Canon Legria HF20

Manual Controls Summary
• Auto controls work quickly and well • No full manual mode available, but aperture-priority and shutter-priority modes offer some control • More image effects than your average camcorder, but custom option doesn't let you do enough • 15x optical zoom is decent for a compact HD camcorder • Multiple slow shutter options—as low as 1/8 of a second • Using joystick to adjust manual controls is a bit unwieldy
	Compression & Media	(Page 7 of 17)	Still Features

Auto Mode (9.13)

For many people, auto mode is the only way to use a camcorder, and even the most experienced users among us will end up doing a significant bulk of their shooting in auto mode. The Canon HF20 is certainly designed with automatic performance in mind. True, you can adjust shutter speed and aperture, but most of the time you'll be too busy trying to frame your shot to worry about those kinds of things.

There is a dedicated auto mode on the HF20, but it's called Dual Shot mode and is labelled with two green icons of a camcorder and a camera. We find this naming scheme to be a bit confusing and it could pose a difficulty for first-time users looking for the camcorder's simple auto mode. Anyway, switching the mode dial to Dual Shot puts the HF20 into an entirely automated control—allowing you to focus on the shooting.

The HF20 has two autofocus modes: instant and and normal. Instant AF, a feature that is unique to Canon, makes use of a secondary autofocus sensor on the front of the camcorder in an attempt to provide a quicker, snap-like focus. When switching between subjects, the focus will shift quickly all at once, rather than in a smooth, gradual process. If you prefer the look of traditional auto focus, simply set the mode to normal. Both autofocus modes work very well, albeit offering fairly different aesthetics.

Let's not forget about face detection, which has become so commonplace on camcorders that it's starting to lose its allure. Of course, that would be saying it had allure to begin with. Canon claims the HF20 can detect up to 35 faces automatically, with 9 detection frames being displayed at one time. In our tests with the camcorder, we could never get it to detect more than a few faces at a time, and we found it running into difficulty with turned heads or partially concealed façades. Once detected, however, the camcorder did lock onto faces quite well, and the HF20 did a good job with exposing and focusing them correctly.

Exposure and white balance both handled well in auto mode. The HF20 did a good job with gradual exposure transitions and its multiple white balance pre-sets offered a decent range of control. The camcorder also features a backlight setting that can be manually engaged if your dealing with strong light behind your subject.

In the camcorder's menu is an auto slow shutter option that can be turned on or off. With auto slow shutter turned off, the HF20 will never drop to a shutter speed lower than 1/60 of a second. With the setting on, the camcorder may go as low as 1/30 of a second, depending on the lighting conditions you're shooting under. We recommend keeping the setting turned off, unless you don't mind choppy look produced by a slow shutter (all of our testing was done with this feature turned off).

Low Light Modes

The Canon HF20 doesn't include any special low light modes, but it does have a Night scene mode as well as a small video light located to the right of the lens, just below the flash. The Night scene mode doesn't do anything too special. It simply allows the shutter to drop to speeds as low as 1/2 a second to boost the amount of light picked up by the camcorder.

Zoom (7.0)

Zoom on the HF20 is controlled using a flat toggle on the top of the camcorder that is easily accessible with your index finger. The VCR playback buttons beneath the LCD screen can also be used for zooming in case you're shooting at an odd angle or you like controlling the camcorder with two hands. While you're zooming, a small bar appears on the upper left of the LCD that lets you know how much zoom you've performed and how much magnification you have left. Unfortunately, Canon chose not to include any actual on-screen numbers in the zoom display, so recreating an exact zoom distance isn't possible (unless you use a tape measure).

An excellent touch on the HF20 is the inclusion of three constant zoom speed settings along with variable speed control. Using the slowest zoom speed setting, it takes roughly 22 seconds to go from wide angle to a full 15x zoom. With the fastest speed setting, the same zoom takes roughly 6 seconds. The variable speed control allows for a wide range of speeds, but it all depends on the delicate pressure applied by your fingertip.

The standard zoom toggle on the HF20

Zoom Ratio (5.29)

The camcorder has a 15x optical zoom, which is good for a compact HD camcorder. The Sanyo VPC-HD2000 and Canon HF S100 both have 10x optical zooms, the Canon HF11 and Sony HDR-XR520V sports a 16x zoom lens. JVC has a few models, such as the GZ-HD320, that feature a 20x optical zoom. Of course, we can't forget about digital zoom, which can go up to 300x on the Canon HF20. Using digital zoom severely ruins video quality, so we don't recommend even turning the feature on.

Zoom Comparisons
Wide Angle	Mid Zoom	15x Zoom

Focus (4.0)

Manual focus is available on the camcorder and it is grouped with a number of other manual controls under the joystick guide. Pressing up or down on the navigation joystick brings up a column of menu options (called the joystick guide) on the right side of the LCD screen. Selecting focus from this list brings up two small icons in the lower right corner of the screen.

The manual focus controls are weak.

To adjust focus manually, you must move the joystick to the left (for close images) or right (for far images) until you achieve the desired focus. This system is bad for a number of reasons. First, the camcorder gives you no idea as to what the adjusted focal lengths are (there's no numerical display). Second, you have to do all your adjustment with the puny navigation joystick, which doesn't provide the smoothest, or most accurate, control. The Canon HF S100, big brother to the HF20, includes a sleek little control dial on the front of the camcorder that makes manual focusing a more pleasing experience.

Canon didn't forget to include its focus assist feature on the HF20, however. With this setting engaged, as soon as you begin a manual focus the camcorder digitally zooms in so you can get a better look at the area you're trying to crisp-up. This is the same focus assist feature we saw last year on the Canon HF11.

Exposure (8.3) 

Exposure adjustment is also located in the joystick guide. Here Canon decided to give us numbers so we know how much we've boosted or lowered the exposure levels. The HF20 allows for 23 steps of exposure adjustment in a range of increments going from -11 to +11. Using the camcorder in any setting other than Programmed AE mode may result in fewer exposure adjustment increments being available.

There are 23 increments of exposure adjustment overall.

Aperture can be controlled in Aperture-Priority mode (labelled as Av on the menu). In this mode, aperture is tied to shutter, so it isn't offering complete manual exposure control. You can select apertures ranging from f/1.8 to f/8.0 and the camcorder will adjust shutter speed and gain settings automatically.

The aperture adjustment process is simple, well-designed, and the navigation joystick poses no problems when making selections. A small dial with f-stop numbers appears at the bottom of the LCD that lets you know what setting is being selected—a design that is much easier to understand than the bare-bones display on the Sanyo VPC-HD2000.

The aperture display is easy to read.

Shutter Speed (6.6)

Shutter-Priority mode (labelled as Tv) is shutter speed's equivalent to the Aperture-Priority mode we discussed above. In it, you can manually set the HF20's shutter speed at a range of 1/8 to 1/1000 of a second—with the camcorder automatically adjusting the aperture in conjunction. The system uses the same dial display as Aperture-Priority mode, which makes things easy to read and adjust.

Many camcorders don't allow you to select a shutter speed below 1/30 of a second, but the Canon HF20 offers two very slow shutter options (1/8 and 1/15 of a second). We like this inclusion by Canon as manual control over slow shutters is a must-have feature for student film-makers or professional videographers. The shutter on the HF20 can go all the way down to 1/2 of a second, but this option only exists on the Night scene mode and it cannot be selected manually.

When the HF20 is set to 25p mode, a different set of manual shutter speeds become available. This is a result of the shutter matching the different frame rate. For a complete list of shutter speeds available on the Canon HF20, see the shutter speed table above.

Shutter can be controlled in Shutter-Priority mode.

White Balance (9.5)

Canon offers its usual set of white balance pre-sets on the HF20: auto, daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent, and fluorescent H. This is a good deal of pre-sets, especially in comparison to the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 and most Sony camcorders, and it should be enough for most users to play around with. There is also a manual white balance setting that is incredibly easy to use—just point the camcorder at a white or neutral image and select the custom WB option. The camcorder things for a moment and then calibrates the colours accordingly.

There's a lot of white balance options on the HF20.

Gain (0.0)

There is no manual gain control on the Canon HF20. If you want gain control, the Canon HF S100 offers limited gain adjustment (you can set the auto gain limit) and the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 allows you to select ISO options for video. Panasonic is the only manufacturer that offers full gain control on consumer camcorders (and it's only available on certain models).

Colour & Image Controls (9.0)

In the function menu, the HF20 has a selection called Image Effects, which includes four pre-set options as well as a custom setting. The custom setting gives you manual control over colour depth, sharpness, contrast, and brightness in an effort to fine-tune your image. This custom option is a great idea, but Canon only allows for a control range of +/- 1. Canon must increase the available range of adjustment before the customisation tool is a truly useful feature.

The Image Effects options

 
Other Manual Controls (1.0)

There aren't many extra manual controls on the HF20. The only one to talk about is on-screen markers that help you frame your image. There are a few audio controls (level adjustment, microphone attenuator, and wind screen) that we go over in more detail in the Audio section of this review.