Canon HV40: High on Features and value
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 sells for about $700 (more often than not, under $700) and records HDV footage to MiniDV tape. I've seen some similar models that record AVCHD to SD cards, but they're in a higher price bracket. It has HDMI, Firewire, USB, and Component connectivity. When connected to an HDTV via an HDMI cable, you really get a feel for how good the picture is on this camera. Sadly, unless you are capturing footage directly into your computer through an HDMI connector, you will lose some image quality when the signal is compressed to HDV onto the tape. But trust me, it's not a big deal. One of the first projects I shot on this camera was for chroma keying and even with the HDV compression, I was able to pull a 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 other winning feature I love about the HV40, is the external mic input. This enables you to plug a microphone directly into the camera and therefore achieve a better sound quality than you would with only the built-in camera mic. Most consumer cameras don't have this feature, so it's nice that the HV40 offers it. There's also a headphone jack and the option to display audio levels on the viewfinder so that you can monitor your audio as you shoot.
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.
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