Features
Most of the Elura 2’s features are unchanged from its predecessor’s. The camera provides two shooting modes — a normal, interlaced mode and a progressive scan mode. With the progressive scan mode, the camera shoots 30 full frames per second, instead of the normal 29.97 interlaced frames of a regular video mode. Canon touts this feature as a “progressive scan digital motor drive,” meaning you can use it to shoot 30 full-res still pictures every second. You can use this mode for regular video, but motion will appear rather broken, as if the camera were shooting with a very high shutter speed. The Elura 2’s still quality is good, and shooting in progressive scan makes it better, but it’s still a far cry from a true digital still camera.
The Elura 2’s auto-exposure feature is very good and, for most shooting circumstances, should be all you’ll need to use. However, for a consumer-oriented camera, Canon has also included a surprising number of manual features.
A simple exposure-lock button lets you compensate for difficult exposure situations, while a manual-exposure mode lets you dial in a custom exposure. Unfortunately, the Elura includes no over-exposure warnings, so you need to be careful when using manual exposure.
The Elura 2 also includes a manual shutter-speed control, which lets you select shutter speeds ranging from 1/60th to 1/2000th of a second. Unfortunately, the manual control is a little lacking at the low end. We’d like to see the ability to shoot down to around 1/30th of a second to create smoother blurs and motions.
Manual focus controls are also provided. You can change focus by simply spinning the selection wheel on the back of the camera. For times when the camera’s autofocus has trouble locking or focuses on the wrong object, this feature can be a real life-saver. It can also help you create less-conventional compositions.
Finally, in addition to offering preset indoor and outdoor white balances, the Elura 2 lets you set white balance manually by pointing the camera at a white object.
Canon has done an excellent job with the manual features and the Elura 2 provides most of the controls we’d expect to see in a small consumer camera. In addition, a number of digital effects and wipes are provided, but you’ll probably only use these if you plan to wire two cameras together to perform your editing. If you will be editing using your computer, then you’ll most likely add wipes, dissolves, and special effects using your editing package.
As with all Canon DV cameras, Firewire support is very good. We had no trouble using the camera with a number of Final Cut Pro features that can stump cameras from other vendors.
Quality
Canon cameras tend to produce very good-looking output, and the Elura 2 is no exception. Though a single-chip camera, the unit performs very well, offering deep saturated colors with very pleasing tone.
As with any single-chip camera, the Elura 2 sometimes aliases high-contrast lines, so that they appear somewhat jaggy, and this phenomenon can be exaggerated by the camera’s built-in sharpening algorithms. A manual sharpness adjustment would be a big improvement.
In our experience, Canon cameras tend to shoot very warm images. Whether you like warmer or cooler images — images that tend toward warm tones such as yellow or brown or cool tones such as blue — is a matter of personal preference. Your best bet is to take a look at the video of your top choices before you buy. Sony cameras such as the diminutive Sony DCR PC110 tend to produce video with cooler tones.
Packing Light
We really liked the original Elura. Its small size, excellent quality, and good feature set made it a winner. Our only complaint with it was that it was just a little too big. With the Elura 2, Canon has packed most of the same features into a camera that’s small enough to carry just about anywhere.
Of course, a smaller camera is often a less durable camera and we did have trouble with our evaluation unit. After a month of regular use, the camera’s viewfinder started to develop some very odd behavior in the form of smeared, illegible displays. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to say whether this problem was the result of a defective unit or a camera that simply couldn’t take being toted around Europe for a month.
Despite our problems with its viewfinder, the Elura 2 is an impressive MiniDV camera and a fine choice for buyers who need the extreme portability this camera offers. Particularly for those of us who like video with warm tones, this camera will make a charming and capable traveling companion.
For Canon U.S.A. specifications for the Elura 2, click here.
This article was last modified on December 14, 2022
This article was first published on August 7, 2001
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