Handling
Ease of Use
We were not able to tell much about the ease of use of this camera: the prototype on displayed didn't offer any features beyond showing the video and operating the zoom.
Size & Handling
The 4K prototype is a large, rather bulky camera that is mostly designed for shooting with two hands, with one holding the grip on the right side of the camera body and the other hand holding the sizable lens at the front of the camera. It feels rather like an old-style medium format camera with a large grip. In the prototype on display, the zoom control of the 20x zoom lens was located on the top of this grip for use with the left index finger.
Modes
Auto Mode
We were not able to test the modes of the 4K prototype as the model on display didn't have any of the menus or other controls on offer: it simply showed the video that it captured.
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Hardware
LCD & Viewfinder
The prototype on display included a 3.5-inch LCD screen above the camera body, as well as a viewfinder on the back of the camera body. Canon declined to specify the resolution of either, but we found that both did a decent job of showing the fine details of the 4K video that the camcorder captured.
Lens & Sensor
The 4K prototype is built around a 2/3-inch CMOS sensor that captures 4K video and 8-megapixel images. Canon claims that it can do so at more than 60 frames per second, but didn't specify how much higher than 60 frames it could go. 60fps is all that is needed for shooting standard video, though, but it looks like Canon may have ambitions of making this a high-speed camera that can shoot high frame rates and then play them black in slow motion.
The 4K resolution of the sensor means that each frame contains 4096 by 2160 pixels, four times as much as the 1080p resolution video that most camcorders and many cameras capture. And the sample video from the prototype that Canon were showing looked very impressive on a couple of professional 4K monitors, with excellent levels of detail and smooth movement. We did see some evidence of noise in darker areas of the image, but it isn't really fair to draw too many conclusions from the video shot by this prototype camera.
The lens that was attached to this prototype is a 20x zoom with a 35mm film equivalent focal length of 24 yo 480mm. This is a sizable zoom length although it does make the camera rather heavy and bulky. This lens also has a decent aperture range of f/1.8 to f/3.5, and uses a new electronic lens control system.
This leans also seemed to be permanently mounted to the camera body, but Canon declined to speculate on if the final commercial product that this evolves into will retain the fixed lens (like many prosumer models), or if the product will offer the removable lenses that most high-end cameras and camcorders offer.
Flash
There is no flash on the prototype that we looked at.
Jacks, Ports & Plugs
The prototype that we looked at only had a HDMI-SDI output and a power connection. However, if this prototype evolves into a real product, it will no doubt have more connections.
Battery
We were not able to ascertain any information on the battery that this prototype used.
Memory
We were not able to ascertain any details of where this prototype stores video and images.
Conclusion
Meet the tester
Richard Baguley is a veteran writer who has written about technology ranging from Alphabet to Zip file utilities. He has contributed to pretty much every major tech publication, including Amiga Format Magazine, PC World, Wired, CNET, Toms Guide, Forbes, and many others. He lives in the Boston metro area with his wife, dog, and an indeterminate number of cats.
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