Canon 4K Prototype Camera/ Camcorder First Impressions

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.

The screen and viewfinder of the 4K prototype

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.