Canon HF R400 Chromatic Aberration and Blocking Zooming, Hard Time Focusing, LCD Display GUI

Question

An otherwise nice cam for the price point especially end-of-the model year. I'm going to keep for primarily shooting youtube collectibles in a controlled environment of clamp lights with diffusers and either Auto White Balance or 'P' mode.
1. In my optical zoom tests (it's nice there's four speed options. I use number 3. The cam exhibits a lot of chromatic aberration which is purple, white ,or even green fringing around the subject matter. I shot of a telephone pole transformer box in bright light, the sky behind it, tree branches and snow on hedges in winter.
2. On a couple occasions when I zoomed in from about estimated 100-150yds the sky exhibited large blocky pixels for a second. But if I took it to an amusement park to shoot roller coasters I'd hold my breath for both reasons.
3. It has a hard time adjusting focus when zoomed in even from a close 1-6ft distance to record detail of collectibles or leaves on bushes etc.
4. The amount of display items on the LCD GUI is too much. Even the cheap Samsung F90 has a button to turn it off. Am I missing something. I read the 197pg PDF manual. Is there a way to turn off or at least reduce the number of items I don't need to see in order to actually shoot a video/picture? In still life tests. I had to take photos with the cam. Look at them. Then adjust. Then repeat. Just to see the composition. Kind of like in the day when pro photographers would take Polaroids prior to the film shot.
Note: If I'm allow to post youtube links or at least the titles of the videos to demonstrate in the near future when I upload examples of the Likes and Dislikes of my purchase I'd like to know from a Canon moderator (thanx in advance).

Answer 1

Hi ElectroT2!
Thanks for posting.
Chromatic aberration is not always something that can be completely eliminated.  It most often appears when shooting a subject in the foreground that highly contrasts with the background  Chromatic aberration is caused by a lens having a different refractive index for different wavelengths of light.  Because each hue in the spectrum is not focused at a single point, colored halos or fringing appears.  There are two types of chromatic aberration:  longitudinal, where different wavelengths are focused at different distances from the lens, and lateral, where different wavelengths are focused at different positions on the focal plane.
Are you zooming optically or digitally when you see the "blockiness" in the image?  If digital zoom is being used, it would explain why you see it.  Digital zoom appears as the light blue area of the zoom bar.  When you zoom digitally, the image is basically cropped and expanded more and more as you zoom.  Because of this, the image quality will deteriorate the more you zoom in.  You can select the type of zoom used in the settings menu under [Zoom Type].
Autofocus may not work well on the following subjects:
- Reflective surfaces
- Subjects with low contrast or without vertical lines
- Fast moving subjects
- Through wet windows
- Night scenes
You can always adjust the focus manually by selecting [ Focus] in the menu.  You can then touch a subject that appears inside the frame, then touch and hold to adjust focus.  When it is focused where you want it, then touch [ X ] to lock the focus.  Something that may help you is when you are focusing manually, you can touch inside the frame to automatically focus on that spot to help you with the adjustment process.
As for the onscreen displays you are describing, they cannot be disabled so that only the subject appears on the LCD.  You can, however, keep them from being displayed when the camcorder is connected to an external monitor.  The setting is in the menu under the tab.  It is called [Output Onscreen Displays].
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