Review: Canon DC95 camcorder

Canon's DVD camcorder range comprises five models, all of which use 8cm DVDs (both DVD–R/–RW are supported) to record video direct to disc.

You can then place the recorded media directly into a domestic DVD player or PC-based drive to view your creations immediately.

The DC95 is the latest model. It's a compact, palm-sized camcorder that feels comfortable in the hand (as long as you’re right-handed) with all the major control buttons falling conveniently under the fingertips. It has an integrated, manually operated lens cover and is fitted with a 2.7in widescreen flip-out LCD.

This can rotate to allow you to record yourself and also fold back into the camera body while rotated to allow convenient access to menus and editing functions from the side of the camera.

The panel itself can go very bright indeed, which is perfect for outdoor shooting. Unfortunately, the menus themselves flicker, albeit very slightly, like a typical interlaced TV image.

An eyepiece viewfinder is also fitted, although it has a standard 4:3 aspect ratio. The view through here seems quite small, especially when shooting in widescreen mode, where the familiar black bars are present top and bottom of the letterboxed image. That said, it’s definitely easier to use the flip-out screen.

Being the baby of the bunch, the DC95 offers a more modest specification than its siblings. It’s essentially a DC100 minus the ability to take still photographs and with a reduced digital zoom capability.

Video is one area where digital zoom is actually useful, but with an effective resolution of only 0.47megapixels the DC95 produces very noticeably degraded image quality when it is in use.

Using the full 770x zoom range is quite tricky anyway, even when the image stabilisation system is turned on.

Best quality is achieved by recording in the camera’s native 16:9 mode, which is ideal for modern widescreen TVs although larger screens will reveal the limitations of the DC95’s imaging performance, which is some way behind that of Canon’s more expensive models.

You don't get any editing or authoring software included in the package; take a look at our Adobe Premiere and Roxio Creator reviews for inspiration. Some in-camera editing is available, but in the DC95 this is limited to rather basic cutting and joining of clips.

Somewhat surprisingly, the DC95 includes not only full auto, program and scene modes but also aperture and shutter priority modes. A selection of digital effects is also available including rotating cube and sliding-block puzzle.

Furthermore, you get a good level of control over image parameters such as brightness, contrast, saturation and sharpness. These are useful functions for advanced or semi-professional users, but they seem a little out of place on a budget camcorder such as this.

Fortunately, they don’t get in the way or complicate the menus unnecessarily.

Overall the DC95 is an easy to use camcorder but the budget price means budget-level image quality. Despite very good manual controls, there’s no getting away from its somewhat noisy images. We would recommend saving up a little more and going up a couple of models for a much better experience.

Shopping around can get you one of the better models for minimal additional outlay. Indeed, in many outlets the DC100 is available for the same price making the DC95 a rather pointless purchase. And, interestingly, it’s currently left out of the line-up on Canon’s website.

Also consider:
Canon DC40
More pixels and a bigger CCD give the DC40 a considerable boost in quality

Sanyo VPC-CA6
It looks good, but the awkward design and high price let it down

All digital camera and camcorder reviews

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