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(More customer reviews)Well I haven't had the camera very long, but it's already packed up and ready to go back.
I have been shopping for a replacement for my JVC GR-D72U for a while now and had narrowed my list down to three. This one wasn't even on the short list. So why did I buy it? Well Costco had it on sale for $355 including a Canon case, a 4GB SD card and an HDMI cable. They were no longer stocking them and it was the last one. It was a new, sealed unit. Considering the MSRP on this camcorder is $699, I figured it might be worth a shot at this price.
When I unpacked it I was very impressed with the camcorder itself. It was very attractive and had a very nice high-quality feel to it. I knew from what I had read about it before that it didn't have a lot of fancy features so I figured that Canon must have made up for it in quality. It sure felt like it. Unfortunately that is where the quality ended.
I went to install the battery I was surprised to see that it actually went inside the camera. So much for an extended battery. To charge it you remove one of the plastic doors on the back of the camera and plug in the power cord. There are two of these doors on the back and they stay attached by rubber tethers and seem fairly secure.
I knew the camera didn't come with a remote but I figured I could get one for it, or use a universal remote; wrong, It doesn't have an IR receiver. And it is not CEC compliant so you can't control it with one of your other CEC devices when it's connected. I was pretty disappointed since this is pretty common in less expensive camcorders.
I went online to see if there were any firmware updates and there was. It allows the camera to recognize SDXC cards now. I checked the firmware on my camera and it was already updated.
After the camera was fully charged I started shooting video. I started in the house with camera on IA (Intelligent Auto). Everything looked sort of dark and grainy, but I figured it might just be the display. I played around with some different settings, which were really easy to find. The menu system in this camera is really easy to navigate and the little flat joystick-like knob made it very easy to move between menus.
After shooting some indoor shots I went outdoors for some shots of the yard and pool. This is where I could test out the zoom and the image stabilizer (IS). This is when I started getting really disappointed. The IS worked ok when the lens was not zoomed, but when fully zoomed it was like it wasn't even on. The IS in my old JVC was far superior. So I went into the menu again to see if there were any settings I could tweak, and that's when I noticed the default is normal IS, not Dynamic IS. So I turned on Dynamic with high expectations. I was sorely let down; Dynamic IS seemed to make no difference. So I played around with some other settings including turning digital zoom and off, but nothing helped. Truly terrible IS.
Well after shooting all my test footage it was time to watch it on the TV. I plugged everything in and it came up on the TV nicely. It was extremely annoying that I had to squat next to the TV with the camera since it had no remote. Well the indoor footage looked terrible; even worse than what I saw on the camera display. It was extremely grainy and the colors were terrible. Unacceptable. So I figured I would shoot some more footage trying some manual settings and priority AS. Same results. This camera cannot take good indoor/low light shots. Maybe if it had an assist light it could, but it doesn't have an accessory shoe to attach one to. Another problem was there was like a motor sound I could hear in the recordings, almost like it had a tape in it. It is tapeless and it doesn't have optical stabilization, so I can only assume it's the auto focus motor constantly working.
So then I viewed the outdoor footage. It was better, but the colors seemed a little washed out. In Auto mode it would change the setting based on the scene. As an example; I got really close to a bush and it would automatically select Macro. A nice feature, but it was so slow to react that is was always a scene behind, or wouldn't change at all. Another problem with this camera is the audio. It sounded pretty bad. The audio sounded to me like it was highly compressed. I recorded the water spilling over the spa wall and it did not accurately reproduce the sound. There were also times when my dog barked while I was recording, and while playing it back it sounded like someone else's dog. Now the nice thing is that it has a mic-in jack, but again, there is no accessory shoe to mount a microphone on. This is another area where my old JVC was far superior.
All in all this is just not a well done product by Canon. It is way overpriced for the features, and especially considering the audio and video quality. Canon needs to just pull this product before it hurts their reputation.
I am going to try the Panasonic HDC-SD60 next. I know someone that has one and has been very pleased with using it with his Mac. I'll post a review on it too.
I didn't comment on the software and included editing applications because there are so many alternatives available if you're not happy with what's included. The most important part is the hardware. Pros:
o Now supports SDXC cards
o Very easy to use menu system
o No touch screen (I prefer tactile feedback)
o OK outdoor picture quality
o Good zoom
o Built in lens cover
o Size/style/build quality
o 32GB onboard
Cons:
o Poor Indoor/low light picture quality
o Poor audio quality
o No remote control (not even an IR sensor)
o No assist light
o Only accepts one size battery
o Motor sound on recording
o Lens needs to be wider angle (35mm)
o No lens barrel threads for filters
o No accessory shoe
o Digital zoom can't be used in AUTO mode (manual settings don't stick when you switch to Auto)
o Image stabilization is terrible
o Plastic tripod mount threads
o Low resolution display screen
o Battery life is terrible
o The only printed instructions is the Quick Start Guide
UPDATE:
We recently had a lot of snow so I thought it would be nice to drive around and tape it. I have to say that the resulting videos looked pretty good. The colors looked bright without being over saturated. Unfortunatly the image stabilization was a let down as there was quite a bit of shake from us driving over the compacted snow and ice. After we recorder we played it back on the TV, and before we could see the whole video the battery died. It's really too bad you can't get an extended battery for this camera. The good news is that batteries are relatively cheap, so you can keep some spares in the bag.
UPDATE:
I was a little concerned that my expectations might have been a little too high. Well, I have received my Panasonic HDC-SD60 and it has met (exceeded) my expectations. It is at least a generation ahead of the Canon, and is far superior in almost every way performance-wise (the Canon looks better, has a better menu and button placement). I will post a full review of the Panasonic later, but I just wanted to mention here that my expectations of the Canon were not too high.
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