I bought this as an upgrade for a Sony Hi-8 camcorder. This upgrade was a big leap considering their diffrence in size. Once I got hold of this, I was smitten right away. It fits in my hand like it was custom-made. The controls were easy to reach and the menu functions were not hard to get used to. What really blew me away with this camcorder was the 22x optical zoom. During the time I bought this (2004), no other Mini-DV camcorder brand in the same category possessed Canon's far ranging 22x optical zoom. A lot of the major big name brands had less than 15x optical although their digital zoom would go as far as 900x. The ZR70's digital zoom only goes to 440x max. But digital zoom didnt really bother me that much because as a lot of people know, digital zooms degrade the picture quality. Once you get past the maximum optical zoom, noise starts to appear on your image or video. This is true with this camcorder but with the far reaching optical zoom, I have little need to activate the digital zoom. You can use this with a regular Mini-DV tape or an SD card, although the resolution with the SD is not that great, only less than 1MP resoultion. That fact didnt also bother me because this is a camcorder--meant to capture images in motion. If I wanted to take sharp pictures, a digital camera can handle that. The 2.5" color LCD is sharp although not as sharp as today's standard. The color EVF is comfortable. Another attraction that drew me is the Image Stabilization, it functioned perfectly especially for those close focusing, totally reduced or eliminated the jitter. The main camcorder play/record/function buttons are illuminated in different colors that you can customize in your own preference. It also has a wide angle attachment lens to capture those breath-taking panoramic scenes. It connects to you PC via Firewire port so you can transfer motion images to your pc. I am still using it until now. Except for the product advisory from Canon which they fixed for free, I have not encountered any problems with this camcorder. It suits my particular need very well, in fact, it exceeded my expectations.
less
0 comments
Post a comment