Review: Canon HF M40

This mini-review appeared in our February 2012 Home Entertainment roundup.

The Legria HF M40 is the entry point to Canon’s ‘Powerful’ range of Legria DV cameras – the company’s top consumer camcorders.

Truly a representative of the solid-stage age, the Legria offers 16GB of onboard flash memory for up to 6 hours of ‘long play’ recording, or 1 hour 25 minutes at top-quality 1080p. Additional storage is provided by dual SD card slots – using these instead of the onboard memory provides the fastest way of transferring video around, as the camera is limited to USB 2.0 for transfers.

At the highest quality settings, recorded video looks brilliant. Colours are true, and the combination of optical image stabilisation and fast autofocus keep the visuals crisp and clear. Sound quality is much better than you’d find in a pocket-camera or smartphone, and both an external microphone input and accessory shoe allow for an optional directional or surround-sound mic to further improve the recorded audio.

Downsides? The included 890mAh battery is woefully undersized, both in capacity and physically. It leaves a gaping hole in the back of the camera, a constant reminder that the optional, full-sized battery would be a good investment.