Canon Optura PI MiniDV Digital Camcorder with Built-in Digital Still Mode

Despite its compact size, Canon's Optura Pi is a full-featured MiniDV camcorder. A 12x optical (48x digital) zoom Canon lens gets you right in the action, while optical image stabilization helps prevent unwanted shakes and jitters from creeping into your important footage. The flip-out LCD screen is a large 3.5 inches.

A quick word about image stabilization. Most camcorders with image stabilization use digital image stabilization, which is a software-based method of correcting handheld wobbles and shakes. Though digital image stabilization works well, it does so at the expense of image quality, reducing the total number of pixels used to capture an image. In contrast, the Optura Pi uses optical image stabilization, which continuously detects motion and adjusts elements inside the lens to compensate, resulting in a shudder-free image without any loss in image resolution.

A number of different programmed auto exposure modes (including sand and snow, sports, portrait, and low light) automatically adjust settings to take the worry out of shooting in challenging conditions. Besides the different programmed auto-exposure modes, the Optura Pi also offers three different shooting modes. You'll probably leave the camera set to normal movie mode a majority of the time. Digital photo mode lets you use the Optura Pi as a digital camera, recording a still image for six seconds on the miniDV tape, and allowing audio commentary. There's a lot of flexibility here: you can switch between movie and digital photo modes and create a unique collage of stills and video. Finally, the digital motor drive mode uses the progressive-scan CCD to capture a full noninterlaced 30 frames per second. This means you can use the footage as a series of independent photographs.

As a DV camcorder, the Optura Pi has an IEEE 1394 port for digital editing, or for transferring footage between IEEE 1394 compliant devices, such as computers or other DV camcorders. The Optura also features S-Video input and output. The analog inputs allow you to transfer old footage to DV for archiving. Built-in effects include art and sepia. Various faders ease scene transitions.