Canon’s PowerShot V10 is a vlogging-centric callback to previous Flip Video cams

Canon is lastly moving into the vlogging digicam enviornment, and it’s doing so with a unusual new point-and-shoot geared towards a senseless “set-it-and-forget-it” crowd I’m undecided exists. The $429.99 Canon PowerShot V10 is an lovable little digicam in regards to the dimension of an extra-thick deck of playing cards that packs a hard and fast 19mm equal f/2.8 lens and marries it to a 20.9-megapixel one-inch-type sensor. 

It data 4K at as much as 30 fps and is geared towards filming your self with an articulating display screen, entrance and rear file buttons, stereo mics with a 3.5mm mic jack, a Micro HDMI port,  digital picture stabilization, and a kickstand for propping it up. It’s anticipated to launch in June.

What makes the V10 attention-grabbing is its throwback design, which jogs my memory a little bit of these historic Flip Video cameras. And like these long-dead cameras, when held upright, it movies horizontally, which makes it appear extra fitted to YouTube content material creation than TikTok or Instagram Reels. You possibly can flip it sideways for vertical recording, after all, however the built-in kickstand isn’t actually designed to carry it up that method.

The 2-inch touchscreen tilts ahead 180 levels for self-recording. Picture: Canon

The PowerShot V10 doesn’t have many buttons, because it partially depends on contact controls utilizing its postage stamp of a two-inch 3:2 LCD. Its simplistic providing of controls echoes the V10’s strategy to entry-level content material creation. It’s not a digicam designed to supply management over each little setting, which is unlucky since that may be useful for newcomers to develop and be taught with. 

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For instance, its ISO vary of 125 to 12,800 in stills mode just isn’t even manually selectable, and the digicam doesn’t help any sort of handbook focusing. Maybe these are nice if somebody is barely taking on-the-go movies, however the V10’s limitations remind me of the dangerous previous days of digital point-and-shoot cameras — the place settings are restricted since you’re to not be trusted or revered sufficient to make use of them accurately. That ISO vary, by the best way, will get lower right down to a most of 3200 for 4K filming and 6400 in 1080p. Additionally, the 20.9-megapixel sensor is barely utilizing an efficient 13.1 megapixels for video and 15.2 megapixels for stills. Oh, however don’t fear, it’s acquired 5 ranges of software program pores and skin smoothing.

Because the V10 is video-focused, it’s acquired some handy options like a built-in impartial density filter, and its contrast-based autofocus helps face detection that may sense while you’re holding up a product to concentrate on it. However there’s no eye detection to talk of and no log recording or uncooked seize for images, both. You’re restricted to 8-bit recording in Rec.709 colour with MP4 recordsdata. And the V10’s small stature (which weighs simply 211 grams) means it solely helps microSD playing cards, with a built-in 1,250mAh battery that recharges by way of USB-C and tops out at an estimated 55 minutes of 4K video recording.

The V10’s restrictions and omissions is probably not deal-breakers should you use the digicam for transportable vlogging and easy livestreaming and barely ever fear about fine-tuned controls. However content material creators, even newcomers, usually are not silly. Many of those creators are already filming on their very succesful telephones, which does supply some room to develop should you go for third-party equipment like a gimbal or apps like Halide, and making the bounce to a devoted digicam must respect their capabilities and present extra upside than only a bigger sensor to file on.

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However since that is the beginning of a brand new line for Canon, maybe it’s simply the primary peek at what’s to return. Once I requested Canon if we are able to assume extra vlog-centric cameras are nonetheless to return, Drew MacCallum, senior supervisor of digicam product planning for Canon USA, mentioned “completely.” With this new line, Canon appears conscious that vlogging is likely one of the final vestiges for devoted point-and-shoot cameras, so right here’s to hoping future fashions don’t endlessly slip into the identical PowerShot trappings of previous. There’s a cause most of these kinds of point-and-shoots died off.

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