Overview

Incorporating precision optics, superior digital processing, and a sleek innovative design, the Canon GL2 offers reliable professional performance. Offering the highest level of control, the camcorder fully compliments one's vision and passion for excellence. Its advanced feature set allows users to handle even the most challenging tasks with confidence and ease.

For those using the GL2 for pro applications, or those with specific video-production needs, Canon offers a number of accessories designed to meet your every creative need. These range from additional power sources and microphones to lights and cables. Make sure you see how the GL2's Advanced Accessory Shoe opens up a world of new accessories.

Professional L-Series Fluorite Lens

Canon has satisfied the demands of experienced image makers for years through the power, design and quality of 35mm and broadcast TV lenses. Canon's Professional L-Series lenses utilize Fluorite, a material which provides outstanding resolution, contrast, and color reproduction- especially in lightweight, high-magnification lenses. Incorporated into the lens on the GL2, Fluorite delivers the ultimate in clarity and image quality. The Fluorite element inside the lens defeats color aberration -- the effect when the components of light stray from one another within a lens, causing a reduction in sharpness, contrast and color. The Fluorite lens precisely controls components of light providing an excellent balance of these three critical ingredients of picture quality. This is unobtainable with conventional optical glass.

Genuine Canon Optics: 20X Optical Zoom Lens

The GL2 incorporates a 20x Professional L-Series Fluorite optical zoom lens, which transforms distant subjects into dramatic close-ups. The 20x optical zoom is the 35 mm focal length equivalent of 39.5 -- 790 mm. Add the optional WD-58 Widewide-converter to increase the field of view by 30% for indoor shots or panoramic views.

The digital zoom, capable of extending to 40x and a maximum of 100x, provides sharper detail compared to others thanks to Canon's superior lens quality. You'll reveal details too distant to be seen with just the eye alone. At full telephoto, the 35 mm focal length equivalent is an amazing 39500 mm.

3 CCD with Pixel Shift Technology

The Canon GL2 has three CCDs, delivering outstanding picture quality, highly accurate color reproduction and a wide dynamic range with virtually no color noise. On top of that, Canon has improved a broadcast technology to create a new form of Pixel Shift, producing greater picture quality than that of camcorders using CCDs with almost twice the number of pixels.

Pixel Shift

In the GL2, Canon uses Pixel Shift, a signal processing method used in broadcast TV cameras, to exceed the overall picture quality achieved by camcorders using nearly twice as many pixels.

With the light coming into the camcorder split into three color components, each of the three CCDs then handles one of three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue. The green component of a video signal contains 60% of the picture detail, and the red and blue components only 40%. The green CCD in the GL2 is shifted the equivalent distance of 1/2 pixel from the red and blue CCD. The green signal is then sampled more frequently to extract the maximum picture detail from the video signal.

In addition to outstanding clarity and natural color, Pixel Shift provides wider dynamic range, reduced vertical smear from bright light sources and sharper still images.

Super High Resolution and Super Low Light

There are 410,000 pixels on each of the three CCD image sensors in the GL2. With the new Pixel Shift technology, the GL2 rivals the resolution of camcorders using CCDs with 680,000 pixels.

Optical Image Stabilizer

Canon's superb optical stabilization system corrects camera shake instantly so even hand held shots, at full telephoto, and shots taken from a moving car, are smooth and steady. And since it is optical, there is no loss of image quality inevitable with electronic image stabilizers. It perfectly complements the high picture quality of the DV format.

Shooting Modes and Aspect Ratios

The GL2 has three shooting modes: Normal Movie Mode, Digital Photo Mode, and the cinema-like Frame Movie Mode popularized by Canon's leading-edge XL1 and XL1S. The GL2 also offers both the standard 4:3 aspect ratio and 16:9 wide screen TV aspect ratio.

Inputs and Outputs

The GL2 is designed to handle two types of analog input and output: using audio/video cables (composite) or S-video. Both connections are on the camera back.

Digital Video Format and IEEE 1394 (In / Out Terminal)

The Canon GL2 digital video camcorder uses the standard MiniDV cassette, producing the highest quality video possible from non-broadcast equipment. The MiniDV format standard delivers more than 500 lines of horizontal resolution. This is about a 25% improvement in picture quality over the best analog formats. On top of that, because it records both video and audio as digital data, this information can be transferred - without any loss of picture or audio quality - to a computer for editing, then transferred back to DV tape, without a reduction in either picture or audio quality. All of this is through the use of the IEEE 1394 protocol commonly known as FireWire®.

MultiMediaCard / SD Memory Card Capability

AudioFor the storage of digital still images captured by the GL2, you can use either MultiMediaCards or SD memory cards in the GL2. An 8MB SD Card comes with the camcorder, storing up to 17 fine quality still pictures or 32 standard quality images.