Labs

Not long ago, £500 was the bare minimum you could pay for a MiniDV camera, but now that models start at half that price, Canon's MVX250i needs to offer something special to justify its price. It's certainly not short of extra features. A combination of a 1.3-megapixel sensor and its SD card slot means the Canon doubles as a respectable stills camera. The built-in lamp isn't as powerful as a flash and the 1,280x960 resolution is too low for smooth prints, but it's fine for viewing on a monitor.

A handy USB socket allows you to transfer photos to your PC or to a PictBridge-compatible printer. Meanwhile, the FireWire port accepts both DV input and output, and the rather unusual DV Messenger software lets you adjust the camera's zoom and focus controls remotely from the PC so you can video-conference via Windows Messenger.

Back on the camera itself, there's an advanced accessory shoe. This is a clip onto which you can attach devices such as an additional microphone or a lamp. The shoe not only keeps your accessory securely attached to the camera, it also supplies it with power. This is useful, but the camera already has a built-in microphone and lamp that are up to the job. The lamp provides an even glow of bright light to give smooth frame rates and pleasant colours in

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very dark conditions.

Sound quality is excellent too, although the microphone does tend to pick up everything and we'd have preferred a little less recorded motor noise.

The 1.3-megapixel sensor may be overkill for the 400,000 pixels that make up full-resolution video, but there's no questioning the sharpness and outstanding detail of the video captured.

Even better is the MVX250i's colour accuracy, which consistently outclassed the other cameras in all of our tests, especially when it came to skin tones. The only time that conditions got the better of the camera was in low light - it still performed superbly, but there was a little more image noise than was visible from the JVC cameras.

The 18x optical zoom is another plus point, and so too is the excellent image stabilisation, especially at extreme zoom settings. It doesn't eliminate camera shake altogether, but it successfully manages to smooth it out without going overboard and disrupting any of the deliberate camera movement.

The MVX250i's manual controls are the best here. It's the only one to include an exposure lock, which is great for shots where you don't want the exposure constantly changing every time something moves. This and manual focus are both easily accessible without having to delve into the menus.

Elsewhere, the control layout seems confused - the record/pause and zoom controls are where they should be, but the vast majority of the other buttons are underneath where the LCD is stowed - if you want to use the viewfinder you have to close the LCD screen, rendering these temporarily inaccessible.

Still, this is the only real criticism we have for what is otherwise a fantastic performer. The superior image quality, manual controls and the accessory shoe justify the high price for video enthusiasts, while the stills function is another welcome extra.