Introduction

Audio

The Canon FS200 has a good set of audio features for a camcorder in its price range. Unlike most in the entry-level market, it offers a mini microphone input and headphone jack (shared with the AV-out). Both ports are located in the LCD cavity. There's also the ability to monitor audio levels onscreen, although there is no ability to actually limit the levels. You'll also find a windscreen feature.

Compression & Media

Compression

The Canon FS200 records video in the MPEG-2 format, outputting .MOD files. If you don't have the proper drivers, it can be a real pain to work with your clips in post-production. MPEG-2 compression is definitely at the end of its life cycle, having been usurped by the more efficient MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format for standard definition.

The camcorder offers three compression qualities: 9Mbps, 6Mbps, and 3Mbps.

Media

The Canon FS200 captures video solely to removable SD/SDHC cards. There is no internal memory. If you want the option and piece of mind, you can upgrade to the FS22 with 16GB of internal flash memory, or the FS21 with 32GB of internal flash memory, as well as a card slot.

Editing

Editing the MPEG-2 files from the Canon FS200 is definitely not as simple as camcorders that record in the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format. MPEG-2 simply does not enjoy the same compatibility with a lot of editing software. The camcorder does ship with its own software, which can get you through the basic tasks of importing, stringing a few clips together, and making a modest home movie.

Manual Controls

Auto Mode

The Canon FS200 should have decent automatic responses, given what we saw on last year's Canon FS100; the specs are unchanged. On the FS200, the auto exposure, focus, and white balance adjustments were not stellar, but they did the job sufficiently. Focus in darker areas was not great, and we saw a lot of bouncing back and forth without resting on the final, correct area for focus.

Low Light Modes

The Canon FS200 offers an Auto Slow Shutter menu that allows the automatic shutter to drop below its normal minimum of 1/60th.

Scene Modes

The scene modes on the Canon FS200 include Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks.

Zoom

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The zoom controls on the Canon FS200 are adequate for the purpose. The tiny rocker offers a good action, and we had no trouble getting a slow crawl.

For a little more control, Canon offers the option to fix the zoom speed on all its models. Rather than relying on pressure-sensitivity, you can set the zoom toggle to slow, medium, or fast. It's a useful feature, especially if it's important to get a slow crawl through the entire zoom range.

Zoom Ratio

The Canon FS200 offers a powerful zoom, and is one of the camcorder's selling points. The optical zoom reaches up to 37x. It's not the most powerful on the market, but it's certainly good enough for zoom enthusiasts to consider.

The FS200 has a return of the feature Canon introduced last year called Advanced Zoom. By using only a portion of the CCD sensor when the zoom lens is at its farthest out, the camcorder is able to increase the zoom power to 41x without sacrificing image quality. Apparently, the idea was good enough that nearly every manufacturer stole it. You can also activate a digital zoom that extends out to 2000x.

Focus

The manual focus on the Canon FS200 is limited, as it is on most camcorders in this price range. Essentially, it's just you, the low-resolution LCD, and the joystick. It's difficult to gauge fine focusing decisions with this LCD, but if your subject is large enough you should be able to make a go of it. In most instances, however, it may be advisable to simply rely on the automatic focus system.

Exposure

The exposure control is located in the joystick menu, which is fairly easy to access. The exposure can be adjusted up or down 11 increments. This is more or less on average with other camcorders in its price range.

Aperture

The aperture cannot be adjusted on the Canon FS200.

Shutter Speed

The FS200 offers a Shutter Priority mode, located in the Function menu. In this mode, you set the shutter speed and the camcorder automatically matches with the aperture. The shutter speed ranges from 1/8 to 1/2000, which should gave you all the range you need for shooting in low light all the way up to fast-moving sports.

White Balance

The white balance options on the Canon FS200 are not as wide as those on the HD Canons models. You'll only find settings here for Auto, Daylight, Tungsten, and Manual. The upper-tier models include more specific settings for different types of indoor light.

Gain

There are no options for gain control on the Canon FS200, though there has been some interesting steps forward for Canon on the new HF S10 and HF S100.

Color & Image Control

The color controls on the FS200 are somewhat lessened compared to upper-end Canons, but still better than what you'll find on most camcorders in the price range, which tend to offer absolutely no control over color.

Other Manual Controls

There is just one other manual control on the Canon FS200. The upper-end models offer more, like zebra patterns, color bars, and more.

Still Features

The still features on the Canon FS200 are rather limited, considering its specs. With only a 680,000-pixel sensor, the maximum still size is limited to 1024 x 768. That's enough to capture the moment if you're in a pinch, but not necessarily the resolution you need to hang a family portrait on the wall. There's no flash, either, so you'll likely be limited to daytime or well-lit indoor shooting.

 

Handling & Use

Ease of Use

The Canon interface could be simpler on its entry-level camcorders, considering the likely audience. The issue is not the number of features, which is healthy and expansive for its price range. It's that the options are scattered across three separate menus, and it takes a while before most shooters will know the lay of the land. Of course, once you're on the far side of the learning curve, handling is good, it just takes a while to get there.

There is the option to simply shoot in full auto mode and never even engage in the menu system. In this scenario, your video will probably come out looking fine, because the FS200, like most of today's camcorders, has a fairly advanced auto exposure/focus/white balance system.

Handling

The Canon FS200 is a small camcorder, undoubtedly one its primary draws. But portability isn't everything. Those with bigger hands may actually have a hard time handling the camcorder. We found that the big-mitted members of our staff tended to overshoot the zoom controls and almost wrap our fingers into the LCD cavity. Conversely, those with small hands liked the feel and balance.

The hand strap on the FS200 is very comfortable, as it is with all the Canon camcorder this year, thickly padded and fully adjustable.

Portability

The Canon FS200 is very small, measuring only 56 x 58 x 122mm (2.2 x 2.3 x 4.8 inches), and weighs only 286.3g (10.1 ounces) with the battery. The weight is kept down somewhat by the fact that the camcorder records to card memory only, which helps and hurts the overall 'portability' of the device. Sure, they're light, but they don't hold much video, at least compared to a hard drive model. You'll want to pack a few cards, then make sure you don't lose them.

Battery

The Canon FS200 ships with the BP-808 battery pack. It loads from a large slot in the bottom, next to the SD/SDHC card slot. The fact that it's a closed battery slot means you won't be able to fit expanded battery packs.

The Canon FS200 has an internal battery cavity that loads from the bottom.

LCD & Viewfinder

The Canon FS200 has a 2.7-inch LCD with a 123,000-pixel resolution. These are standard specs for a camcorder in its price range. It's certainly not ideal for manual focusing, but it suffices if you only need to make a gross adjustment from one plane to another. There is no viewfinder.

Menus

The menu system on the Canon FS200, along with the rest of the Canons, is not the simplest. On the upper-end models, it has the excuse of offering so many features that menu clutter is almost inevitable. On the entry-level series like the FS200, FS21, and FS22, there's no excuse to have such an arcane system. Controls are split across three menus, so it's easy to forget where each menu item is located. Many most manual controls are located in the Function menu, though some are in the joystick menu. The features you need less frequently are in the Admin menu, which is accessed through the Function menu. Expect a learning curve if you've never owned a Canon camcorder before. 

 

Playback & Connectivity

Playback

The Canon FS200 offers a clear, easy to use playback system. When you switch to playback mode, via the lower-right button on the LCD panel, the screen fills with thumbnails of your clips. Simply push in on the joystick to start playback of any of those clips. We definitely appreciate the hard, plastic playback buttons that run along the bottom of the LCD. It eliminates the random joystick guesswork when you play back videos on a Panasonic camcorder.

Connectivity

The ports on the Canon FS200 are pretty good, considering the expected price range. All the FS series camcorders have a mini microphone jack and a shared headphone/AV-out jack, definitely a premium compared to the competition.

Other Features

EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization) The Canon FS200 features an electronic, or digital, image stabilization system. This is typically less desirable than an optical images stabilization system, as it necessitates some loss of image quality.

Battery Info The battery info feature, located deep in the recesses of the Admin menu, gives a very useful look at the remaining battery life, with a color graphic and time in minutes left to record. 

Video Snapshot This is a new feature that, when activated, records in a series of 4-second clips. The idea is to prevent the problem of rambling, boring shots that typify most home movies. Once the videos are imported, there are a series of pre-set audio files that can be thrown on top for a soundtrack. You can also add .WAV files of your own, but not MP3s (at least not with the included software).

Pre-Record Another new feature this year, though not a first for the market, is Pre-Record. When activated, it constantly records and stores three seconds of video in cache memory while in standby. The moment you finally hit the record button, the clip actually begins three seconds before. It's a great way a to capture spontaneous moments, like you kid's home run, in the middle of a long, boring event, like the other two hours of your kid's ball game.

 

Conclusion

The Canon FS200 carries over all the features we liked from last year's FS100, and adds a few new tricks like Video Snapshot and Pre-Record for kicks. At its heart, it's unchanged, which is fine by us. It's not perfect, though. The body feels cheap, and the menu interface is more confusing that it needs to be. Canon could take a tip from Samsung in menu design. The manual controls options are there on the FS200 if you want them, but they're not necessary, thanks to Canon's reliable auto controls. As long as Canon delivers it under the $399 MSRP of last year's, it should make an excellent step-up model into the world of solid state.

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