Customer Reviews

Canon ZR85 MiniDV Camcorder w/20x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My husband and I purchased the Canon ZR85 MiniDV Camcorder about a week ago in preperation for the birth of our first child in April. We were either going to go with this camcorder, or purchase a Sony camcorder. We thought long and hard in the store, and we really believe that this is a much better camera. Not to say bad things about Sony, but their camcorder only had a 10x optical zoom, while the Canon ZR85 has a 20x optical zoom. The picture quality also seemed to look better on the Canon camcorder. When you are moving the camera from side-to-side the image on the LCD display kind of floats. It was much more jerky with the Sony. We absolutley love this camera. We had fun taking pictures with the still shot last night and I e-mailed them to a friend of mine that I haven't seen in years. The quality of the pictures is excellent. But as with any digital camera, printing the images out on a photo printer might not look as good as on the LCD display or on your computer screen. I do not know, because we do not have a photo printer or plan to get one. But for e-mailing pictures to friends on the computer, I can testify that this camcorder takes beautiful pictures. I even saved one of the pictures to the desktop on my computer, and I swear it looks like a magazine photo. My husband and I were surprised how good the pictures look. We didn't buy the camcorder for the still shot feature, but we love it now and are so happy this camcorder can take digital pictures. The video quality is excellent as well. We haven't done much filming yet, just playing around the house with it. But we have hooked it up to the TV to watch what we have recorded and it looks even better on TV than on the LCD screen when you were taping. The image is very steady, clear, and crisp. Colors look amazing. My old maroon/auburn couch really came to life when taping. It looks better recorded than it does in person. I love the zoom, it is amazing how far away you can see with this thing. I also love how it self-adjusts. You can look at a bright window and the camera will focus and adjust the lighting, then you can turn away from that window and look at a dark corner and it will quickly re-adjust. It's really awesome. We are very pleased with this camcorder. The only thing we are unhappy about is the memory card that was included with the camera is very small and canon put a lot of trash pictures that look like wrapping-paper on it that you cannot delete. This takes up almost all of the memory space on the card, only leaving you with enough room for about 10 or 15 pictures. But no biggie. That is the only complaint that we have, and that is such a nothing-problem. We plan to buy a bigger memory card anyway, so that we can take more still pictures. This camcorder is really great. Make sure you purchase a bigger battery, but that goes for any camcorder. You will love this camcorder.

I am really surprised by these other reviews on lighting. When shooting in the dark I used the night mode button and it allowed me to take great footage in the dark. I also found the DV Messager software to be extremely user-friendly. It allowed me to import my footage for editing (gotta love Final Cut Pro). Overall I think it is a great buy for the buck.

I had my concers at first about this cam. I've read in several places that the stil pic quality wasn't good, and that the quality of the film was poor in low light. Well I'm glad to say that I have not had those problems at all. There are all sorts of tweaks that you can do with the cam that will make it look great in most places. I've had the cam for about a week now and both the Wife and I find it very easy to use!

I agree with the 12 year old. I have used this camera for three weeks and think it is just great. I have been to two birthday parties indoors and the lighting was great,I used video and still pictures. I love that it is so quick and easy to go back and forth between the two.I have also used it in a Butterfly Museum and the pictures were so true to color that my friends want copies sent to thier computers.When I first bought this I was just looking for a plan digital camera and I'm so pleased that I chose this instead.When I bought it my children and I (ages 12 and 15)took a tape and the book and learned how to use it and tried every feature indoors and out and had such a good time and now we know how to use it.I suggest to the people who didn't read the book to go and open it and learn something.We think it great and will let our friends that are looking to buy a camera to give it a try. Also a great price for the features.

I bought this camera about 21 months ago; I have only used it a couple of times but without a problem. When I tried to used it the other day I was able to record sound but no picture. I was prepared to buy a new camera, until I found that Canon has a repair notice on it for this problem. They will fix it free of charge even if out of warranty; I could not ask for more!

So it is my son's first birthday. Have we used the camcorder since Christmas? Of course not. Cassette is stuck. No pictures of first birthday :( Do a little online research to troubleshoot, turns out this is a known problem with many of the Canon camcorders. This camera has literaly been used three times and of course, the warrenty expired about a week ago. Canon charges minimum of $145 for service plus shipping, so why bother. Get a Sony!

This cam does it all. Your sheach for a camcorder has ended. It has 2 hours of battery life with the veiwfinder , 1 with the lcd screen. Thats good. The digtal effects are cool.And you are able to connect to the computer for buring dvds and more digital effects

First when I got the camera (I purchased from online), I kind of like it. Very compact. It does not come with DV tape and I purchased one from local store. Once I load the tape and I heard the noise that the tape is rotating even without making any videos. I called Canon customer support and described the noise and was told it is like that and nothing particularly wrong with the one I got. When I told the custmoer representative that the camcorder my friend purchased from Sony does not seem have such problem and that guy simply replies 'OK'. Make me feel that since you chose Canon, you have to live with our problem. By the way, before I made the purchase, I read quite a few reviews about Canon poor customer services. Now I understood.

Regarding the SD card loaded with a lot of 'wallpaper'-like pictured as decscribed by the first reviewer, you can delete them. Thoese pictures are just protected, You can unprotect the pictures first and it will allow you to delete. But I suggest that you copy those pictures to your computer first before you do anything. Those are very nice background and you can use them as a frame, background for your pictures when you edit later on.

Why is everybody so upset that it doesnt make indoors look like outside???
It doesnt make anything darker on the video filmed inside, it just gives an accurate depiction of what the lighting is really like. Its not going to make the scene look like you have 1000 watt bulbs everywhere, but that is realistic. Those people claiming that having the the video resembling the actual envirenent that is was shot in is bad, is a bunch of crap. Film in a dark area and the footage will dark. Shouldnt that be obvious??

The camera is very easy to use, and is small and handy. It has more functions than you'd really want in such a camera -- if you are ever going to do something with the footage you will be using a computer and an editing program, so you don't really need the editing modes on the camera. Still, there's no complaint here, and it's flexible enough for most users.

My only complaint is that for some reason on my camera when I flipped the lcd viewer around to see from the front the image didn't rotate. I know it's supposed to do this, and it did it with the model at the store. Or: when I closed the lcd viewer with it flipped around the image shut off and I couldn't see it anymore. I'm assuming this had to do with a bad wire. But, I had no problem returning it to get a new one, so this wasn't a huge problem, only inconvenient.

All in all I would say that this is a solid entry-level camcorder, that is fairly priced and easy to use.