By Jef Raskin
At the next school play, when other parents come with their ordinary point-and-shoot camcorders to catch every frolic and stumble, you'll stand tall with this major piece of video iron in your fist.
The Canon L2 has more doors and knobs than the Winchester Mystery House. The audio controls are unusually complete. Everything is unusually complete: the remote control unit makes a recording studio console look simple.
A big plus is the interchangeable lenses. My test setup came with the wide angle (5 to 15 mm, US$950) and the 15:1 (8 to 120 mm) super zoom that comes with the camera. Typical camcorders have puny 8:1 lenses (some are 10:1 or 12:1). An advantage of this camera is that if you happen to own a Canon 35 mm SLR camera and its EF lenses, an adapter is available to let you use them on the camcorder.
The camera includes six different "Art" modes, such as a "posterizing" effect. In my opinion, this kind of gimmick – and others like the titles, wipes, and fades the camera provides – is best done in postprocessing. "Shoot straight video, mess it up later" is my battle cry.
I was disappointed that there is no time-lapse feature but surprised at the good balance the hand grip provides. It looked like this large (for an 8-mm) camera was going to be awkward in the field, but in fact it has a natural, easy feel. Hand-held shots were steady.
Hidden as well as visible time and date stamps are available, and you can have the camera search automatically for material recorded on a particular date. You can also place index marks and have the camera return to them. This is a real boon, as are the RC time codes for editing to the exact frame you want to hit.
In direct A/B testing on a home-quality TV, you can't tell whether a particular tape was shot (and is being played back) on my $800 regular 8 or the $4,000 Canon L2. In the studio or making edits, the L2 shines.
Bottom line on the L2: if you need what it's got, it's got it.
L2: US$4,000. Canon: (800) 828 4040, +1 (516) 328 4852.
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