Nice looks, but poor performance.
Written: May 18 '03 (Updated Oct 18 '05)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Battery Life: |
|
|
| Movie Quality: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Compact size, 22x optical zoom, uses MMC/SD cards.
Cons: Grainy video under low-light conditions, loud humming sound in recordings.
The Bottom Line: If you're only looking to record under bright conditions and won't record anything too quiet, then this camera might be for you.
|
|
|
| giri09's Full Review: Canon ZR70MC Mini DV Camcorder |
After extensive online research, I bought this little piece of equipment for an upcoming trip. Thankfully, I decided to do some testing before leaving. While the design and features of this camera seem excellent, it leaves a lot to be desired in performance.
1) Image Stabilization is nearly non-existent. Compared to my (4-year old) Sony TRV66, this thing has no stabilization at all even when not using the zoom.
2) Under anything less than bright daylight conditions, the recordings come out very grainy. Even using the included LED, the images are of poor quality.
3) The unending and ever-present motor noise! You can hear it while you're recording, and unfortunately, you can hear it in the playback of the recordings as well. Once you become aware of it, it doesn't matter how loud the scene is, you still hear that high-pitched buzz in the background.... Sometimes it's in the foreground!
I really wanted to love this camera. The 22X optical zoom was a big plus for me, and the fact that it uses the SD/MMC cards (which come in 256MB flavor for less $$) was also a determining factor. However, getting a high capacity card is really pointless because this camera will only record up to 10 seconds of video onto the card at once. I hear Sony models will let you record video until the card is full!
Anyway, I'm going to return this little cutie and wait for a better product from Canon. Maybe on their next try at it they'll replace/include the IEEE 1394 port with a USB2 connection to capture video from the tape recordings. We'll see!
Oct. 2005: So I decided to keep the camera after all, and after maybe 25 hours worth of taping over the last couple of years (hardly a ton of use) it doesn't work anymore! I can record sound, and playback tapes, but it is no longer capturing any images.... Kaput! :-(
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 550
Recommended for: Home and Families - Keep Memories of Family Vacations
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
giri09
|
|
Location: L.A., Chicago, Gainesville...
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.