The wheel of development has come full circle. What started with the invention of the advantages of circular motion has reached a stage where scientists and engineers are now looking for ways and means to eliminate the ?moving? parts in most, if not all, things.
Canon FS11 is one such digital camcorder which has done away with the main moving mechanism ? the recording tape cassette or the hard disk.
The removal of this main power and space hogging mechanism has enabled Canon to achieve greater battery life (long enough to shoot a high quality video for 3 hours 40 minutes in MPEG 2 format to outlast 16GB of inbuilt memory) and a small and sleek shape which fits snugly in your palm. This camcorder, with dark steel grey body and shining chrome trimmings weighs just 260grams. The ergonomically contoured body measures merely 58mm X 60mm X124mm. The front face of the camcorder is dominated by an f2.0-5.2 Canon video lens with an inbuilt electronic shutter curtain. Just underneath it are the concealed stereo microphones and a LED video light. The company has introduced its advanced zoom technology in FS11 which turns the camera?s 37x optical zoom to 48x effectively. It does so by moving lens elements to change the area of the sensor focussed on by the lens. As a result, the effective video resolution changes while you zoom.
The Canon zoom lens performs well. I also tried to shoot some pigeons in their flight, but there I found that at the higher end of the zoom the image tends to get softer and colours spill out a bit with a tint of orange falling apart. The camcorder?s zoom lever was also a bit slack for my liking. I found it difficult to control its pace precisely, resulting in over or under zooming of the object. The 1.7 mega pixel CCD sensor in the heart of the camera gives you an option to shoot in either 16:9 (wide) or 3:4 format. For a surprise the battery has been concealed in the base of the camcorder along with the SD/SDHC memory expansion card. The 2.7 inch LCD display panel flap on the left of the camcorder opens at a ?right angle? and rotates 180 degree anti clockwise, in case you wish to immortalise yourself in video. It also rotates 90 degree clockwise for those rare ?over the head? shots. The image on the display panel looks a little bit coarse but sharp and bright enough to be visible in the bright sunlight. The display flap also has a joystick to help you navigate through the menus.
Opening the display panel flap also gives you the access to main interface connection slots, a mini USB port, a 3.5mm jack slot to connect an external microphone and an AV-OUT to hook it up to your television (cable included in the package). An external microphone jack port is a well thought inclusion that normally is not found in these range of camcorders. But Canon engineers goofed up and failed to provide an accessory shoe to mount the extra microphone. Hence you’ll either need a permanently free hand to hold the microphone or buy a third party accessory bracket. The stylish ?Canon FS11? Camcorder that can shoot and record decent quality videos on its inbuilt flash memory, will set you back by Rs 39,995.