We finally decided to replace our fourteen year old, big and heavy VHS camcorder that we had to use spotlights with in order to videotape indoors. There were so many choices available, that we had a hard time choosing. We finally decided on the Canon ES55 because it wasn't made in Red China, it had a lot of features for the price and we could afford it. It had a very good lux rating. It takes wonderful pictures inside and out. The 500X digital zoom works great. I wanted to take some very long distance video at an outdoor concert. It turned out great. We love the ability to write our own captions, take a still shot on tape and all the digital effects that we can apply. It is easy to use, lightweight and very affordable. The only thing that we don't like about it is the small viewfinder. It is only 1/2 inch. When looking through it at the store, we didn't realize how much smaller it was than the one on our full size camcorder. It is a little hard on the eyes and if we had to do it over again, we would opt for an LCD screen instead of just a viewfinder or look at some other brand camcorders' viewfinders more closely to see if they were larger than the Canon viewfinder.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): $299.00