Record Those First Steps

Author's Rating:

Pros: 500x zoom, color viewfinder, inexpensive

Cons: no flip out viewfinder, some buttons in awkward positions

The Bottom Line: 
This is a great camera for beginners.

Author's Review
Before my son was born, I decided that I wanted a video camera. My grandmother gave us hers, but it broke shortly after our son was born. I was disappointed, but what could I do? We couldn't afford to go out and purchase one, still can't. But my mother in law decided to leave hers with us, provided that she could use it whenever she wanted. After all, the reason she bought it lives with us.

She bought the Canon ES50 at Best Buy. It was an open box deal, so she only paid a fraction of the actual price. We've had the camera for a few weeks now, and I thought that I would share why I like this camera.

First off, the basic features. The ES50 comes with a 500x zoom. My husband was playing with it, and he was able to read- just barely- the license plate on a car about a city block away from us- and my husband was inside our apartment at the time. Can't get close enough to the field to watch little Johnny play football? Want to be able to get the entire marching band in one shot, yet still be able to pick out little Suzie playing the flute? This is the camera for you. The zoom button takes a little getting used to- it's in a weird position, on top of the camera, just barely within reach of my fingers- and I have long fingers. The zoom is also gentle, not jerky, like some cameras. You can either zoom slowly or quickly, just by changing the pressure of the finger pushing the zoom.

The ES50 comes with a built in light. This is handy for filming in darkened rooms and outside at dusk. The little light on the camera offers plenty of light to film by. One drawback is that the light just literally eats batteries. When the light is on, the battery will be about 1/4 full, when the battery is 3/4 full when the light is off. We've also noticed that the quality of the film when filming inside is better when the light is on, no matter how much natural light is in the room. This could have just been the television, but we've noticed it on more than one t.v. The button for the light is a little hard to use, I have to use my fingernails to turn it on and off, and would much rather it have been easier so that I don't have to stop filming to turn it on.

The ES50 also has digital effects, for creating your own work of art. The effects include:

Art- The camera 'blocks' colors rather than natural shading.
BLK&WHT- The camera films entirely in black and white.
Sepia- The camera films in a brown tone, known as sepia.
Negative- If you've ever seen a 35mm black and white negative, you know that the negative is slightly blue. This effect gives the film an eerie blue glow, with darks being light and lights being dark.
Mirror-half- Mirrors half of the screen. One of my favorites.
Mirror-full- Flips the screen so that it is backwards.
Mosaic- Makes the screen look like giant pixels.
Pastel- Washes out color, except for bright colors, and gives everything a thick black outline.
Emboss- This makes everything look two dimensional, and as if it is raised lines on paper.
Col. Key-red, Col. key- GRN, Col. Key- BLUE, and Col. Key-YEL- These film everything that isn't the color listed (either shades of red, green, blue or yellow) in black and white.
16:9- Stretches the screen, making everything seem slightly out of perspective.
Cinema- Puts those black bars on top and on bottom of the screen. Makes your video look like a widescreen movie.

The ES50 uses 8mm tapes to record. The battery life says 13 hour recording on the camera, but I know that it is no where near that. Especially if you are using the light. I would say that there is about 2 hours of recording without use of the light, and about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of recording with the light.

One drawback to this camera is that there isn't one of those flip out viewfinders. I feel that this makes it harder to film, because all that I see, is what the viewfinder shows me.

All in all, this is a decent camera for the price, and great for those who have never owned a camera before.