New budget camcorders from Canon

They’re designed for point-and-shoot people who don’t really care that much for video-making rather than the enthusiastic YouTuber but Canon has announced two new low cost camcorders for 2014.

The Legria HF-R56 and R506 feature a “baby mode” that enables you to store videos into folders for each of your (up to three) children along with text information about each youngster – height, weight, that kind of thing.

The more expensive R56 features WiFi for controlling the camcorder from an App even to the extent of using it as a webcam with control from anywhere in the world, provided your Internet connection is set up appropriately.

Of more interest to videographers is the optional CT-V1 Motorised Pan Table that’s being launched alongside the cams. Controlled via WiFi, it provides 200 degrees of presumably smooth panning and could have uses beyond home applications that Canon clearly envisages.

The usual array of other camcorder features are present: optical image stabilisation, wildly absurd levels of zoom and a feature borrowed from Canon’s higher end camcorders: dual codec filming. With this, the camera simultaneously captures the same image at both high and lower quality, with the former designed for home viewing and the latter designed for sharing on social media.

The R56 costs £329, the R506 (which lacks the WiFi and the 8GB of built in storage on the R56) £239

More info at:
www.canon.co.uk/About_Us/Press_Centre/Press_Releases/Consumer_News/Camcorders/new_LEGRIA_HF_R_series.aspx