Canon ZR400 MiniDV Camcorder w/14x Optical Zoom (Dark Metal)

Other products by Canon

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.7 x 8 inches ; 3.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0007W2H4S
• Item model number: 0166B001
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #9,264 in Camera & Photo (See Bestsellers in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 13, 2005

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

If the ZR400 is your first camcorder, your choice has set the bar at a high level. As Canon's lowest priced Megapixel camcorder, the ZR400 combines features found on higher priced cameras with a variety of versatile functions and the brilliance of a Megapixel CCD. It's also three-cameras-in-one, giving you great performance as a camcorder, a digital still camera, and a webcam. With features and automatic settings that make your life as a videographer easy, you'll find that the ZR400 is both powerful and easy to use.

Brilliant Digital Video AND Photography
You can get them from the same camcorder - thanks to Canon's exclusive DIGIC DV signal processing circuit. DIGIC DV is just one of the DV Photo Plus technologies that unleash the full digital imaging power of your ZR camcorder. Because video and digital photos have different color requirements, the DIGIC DV circuit in the ZR400 processes them differently. The result is video images that are maximized for viewing on TV, and digital photographs that look brilliant on computer displays or as prints.

Vivid Canon Optical Quality
Get video and digital photographs that never disappoint. Genuine Canon Optics is one of the DV Photo Plus technologies that set the ZR400 apart. The camcorder comes with a 14X optical zoom which - along with the camera's 280X digital zoom capability - gives you an expansive focal length range that meets virtually all of your needs. It also comes with a Wide Angle Attachment, great for those tight interior shots or breathtaking landscapes.

The Brilliance and Sharpness of Megapixel Performance
Get the best out of a well-priced camcorder, packed with features. The ZR400's revolutionary CCD sensor - another DV Photo Plus technology - works like film to deliver crisp images with extraordinary detail. When light is captured by the sensor, it registers an image and then uses advanced processing to convert the pixels into digital data. The result is outstanding image clarity for both your video and photos.

Fast and Easy Printing
Print & Share, one of the powerful Canon DV Photo Plus technologies makes fast and easy printing a reality. With nothing more than the touch of the Print & Share button, you can print directly from your ZR400 to select Canon printers or any PictBridge-compatible printer - without going through a computer. (The same button lets you quickly download images to your computer.) Print & Share gives you all the printing controls you need - right in your camcorder. Choose borderless prints, crop, and rotate your photos. With the ZR400 and Print & Save, no one has to wait for their copy of your great shot.

From Camera to Computer with Ease
The ZR400 lets you record video and digital photographs, then quickly and easily transfer them to your computer to edit, archive, or share over the Web or through e-mail.

Store and transfer your digital photographs with the ZR400's MultiMediaCard, connected to the camera's built-in memory card slot. In the same slot, you can also use an SD (Secure Digital) Memory Card. The memory cards make it that much easier to transfer images from your camera to computer - which means you can show and share your memories with friends and family that much faster.

You can do the same with Motion JPEG movie clips. Record your movie directly to the ZR400's memory card, transfer it to your computer, and e-mail or stream it over the web. When using an SD Memory Card, you can record for the full length of the card. That's a 60 minute movie with a 512MB card. (With MultiMediaCards, movie clips are limited to 10 seconds in 320 X 240 resolution, and 30 seconds in 160 X 120.)

Make your ZR400 part of your computer. You can access the images on your ZR400 through your computer without additional software using Picture Transfer Protocol (requires Windows XP; or Mac OS X, versions 10.1 or later). PTP creates a direct link between camera and computer, so you can access your camera as if it was an external card reader.

Turn Your Camcorder Into a Webcam
Your ZR400 can not only be a webcam, but will let you use Internet Video Chat with Microsoft Windows Messenger. With your camera and your friend's camera, you can chat and see yourselves at the same time. You can also preview thumbnails, transfer photos, and watch video playback from either camera. Simply download DV Messenger2 software for free. It turns your ZR400 into a webcam and lets you control the zoom, focus and playback.

Shoot Steady as a Pro
Whether you're shooting sporting events, fun & games at your child's birthday party, or capturing a shot at a long focal length. Thanks to Canon's superior electronic expertise, the ZR400's image stabilization system corrects camcorder shake instantly, thereby eliminating one of the telltale signs of amateur video.

Focus with Ease
Even if your subject isn't in the center of the frame, the ZR400 lets you be more creative and able to handle a wider variety of shooting situations. Why? Because it lets you select between three different focusing points. So, even if you frame your subject off to one side, you'll still get the shot you wanted.

Automatic Settings
Get the help you need to get great results with a wide variety of pre-programmed, automatic exposure modes that compensate for a range of lighting conditions. They include: Easy Recording, Auto, Sports, Portrait, Spotlight, Sand & Snow, Low Light and Night mode. There is even an Auto Slow Shutter mode that gives your video a dream-like quality.

More experienced users will appreciate being in complete control with manual control of focus, exposure level, white balance, and shutter speed.

Don't Let Low Light Stop You
With the ZR400's Night Mode, the sensitivity of the camera's CCD is automatically boosted and the shutter speed is lowered to give you better performance in low light conditions. In SuperNight mode, your camera's white LED assist lamp lights up, providing you with added illumination under even tougher conditions.

Give Your Shots the Widescreen Look
The ZR400's high resolution, 16:9 Widescreen Mode - a feature typically found on more expensive camera systems is available whenever you want it. And in widescreen mode, the LCD viewscreen gives you a letterbox-style display for accurate composition.

Add Some Dazzle with Digital Effects
A variety of Fade effects let you do a simple fade that makes your video look that much more professional. Other Fade effects include Wipe, Corner, Jump, Flip, Puzzle, Zigzag, Beam and Tide.

Digital effects can work well for a documentary approach or they can be the perfect look for a wedding video. The only limit is your creativity with: Art, Black & White, Sepia, Mosaic, Ball, Cube, Wave, Color Mask or Mirror. The effects can be switched on during recording or playback (except in Card mode, during which only Black & White is available).

Form and Functionality
This is a great looking camera that's easy to use. Like the entire ZR line of cameras, the ZR400 minimizes the distance between lens and viewfinder, giving it a compact, easy-to-hold, easy-to-carry form - without sacrificing functionality.

Product Description

If the ZR400 is your first camcorder, your choice has set the bar at a high level. The ZR400 combines features found on higher priced cameras with a variety of versatile functions and the brilliance of a Megapixel CCD. It's also three-cameras-in-one, giving you great performance as a camcorder, a digital still camera, and a webcam. With features and automatic settings that make your life as a videographer easy, you'll find that the ZR400 is both powerful and easy to use.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great second choice, August 14, 2005

By	Michael J. Dominguez (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

My intention when I was finally ready to purchase a camcorder was the Optura 85. I had picked it over the ZR 400 for the accessory shoe and flash. However, given that our vacation was a week away, the Optura would not have been shipped until well after we returned.

We took the ZR 400 on our trip to Disney World and it performed very well. Outdoor video was great. Indoors it performed quite well. In the Playhouse Disney show it adjusted well and captured the show with great resolution and focus.

I was also looking for a camcorder that could do analog-digital conversion and this function has been excellent.

It only looses a star for a touchy on/off switch. I had it in a camera bag with my digital camera and somehow it got turned on in the bag. I captured great audio of the "It's a Small World Ride," but no video.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good little miniDV camcorder, January 4, 2006

By	J. Chen "weez" (Cali, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

ZR400 is a good miniDV camera with many options. It's not overloaded with too many manual control options, but it has just enough feature tweak (such as shutter speed, aperture size tweak) and a variety of automated modes to satisfy those few who would like a bit more refinement on casual vacation videos. It does not have mic input or hotshoe for external lighting connections, so it is definitely for casual vacation video and good lighting shooting.
The size of the camera is one of its major attractions for me. The camera is just the right size to be held with one hand without feeling too small, while it's small enough to fit in large pockets and easily slips into any kind of bag of decent size. Under normal day light and indoor lighting conditions, the colors and video quality are excellent. Under candle lighting or lighting with shaded lamps, the noise is visible in the video, but not overwhelming. The color tones are still good even under poor lighting. At this price range for video cameras, the noise performance is about average. However, for casual viwers, this is not an issue.
The only draw back maybe the bottom loading mechnism for the miniDV tape. Like almost all the miniDV loading mechnisms, the system works a bit finicky. But not too distracting as long as you follow the instruction in the manual. Bottom loading on the camera makes changing tape while using tripods a bit more complicated than need to, but that's not a big deal.
Image stablizing works well even at the very long end of the zoom, I think the zoom range and the electronic stablizing in ZR400 works well as a combination, the long end is long enough for almost all cases while stablization is still good. Camera with longer zoom will suffer from dizzying camera shake even with digital stablization. So the ZR400 has just the right zoom ragne for its electronic stablization capabilities. Wide angle adaptor make the field of view acceptable for wide angle shots, but it's a bit cumbersome to have to put on a wide angle adaptor. It's no big deal, but I just wish the optical zoom lens would be wide enough on its own.
ZR400 takes SD cards for digital still photos and digital M-jpeg vidoes. I see little merit in using the jerky M-jpeg video when the high quality miniDV is readily available at hand. The still pictures are capture at about 1 meg pixels. It's OK for quick snap shot. Any cheap dedicated point and shoot digital still camera will put the still images to shame, but this feature is more of a bonus anyway. DO NOT BUY THIS for still image use, you will be disappointed.
Note, there're NO (note NONE) DV editing software that comes with the camera, so you will need something like Adobe Premiere Element or Ulead Video Studio and firewire on your PC to transfer the DV from the camera to your computer. Photo organizing and editing software comes in the package. Since I have photoshop, I never really paid too much attention to those. Mac guys are lucky they have iMovie, the windows movie maker is really too simplistic for most uses.
Canon should included a battery charger with this model instead forcing the battery charging be done with the camcorder plugged in. A separate battery charger is available for a charge from Canon. Battery life is not a problem, since I normally use video very sparingly. The battery came with the camera last about 1.5 hours shooting time, enough to shoot a full miniDV tape in SP with reviewing and tweaking or a full tape in LP (which I never use). Many high capacity batteries are available for Canon ZR models from a variety of vendors for reasonable prices. I have one that will last 4 hours for about $50.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Supreme Camcorder, February 27, 2006

By	G. Demagistre (boston, ma) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This cannon ZR-400 is a great choice. The new CCD has an excelent performance with very good quality.
If You buy this, think in a second battery (same size)