Canon MVX45i review

Canon's MVX45i is the top of a range of three new DV cameras and has an impressive range of features, including full DV and AV input capability, a video light, 14x optical zoom and optical image stabilisation.

Its build quality is excellent, and it shares its striking polished steel design features and top-loading tape mechanism with its two lesser siblings - the MVX40i and entry-level MV40. The camera feels quite weighty and nicely balanced when you're hand-filming using either the 0.33in colour viewfinder or the 2.5in LCD screen. The viewfinder pulls out and tilts up to a near-vertical position, making it a pleasure to use. The LCD is rather small for our liking, though.

Overall, the controls on the MVX45i are very accessible. In keeping with many other Canon DV cameras, a Creative Zone dial accesses white balance settings, slow shutter recording, six white balance modes, and shutter priority and aperture priority settings, while a thumbwheel at the front of the camera offers access to the menu settings. In addition, the LCD screen recess holds a number of other function buttons, including Menu, Digital Effects and Manual Audio Record.

Proper anamorphic 16:9 widescreen is included, which uses anamorphic compression of the incoming image to squeeze it into the 4:3 space of the 1.77 megapixel (in movie mode) 1/3in CCD. This results in a letterbox-style recording, which will appear stretched on a traditional 4:3 TV screen but will display properly on a widescreen TV, and will be detected as such when imported into iMovie HD, for example.

The MVX45i has an accessory shoe for attaching optional lighting or hot-shoe microphones. The camera can also use Canon's optional DM-50 directional stereo microphone, which sends its signal via the accessory shoe and so doesn't require cable connection. Alternatively, you can connect any third-party standard external mic, such as the Sennheiser MKE300D to the external 3.5mm jack input. The unit also has a stereo headphone socket.

The camera accepts MMC or SD cards for 2 megapixel digital stills and compressed movie clips (in two resolutions), which are transferred to and from your Mac via USB 2. Although Canon provides image editing software for the PC on the accompanying CD, there's nothing for Mac users. However, its easy to import the images to iPhoto.

Thanks to both DV in/out and AV in/out connectivity, the MVX45i enables iMovie or Final Cut users to re-record edited video and audio projects back to the tape in the camera via an optional FireWire cable connection. Furthermore, it's possible to record from analogue sources, such as VHS, Video8/Hi8 camcorders, other players and TV.

You can use the camera in fully automatic mode or choose to have manual control over your setting, including manual audio recording - just press an Audio Level button to see a level indicator in the LCD and viewfinder. Adjustment of the Set thumbwheel allows you to adjust the sound being recorded by either the built-in mic or an external mic. You can also manually adjust exposure, electronic shutter and white balance while recording with relative ease. Focus can be controlled manually by means of the knurled focus ring on the f1.8, 10x zoom lens. We were pleased to note that Canon has been more restrained than its competitors with the maximum digital zoom. At 200x it's less ridiculous than most, although still practically unusable at its longest setting.

For a single-CCD DV camera, the MVX45i produces impressive images thanks to the 1/3.4in CCD and Canon's proprietary Digic-DV colour processing, designed to give a greater depth and warmth to images, particularly flesh tones.