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Under low light, Night mode--which works by slowing the shutter considerably--lets you shoot in as little as just over one lux of illumination. Keep in mind that this produces something of a Blair Witch Project effect, but it will allow you to capture video.
The audio noise filter worked quite well, and the onboard mike performed impressively both indoors and out. The Optura did, however, deliver significantly better sound quality in 16-bit mode (as opposed to the default 12-bit mode) using an inexpensive external mike from RadioShack.
Unfortunately, relatively short battery life and the lack of a bundled external charger marred an otherwise great shooting experience. Canon claims 60 minutes of battery life, but I consistently ran out of juice at the 40-minute mark--about half the length of a tape in SP mode. Plus, the camcorder takes a couple hours to recharge. Though this type of weak performance isn't unusual for a consumer camcorder, to avoid getting caught with your battery down when the bride kisses the groom, it's worth budgeting about $125 for a spare battery and an external charger.I really like the Canon Optura 30's video quality. Images generally looked sharp, and even those shot with digital zoom fared pretty well. Canon's Digic DV postprocessing really delivers the goods, producing a slightly warm, yet quite accurate white balance. Everyone who saw my test footage remarked on how good the color looked. We have a definite winner here.
The lens worked extremely well overall, most notably under high-contrast lighting. It even produced great images when shooting backlit--almost straight into the sun--with minimal flare.
Still captures display good color and may be suitable for small prints, but some noise and aliasing (jaggies) are still evident.
Under all but the dimmest conditions, the Optura 30 produced low-noise videos with very few color artifacts. The auto white balance adjusted from daylight to indoor lighting quickly and accurately, and manually white-balanced shots were quite neutral. Using Night mode made the indoor colors a touch cooler but produced some interesting blurry zooming effects.
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