"Infocus" writes...
"I've just read Tom Hardwick's review of the Canon MVX3i in May's CV, and was amused to see that it has MORE pixels than the "Hi-Res" PD-1!! Looking at Tom's graph paper diagram, unlike the latter this much cheaper camera does seem able to interpolate a large number of CCD pixels down to DV resolution, and presumably avoid the lens angle compromises made by JVC in the PD-1."
If you look at the Sony PDX10 writeup and go to the graph-paper test you'll see it does a much better job of shooting 16:9 than the Canon. So why (thought I) did Canon dilute the effect? They obviously started out on the right road to 16:9 from a big chip, but seemed to give up halfway there. It doesn't seem to bother their advertising department though, and they rate this nod in the 16:9 direction as being true widescreen.
"Tom - if you are reading this, I liked the MVX3i review and think you did a very good job. I believe it would have been genuinely useful if I was in the market for that camera. There's a lot I could say, but will keep it to two things."
I am of course interested in all you could say, Infocus. Any comments are appreciated, for I sometimes wonder who cares that (for instance) the white balance can only be accessed by menu digging, and that apertures are not shown as you film.
"As you may gather, I like your graph paper tests, and see you gave 35mm still camera equivalent values for angle of view. Excellant! Personally, I'd give them much more prominence rather than tucking them away in the specs panel."
It is in fact CV review policy to have them in the box-out, and including them in the review proper would rob me of valuable word count. Believe me - I wrote more on this camera than meets the CV page.
"Secondly, I appreciate your mentioning it's low light performance quantitatively ("lags the VX2000 by two and a half stops")"
Maybe this only means something to those that admire the VX2k's extrodinary low light ability, but if we take that as the de-facto standard, it's a good benchmark line in the sand.
And saying the Canon works in total darkness just because it has a single white LED pointing forwards is really no more than cheating in my view.
Nice camera otherwise, and dropping in price by the day. Lovely Canon lens, as all Canon lenses seem to be. No silly German markings around their lens barrel.
tom.