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84%Overall scoreJump to conclusion
Product images by Mitchell Clark / Richard Butler
The Canon PowerShot V1 is a vlogging compact built around a large sensor and a 16-50mm equivalent zoom lens. Despite its focus on video, which extends to a cooling fan for extended capture periods, its similarity to the PowerShot G1 series of large-sensor enthusiast compacts has caught the attention of photographers.
Key features:
- 22MP Type 1.4 (18.4 x 12.3mm) Dual Pixel AF CMOS sensor
- 16-50mm equiv. F2.8-4.5 zoom lens with 3EV ND filter
- Full-width 4K up to 30p from 5.7K capture
- 4K/60p from a 1.4x crop
- Up to 30 fps stills capture in e-shutter mode
- Cooling fan for extended video recording
- Wired or wireless video streaming
- Multi-function hotshoe for flash or audio accessories
- Fully-articulated rear touchscreen
- Headphone and mic sockets
The Canon PowerShot V1 was originally announced as costing $899 in the US. Elsewhere, pricing was set at €999 and £959, including VAT. However, the US price has subsequently risen to $979.
Index:
$979 at Amazon.comBuy at B&H PhotoBuy at Canon
What's new
The V1 is Canon's first high-end vlogging compact, with a multi-module mic on top and a cooling fan to extend its recording duration. But, while its wide-angle lens points at its ambitions to help self-filming social mediaists, its use of a roughly-four-thirds-sized sensor and a zoom lens can't help but evoke the more stills-focused PowerShot G1 X cameras.
The sensor's specs are a match for using a similarly sized chunk of the EOS R7's chip. Both need to crop into the same size of their sensor to deliver 4K/60, but the smaller 'full image' region on the V1 means the difference between the full-width and cropped areas is much less dramatic than was the case with the R7.
The camera is built around a 16-50mm equivalent F2.8-4.5 stabilized lens with a leaf shutter that appears to operate using an electronic first curtain shutter, limiting its maximum flash sync speed to (a still very respectable) 1/400 sec. There's a built-in 3EV ND filter to help you keep to video-friendly shutter speeds in bright light. It can be set to activate automatically in video mode and can be manually engaged when shooting stills.
It has a built-in fan and fully articulating touchscreen but there's no built-in flash or electronic viewfinder, nor the option to fit one.
Body and handling
The degree to which the V1 has prioritized vlogging becomes apparent when you pick it up: the body is surprisingly deep, as a result of the fan-cooled chamber at the back of the camera, and the grip is unexpectedly shallow.
Just as we saw with the EOS R50V, the grip is designed so that it's easy to hold the camera facing towards you, but with less to hold onto if you're behind it. The body feels pleasantly dense and solid, with the grippy rubber coating making it feel secure in the hand. But while it works pretty well from both sides of the lens, it's not as well optimized for conventional hand holding as a dedicated photo camera.
All the camera's control points are quite small, though, with the shutter button, its surrounding zoom lever and the exposure mode dial all looking as if they've shrunk in the wash. The little power button gets partially obscured if you fit the included mic wind screen into place.
One of the principal control points is the free-rotating dial around the lens. Its default function varies, depending on your mode (controlling aperture value in Av mode, for instance). The direction of its operation can be reversed, if you find that easier, when facing the camera.
There's also a small, rather fiddly dial around the four-way controller on the back of the camera. Its function can't be changed directly, but if you assign the front dial to a specific function, such as Exposure Comp or ISO, it takes on the function that the front dial would otherwise do.
The PowerShot V1 has both Mic and Headphone sockets, placed on the right flank, meaning they can't clash with the articulated screen mounted on the other side of the camera.
Below these are a USB-C and a Micro HDMI port.
There are two small camera strap points on either side of the body: a protruding lug on one side, a recessed bar on the other. Both are quite small, which will limit your choice of neck or wrist straps to those with very thin cords.
Battery
The V1 uses the relatively small LP-E17 battery, from which it achieves a rating of 340 shots per charge (400 in power saving mode). These numbers shouldn't be taken literally, as it's common to get twice the rated number, depending on your shooting style. But the numbers are broadly comparable between cameras and a rating of around 350 shots per charge will usually allow you to shoot for a good amount of time without having to worry about it.
The V1 can be charged over USB and, with a powerful enough USB PD power source, can record or stream video and charge, simultaneously (you'll need a battery in the camera to do this, though).
Memory cards
We found the V1 could be a little temperamental with SD cards. In principle, its highest video rate is the cropped 4K/60 mode, which uses a 230 Mbps average bit rate. This is just under 30MB/s so should be safely accommodated by a memory card with U3 or V30 speed rating (the fastest class of UHS I cards). In practice, we found we also needed to use the low-level format option in the camera if we wanted it to work reliably. We'd strongly recommend doing this if you notice that the V1 is taking a long time to write video or Raw files to the card.
In use: for vlogging
The PowerShot V1 essentially uses a cropped version of the sensor from the EOS R7. This means it can deliver oversampled 4K video from its full width at up to 30p but has to crop-in to a roughly native 4K region of the sensor to deliver 60p, with the crop factor shown in the table below.
Lens IS On / Off
Digital IS On
Digital IS Enhanced
Subj. track IS
4K up to 30p
1.00
1.11x
1.43x
1.43x
4K 50/60
1.43x
–
–
–
It also means its rolling shutter numbers are proportionate to those of the EOS R7: a fraction faster because it's using a smaller region of the sensor, but not dramatically different.
Interestingly, the rolling shutter rate in the standard 4K modes is slower than the mode used for whole-image electronic shutter in stills (23.4ms), we're not sure why this is.
Stabilization Off
Digital IS On
Enhanced / Subj. track IS
4K up to 30p
26.3ms
23.7ms
18.4ms
4K 50/60
15.9ms
–
–
All the 4K/24 and 30 modes are taken from the same readout mode: the decreased rolling shutter is accounted for entirely by the degree to which they're cropped. The 60p mode, meanwhile, is actually being read faster.
We generally consider rolling shutter rates below 25ms to be acceptable, those below 20ms to be good and those below 15ms to be very good. With the Powershot V1, if you're moving the camera it's well worth applying at least some degree of digital IS to make your footage smoother and reduce the rolling shutter rate a little. There's a noise and detail penalty to be paid as you crop in, but it's probably a worthwhile compromise.
The 4K/60 options disappear from the menu if you have any form of Digital IS engaged, which is worth being conscious of.
In terms of their intended effect, we found both IS modes to be very effective, with the basic digital IS letting you maintain a fairly steady handheld shot and 'Enhanced' doing a good job of handling more significant motion. There's also a subject recognition IS mode that applies a large crop so that it has freedom to move the capture area around to maintain your chosen composition, relative to a recognized subject.
We were also pleasantly surprised by the internal mics. The sound isn't as good as using an external mic but it's better than we've become used to, with these vlogging cameras.
In general, the V1 makes video capture fairly simple but there are a few quirks. 'Close-up Demo' mode, which over-rides face detection AF when you hold something in front of the camera is only available as a 'Scene' mode, so you suddenly lose control over things like mic volume and exposure. The same is true if you want to use the camera's skin-smoothing effect.
While we understand Canon wanting to make these functions easy to access, the fact you can only use them in a very limiting, highly automated manner means you lose any control over audio and white balance. To be truly useful, it should be available as an AF option for experienced users as well as a Scene mode for beginners.
In use, for photography
Although conceptually the V1 looks a lot like a wide-angle successor to the PowerShot G1 X series, its increased focus on vlogging seriously undermines its usability as an enthusiast compact.
The lack of a clicking front dial and the awkwardness of operating the small rear dial means it's not a camera that gives effortless access to, say, aperture and exposure comp. This is the same thing that stopped Sony's RX100 series from shining as enthusiast compacts, and meant instead they worked better as (superlative) point-and-shoots. The V1's added bulk means it doesn't rate so highly in that regard, either.
Add to this the insubstantial hand grip and slightly bulky body and you end up with a camera that, on paper, appears to have the capabilities of a high-quality wide-angle compact for photographers but that never delivers on the experience. The small buttons and awkward dials (of which only the front one can be customized), mean taking direct control is more fiddly than would be ideal.
Also worth noting is that you'll need to assign one of the camera's buttons if you want to position the AF point with anything other than the touchscreen.
The large sensor and ultrawide lens can deliver the goods.
Canon PowerShot V1 @ 16mm | F2.8 | 1/250 sec | ISO 100
Photo: Richard Butler
On the plus side, the V1 has a hot shoe, compatible with newer flashes or with older ones if you buy an adapter. Despite having a leaf shutter, the V1 has the same 1/400 sec flash sync speed limit as the G1 X III with external flashes: still good but not as flexible as being able to sync all the way up to 1/2000 sec.
Even those photographers who can live without a viewfinder or the capacity to add one are likely to find themselves fighting against the V1 to get the most out of it, despite all the promise. For some people, that wide range and large sensor, unmatched by any other compact, will make it worthwhile. But if you've used a previous G-X model, you'll be constantly reminded of what's been taken away.
This isn't the camera's intent, of course, but it's disappointing that a camera that sounds like it should double as a pretty adept photographers' compact isn't more engaging to use as one.
Image quality
Our test scene is designed to simulate a variety of textures, colors and detail types you'll encounter in the real world. It also has two illumination modes to see the effect of different lighting conditions.
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As we suspected, the pixel-level noise performance of the V1 is very similar to that of the EOS R7, whose sensor is very similar, but with a consequent disadvantage of around half a stop, when compared at the whole-image level, because of its smaller active sensor area.
This puts the V1 comfortably ahead of Sony's ZV-1 Mark II vlogging compact, but behind its ZV-E10 II mirrorless vlogging camera.
Detail levels in the JPEG are good, but the Raw results suggest it's having to apply a fair amount of sharpening and contrast to get the results it's delivering.
Wide-angle performance:
Our studio scene isn't intended as a lens test chart but we thought it'd be interesting to see how it performs at its widest setting, too.
Canon PowerShot V1 @ 16mm equiv | F5.6 | 1/40 | ISO 100
Click here to download the accompanying Raw file.
As we'd expect of such a small lens delivering an ultrawide field of view in front of a relatively large sensor, its design includes a significant amount of digital correction of geometric distortion.
However, despite producing an alarming-looking projection if you hack away that element of the lens design, the final results (derived from around 80% of the sensor area) are surprisingly good.
It's quite difficult to precisely align such a wide lens with our chart, which can undermine consistency between the four corners, yet despite this potential source of error, all four corners look pretty detailed. The far extremes get distinctly blurry but we were quite impressed by the performance for a retractable zoom that goes this wide.
And, of course, it's less of a concern for vloggers, where those extreme corners won't be used for the 16:9 output footage.
Conclusion
Pros
Cons
- Very good image quality
- Ultra-wide lens performs well
- Lens still wide even with 4K 50 or 60p crop
- Effective IS options
- Grip comparatively effective, both sides of the camera
- Strong feature set including ND filter, headphone socket, subject tracking stabilization and C-Log3 options
- Built-in mics aren't bad, wind-screen comes in the box
- Fan adds reassurance when recording video for longer periods
- Relatively high rolling shutter figures
- 'Close-up' Demo mode offers very little control
- Grip not optimized for photography
- Fewer photo controls than G1 X cameras
- Clickless control dial not ideal for discrete parameters
- Fan adds bulk to camera
- Small strap lugs limit wrist/neck strap options
- Can be somewhat picky about memory cards
- Smartphone App requires login
The Canon PowerShot V1 is an interesting addition to the vlogging market, with a larger sensor and wider lens than any of the currently available models. And, for now at least, it's also the closest we have to an ultra-wide-angle compact for photography. It's significantly better at one than the other.
As a vlogging camera the V1 is pretty capable, offering a good selection of features with good video quality and a relatively easy-to-use interface. The internal mics are no substitute for a good external mic but they're not terrible and the wind screen helps for outdoor work. More advanced users can attach their own and take advantage of options like C-Log3 capture, without beginners finding themselves too overwhelmed.
This balance isn't always perfectly struck: the 'close-up demos' scene mode works well for beginners but limits control to the point that users worried about matching footage or controlling the volume of an external mic can't really use it reliably.
As a photo camera, the V1 works less well. It can produce excellent images and its uniquely wide-angle lens will make it worth perservering with, for some photographers. But the small and rather limited controls mean it's not as fun or engaging a camera as the company's previous G-series compacts were.
This isn't the camera's main intent, and if you've been waiting for a compact with an ultrawide lens, that may be worth working 'round. But it's worth being aware that you may feel that you're having to coax something out of the camera it wasn't particularly designed to do.
As a vlogging camera its range of capabilities and ability to accommodate a range of users and vlogging styles earns it our silver award. It's a powerful piece of kit for getting your message out to the world.
Scoring
Scoring is relative only to the other cameras in the same category. Click here to learn about what these numbers mean.
Canon PowerShot V1Category: Enthusiast Large Sensor Compact CameraBuild qualityErgonomics & handlingFeaturesMetering & focus accuracyImage quality (raw)Image quality (jpeg)Low light / high ISO performanceViewfinder / screen ratingOpticsPerformanceMovie / video modeConnectivityValuePoorExcellentConclusionThe PowerShot V1 is a capable vlogging tool that will support a wide range of vloggers and a wide range of vlogging styles. It's less compelling just for photos, but if you plan primarily to shoot video, it's pretty powerful.Good forVlogging of all typesNot so good forPhoto-only shooters84%Overall scoreRegularScoreCompareWidget({"mainElementId":"scoringWidget","mainProduct":"canon_v1","scoringSchema":{"id":"SLRs","variables":[{"id":"BuildQuality"},{"id":"ErgonomicsAndHandling"},{"id":"Features"},{"id":"MeteringAndFocusAccuracy"},{"id":"QualityRaw"},{"id":"QualityJpeg"},{"id":"LowLightHighISO"},{"id":"ViewfinderScreenRating"},{"id":"Optics"},{"id":"Performance"},{"id":"Movie"},{"id":"Connectivity"},{"id":"Value"}],"categories":[{"id":"EntryLevel","label":"Entry Level Interchangeable Lens Camera / DSLR","shortLabel":"Entry Level"},{"id":"MidRange","label":"Mid Range Interchangeable Lens Camera / DSLR","shortLabel":"Mid Level"},{"id":"EntryLevelFullFrame","label":"Entry Level Full Frame Camera","shortLabel":"Entry Level Full Frame"},{"id":"MidRangeFullFrame","label":"Mid Range Full Frame Camera","shortLabel":"Mid Range Full Frame"},{"id":"SemiProfessional","label":"Semi-professional Interchangeable Lens Camera / DSLR","shortLabel":"Semi-professional"},{"id":"SemiProfessionalFullFrame","label":"Semi-professional Full Frame Camera","shortLabel":"Semi-professional Full Frame"},{"id":"Professional","label":" Professional Interchangeable Lens Camera / DSLR","shortLabel":"Professional"},{"id":"LargeSensorCompactEntry","label":"Entry Level Large Sensor Compact Camera","shortLabel":"Entry Level Large Sensor Compact"},{"id":"LargeSensorCompactEnthusiast","label":"Enthusiast Large Sensor Compact Camera","shortLabel":"Enthusiast Large Sensor Compact"},{"id":"VideoCamera","label":"Video Camera","shortLabel":"Video Camera"}]},"helpText":"Choose one or more cameras from the drop-down menu, then roll your mouse over the names to see how their scores compare to the camera on review."})
Compared to its peers
The PowerShot V1's most obvious peers are two of Sony's ZV series of vlogging cameras.
The Sony ZV-1 Mark II is the most direct competitor, with is 18-50mm equivalent lens. That lens has an F1.8-4.0 maximum aperture, which sounds impressive next to the V1's F2.8-5.6 zoom, but if you factor-in sensor size, the difference is much less pronounced. The V1 is likely to perform around a third of a stop less well in low light and in terms of depth-of-field at the wide end, and around two thirds of a stop better at the long end. Its larger sensor should give it the edge in good light.
The Sony is a lot smaller than the Canon, its autofocus that bit more reliable and its 'product showcase' mode is more readily accessible and controlable. Conversely, we found the Canon's stabilization to be more effective than the Sony's, giving smoother output and being less prone to the distracting grab-and-release effect if you intentionally pan. The Canon also has a 4K/60 option, that the Sony lacks, making it our choice overall.
And, despite our reservations about the V1 as a photographers' compact, its larger sensor and wider lens make it a more appealing option, despite its significantly greater size.
The other real rival is Sony's ZV-E10 Mark II, a mirrorless camera built around an APS-C sensor. It's an appreciably larger sensor that's much faster to read out, and it has the same advantages in terms of autofocus. Its interchangeable lens design gives you more flexibility overall but means you end up with a larger camera/lens combination and a larger bill, as soon as you add something like the Sony 10-20mm F4 PZ G power zoom to approximately match the V1's range. Again, the V1 looks like a better-judged package, unless you specifically need an unusual lens, the attractive S-Cinetone mode or will benefit from its less-cropped, higher quality 4K/60 capability.
As a stills camera the V1 also out-points the ZV-E10 II, as Sony has omitted to include a mechanical shutter or physical stabilization: features you need to move up to the a6700 to gain.
Much as we were left cold by the V1 as an enthusiast compact, it is essentially your only option if you're looking for something plausibly pocketable with decent image quality and an ultrawide lens, it's essentially the best option purely as a consequence of being your only option.
$979 at Amazon.comBuy at B&H PhotoBuy at Canon
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