Can anyone tell me what these do? The manual has to be the worst written instructions I have ever read...probably translated from japanese to english by the japanese since it's printed Japan. Anyway, having tried both features on and off, the only thing I notice is that allscan, when on, makes the LCD screen look like 4:3. Fullscan seems to do jack squat.

I don't know what Fullscan is. But Allscan is the equivalent of underscan on a professional monitor. It shows the entire image that the camera is recording. The normal mode for the viewfinder and LCD panel is overscan, meaning the outer edges of the image are cut off.

So you're saying that allscan shows what the camera is actually recording onto the tape?

Yes. It's a nice feature which very few of the affordable HD cameras have, certainly nothing else in this price range. Unfortunately you lose some "real estate" on the LCD when you use it because there's a black border around the image area.

So I think most people just pop in and out of ALLSCAN to check composition and make sure that there isn't something unwanted in the frame, like a microphone. Or at any rate, that's how I use it on my Z1.

Why not just try it and you can see for yourself. Put the camera on a tripod and move some object so it just barely goes off the screen with the camera in regular mode. Then switch on ALLSCAN and you'll notice that the object is actually still in the picture.

FULLSCAN disables the electronic stabilization and gives you all the pixels that would normally be used by the eis. It can be seen clearly when in telephoto and switching it on and off.

I'll try that Mikko....thanks for the info guys

FULLSCAN disables the electronic stabilization and gives you all the pixels that would normally be used by the eis. It can be seen clearly when in telephoto and switching it on and off.

Yep, and unless you are running the camera handheld I highly recommend using that feature as much as possible. If you have a really steady hand, then give it a try too.