I'm always been fond of the Canon line of consumer DV cams. They always have great optics, electronics, and durability. But what really sets them apart is thier menu systems! It's totally disgusting that on most any other brand, including ones as prestegious as Sony, that they lump all the menu options into a hoard of small, finger nail sized, buttons for most of thier consumer models. For Canon's you simply press the menu button then scoll and press a togele wheel. This way, once you get the hang of the wheel, you now understand how to use the whole menu system for any function. This is a great improvement over those that require the manual to find that "secret button combination". This is a consumer camera but I use it for many large applications. It has been sized down from it's Optura and Ultura ancestors but pretty well all the functionality and then some. It has other sister cams such as the ZR45MC and ZR50MC. These pack the all-in-one memory card digital camera and mini Dv. I have friends who love these models dearly. Personally I go for a seperate camera with larger resolution. Whatever your needs are ...I've noticed a large number of reviews that say something to the affect of "I pulled it out of the box, plugged it up, and the image was grainy" or "I turned on steady shot and nothing happend".
This might be old news for most but to explain for those of you that might be concerned by this ...
Video cameras these days still thrive on ample lighting! This and other cameras have a sort of slow motion low light mode (accessible from the menu) that works by slowing down the frame rate and sucking every bit of image data off the CCD. THis is ok for an emergancey but if you want good image, turn on an extra light or two. Human eyes are so adaptable that you might not even notice if the lighting is more subdued than usal but it will make a mile of diffence for the camera. Secondly, get to know the manual menu and exposure system. The auto functions can't always guess what your trying to do.
About steady shot... this only takes of the headache inducing shock that occurs when you jar the camera. It's extremely useful in it's own right but it won't keep you from waving the camera around.
This is a great cam that I fully recommend. THere is one issue that doesn't dampen my five star rating but is noteworthy. To size this camera down to an even more portable size, the engineers made it with the DV cassette loading from the bottom instead of the top. THis is fine except that if you are a true believer in tripods, as I am, then you have to take the camera off the tipod or tripod plate every time you need to swap tapes. Just a minor concern...
1. As pointed out by many people previously, the picture is somewhat grainy specially indoors. Because this is my first digital camcorder, I don't know if this happens for other high-end models, but I suspect it may stand out somewhat more for ZR40 with only 480K CCD pixels.
2. What has also been noted was the motor noise, which is my primary concern for now. Maybe, I would not been able to tell if I had not read those reviews, but I could certainly hear the noise when recorded in a quiet environment. I tried to use an external microphone to remove the noise, in which case the noise is gone, but the external microphone does not match the internal microphone in sensitivity. (I used a low-end microphone for the test with the sensitivity of -75 dBm, though.)
3. This is a really minor point, but the camcorder automatically shuts down if I don't start recording within 5 minutes.
Overall, I think ZR40 has great features at such a price and is certainly worth owning if you are looking for one in the price range.
Buy Canon ZR40 MiniDV Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD, & Digital Still Mode Now
This is really the ideal entry-level camcorder for someone just getting into digital video editing. The optical image stabilization is far better than the electronic kind, and the picture quality is pretty good. It has a tendency to overexpose in bright sunlight, but you can easily adjust the exposure down half an f-stop. It's small and light, the viewfinder and flip-out screen are both color, battery life is pretty good with an add-on high capacity battery. Best of all, you can connect your old analog camcorder to it and import all your old videos to DV! Works great with Apple iMovie.The one downside to this camcorder is the audio. It's a problem with most tiny cameras, and this is no exception: motor whine. DV requires a high speed rotating head, which means fast motors--and because of the small body, they're too close to the built-in microphones.
My solution was to spend an extra $99 on a Sony WCS-999 Wireless Microphone kit. It's a clip-on belt pack with a "tie clip" style mic, operating via 900MHz wireless. Just like professional TV presenters use, but at a fraction of the price. After that investment, I got great sound.
Read Best Reviews of Canon ZR40 MiniDV Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD, & Digital Still Mode Here
Unfortunately I had a very bad consumer experience buying this camera. I had borrowed a ZR20 from a friend the year before and liked it, so when the ZR40 came out I wanted to buy it. I read online that some people were complaining about motor noise with this camera, but I figured I try it anyways. I bought it at Best Buy (should be called Worst Buy), and when trying it out found that it does have super bad motor noise. You can't hear it while recording it's when you are watching a tape you recorded playback on your TV etc that you hear it. The motor noise is recorded in with your audio, so you hear a loud hummmm in the background. It was too loud for me to live with. If I was recording something with no background noise (like my baby playing), then it was as loud as his voice! ... I have now ordered the Panasonic PVDC152 which is supposed to have good sound. We'll see...Want Canon ZR40 MiniDV Digital Camcorder with 2.5" LCD, & Digital Still Mode Discount?
I did extensive research on this model (the whole ZR series) and I must say, a lot of things are positive for this little camera.* light weight, * small, * bright outdoor pictures, * PRICE.
And some negative points raised by many so far, which of course I have not been able to test as I have not bought this item, is the motor noise being recorded and the night shots being grainy.
I will not discuss anything about it as they have been beaten to death by now.
What I want to talk about is the smaller CCD resolution on the ZR series camcorders.
As we know, the US spec ZR series have the 460K pixels, out of which only 290K pixels are used for video (effective pixels). We need about 420K effective pixels to get a 500 line video resolution on the TV. Most of us know that, the VHS format (video tapes) allow upto 240lines of horizontal resolution. The S-VHS tapes allow upto 400 lines and the Digital Video format goes to 525 lines (really crisp and sharp pictures) on the TV/visual media.
So now, with mere 290K effective pixels of video resolution being recorded on the ZR40/45/50, the best lines of resolution would be around 300. Now, not everything is bad. If you intend to transfer your videos into VHS tapes for storage and future viewing, you will not have any complaints as VHS tapes store at 240 lines of resolution. But someone like me, who wants to store the video digitally, by burning them into DVDs or storing them in DV tapes, I would like to get the best resolution that I can, right?
In simple words, I want 500 lines of resolution for my video, full stop! Even though ZR40 is a DV camera, its resolution is very poor for real digital quality video.
By the way, the resolution has got everything to do with what we call SHARP, crisp and colorful pictures. It is the same difference you see between the movies played from the VHS tape and movies played from the DVD.
Oh by the way, if your TV doesn't have a 500 line horizontal resolution capability, you are not getting the money's worth by renting DVDs. The TV I bought about 4 yrs ago, a proscan 32 inch, has 700 lines of horizontal resolution. So I can assume most TVs in our houses have capable enough TVs. Going slightly off topic, do you know why the picture quality of HDTVs are so sharp? Bcoz their resolutions are almost double than the 500 lines I am talking about.
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