match for the MV960's full-sensor-width, widescreen recording capabilities. Even better, Canon moved all video and playback controls to the bevel of the LCD panel and simplified them, too. A five-way joystick provides navigation and quick access to manual focus and exposure settings. Four buttons put frequently used features, including digital effects, widescreen/4:3 mode and the video light, at your fingertips. We like the built-in lens cover, which slides open and shut. The lack of an accessory shoe is disappointing though, especially considering that there's room for one on top of the unit. Canon doesn't include a microphone input either, while the super-low-end MV890, which costs around £80 less, has one.

Features
With its 1/6-inch CCD as well as both 340,000-pixel 4:3 and 450,000-pixel 16:9 effective resolutions, the MV960 is suitable for home and holiday videography. Canon's 25x optical zoom lens improves on the MV850i's already impressive 22x lens, but even better is the choice of zoom speeds -- 1x, 2x, 3x and variable. The last is typical of zoom controls -- the amount of pressure on the rocker dictates the speed of the zoom. But the fixed speeds give you a consistent zoom to prevent amateur-style jerkiness -- it's a shame you have to delve into the MV960's menu system every time you want to change the setting.

As with other MV models, Canon's Easy mode takes the guesswork out of shooting, while Program mode provides access to eight autoexposure modes, three white-balance options (including evaluative), nine digital image effects (including the nifty split-screen Mirror effect), six shutter-speed settings, and even a clever level marker that overlays a horizon line on the LCD to help you shoot even, centred images. That's a lot of manual controls for an entry-level camcorder. Plus, you can add a handful of lens converters and filters, another unusual bonus for this price range.

Image quality
As for still photography, the ZR700 delivers about what you'd expect -- low-resolution images that can't overcome the low-resolution sensor, despite the included digital camera amenities such as scene modes and nine-point autofocus. In our tests, the 0.7-megapixel snapshots exhibited relatively accurate colours but with noticeable noise and a lack of sharpness.

Fortunately, video fared much better. Canon's Digic DV processor helps capture crisp, colourful video under optimal lighting. Indoors, especially under low ambient light, images exhibited considerable noise. And Canon's jerky, blurry night mode continues to be utterly useless, even if you employ a tripod.

Performance
We found the MV960's zoom controls quick and responsive, though autofocus seemed to lag, regardless of how fast or slow we zoomed. Also, though Canon's electronic-image-stabilisation (EIS) worked reasonably well at moderate zoom levels, it couldn't handle maximum zoom.

These complaints aside, most home moviemakers will find the Canon MV960's video quality perfectly acceptable. And price-conscious shoppers are sure to love its many features and small size. Of course, Canon's MV930 costs about £40 less, and the only features that are sacrificed are the video light, which is of limited value anyway, and the battery capacity -- the MV930's is 530mAh.

Edited by Philip Ryan
Additional editing by Kate Macefield