Features
Although far more compact than the XL1S, like its big brother, the XM-2 comes richly endowed and offers you ample discretion over how you employ its assets. Everything you’d ask of a prosumer camcorder is here–automatic and manual focus and exposure control, the latter augmented by programmed autoexposure settings to let you quickly adapt to a variety of shooting circumstances–in addition to standout features such as nearly two megapixels of still-photo resolution.
Other notable refinements include SMPTE color bars that provide a reference for subsequent color correction, a neutral density filter, and variable zebra stripe pedestal levels that set the brightness level that triggers onscreen overexposure warnings. Canon has also added adjustable color gain, sharpness, and black level settings to the XM-2, as well as shutter speed settings as slow as 1/8 of a second.
The camera’s Clear Scan setting allows you to synchronize your camera’s shutter speed with the scan rate of a computer or other monitor, thereby avoiding the rolling horizontal lines that otherwise mar shots including monitors. A pass-through analog-to-digital conversion mode lets you use the camera to convert analog signals to digital ones and record them directly to an external deck. You can even designate whether the flip-out LCD screen will or won’t go into mirror mode when you turn it past a given point, a feature that may please makers of camera housings for underwater use, which sometimes require such control.
Looking at the XM-2 feature set side by side with that of its larger sibling, you might suspect that you’re practically getting an XL1S in a smaller package. Well, aside from the XL1S’s interchangeable lens and viewfinder and higher-performance image stabilization, you just about are. And when the fixed optics on the smaller camera come from a company with the heritage of Canon, you’re not likely to be disappointed. The 20X zoom lens, which the XM-2 inherited from the GL1, not only offers magnification on a scale no other manufacturer offers in a fixed-lens prosumer camera, it also helps produce superb color fidelity. We wish only for a manual zoom ring set behind the existing focus ring.
Performance
The XM-2 generally lived up to our high expectations for its performance. Its autoexposure responds accurately to lighting changes, though not as quickly as we’d like (the VX2000E fell similarly short). Autofocus performs admirably, even at the far end of the zoom range, which is an improvement on our experience with the XL1S’s 16X optical zoom. Unlike the XL1S, though, the XM-2 has a manual focus ring that can’t override its autofocus, and there’s no override button to quickly reset focus to infinity when the camera loses focus lock or inappropriately focuses on a foreground object.
The zoom motor is operable for traditional shooting with a right-side-mounted rocker switch, for very low shots with a top-handle-mounted set of buttons, and with the remote control. We found the rocker switch very easy to control and quite smooth, and the camera’s variable zoom settings let you control how quickly the zoom motor accelerates in response to your touch.
The XM-2’s audio recording system includes meters and dials for separate control over two audio channels, with an option to add an adapter compatible with professional XLR terminated microphones. That option makes the XM-2 look somewhat like the VX2000E’s DVCAM counterpart, the PD150a; however, Canon’s optional audio adapter does not provide so-called phantom power–the mic you attach to it must be self-powered. Both zoom motor and tape transport were quiet, so as not to contaminate the sound track. Unfortunately, the mic is nearly omnidirectional. We wish the onboard stereo condenser microphone offered more sound rejection to the rear of the camera, rarely a place from which you want sound.
The 2.5-inch, flip-out LCD color screen mimics the one found on the VX2000E, although this one wasn’t very visible in direct sunlight. We found the EVF sharp and easy to use.
Image Quality
The XM-2 produces pristine images and superior color fidelity within the limits of the DV medium. It stands toe-to-toe with Sony’s VX2000E in this regard. Unlike Canon’s XL1S, whose low-light performance faltered in our tests, the XM-2 is every bit as good as the VX2000E under low-light conditions, producing noise-free blacks and handling candlelight with aplomb. This is likely the result of the new, higher-resolution CCDs Canon employs in the XM-2 (380,000 effective pixels per CCD for the XM-2 versus 250,000 for the XL1S), coupled with another step forward in Canon’s pixel-shift technology and its fluorite lens. Canon claims fluorite helps prevent color aberrations that reduce sharpness, contrast, and saturation. We can’t judge that claim, but we can say the XM-2’s color fidelity seemed superior even to the VX2000E’s high performance. The XM-2 surprised us by resolving noticeable detail in cloud formations beset with glare–detail invisible to our unaided eyes.
Our reference to the limits of the DV medium denotes that the usual sources of artifacts remain. If you are videotaping high-contrast or exceptionally bright objects, you’ll note diagonal lines moving across the highlights. The red brake lights of New York City cabs against their yellow paint were just one place we saw this problem. But we have yet to see a DV camera overcome it.
Stills are another part of the XM-2 story deserving a mention. At 1.7 megapixels, photos saved to the supplied SD memory card media are quite usable, although they don’t compare in quality to the output from a good dedicated still camera with equivalent resolution. The XM-2’s maximum still resolution of 1,488x1,128 leaves both the VX2000E’s 640x480 shots and the DV-tape-quality stills from Canon’s own XL1S far behind.