Canon Elura 60-65-70

Author's Rating:

Pros: Still pictures while filming, features

Cons: Bad quality still pictures, bad low light colors, shows problem after 2 years of use.

The Bottom Line: 
I recommend to get the Elura 60 and get the extra equipment separately. Buy a good separate digital camera if you want digital pictures (1.3Mb is not enough).

Author's Review
Overall I think the Elura 60 is a fine camera but could beneficiate from some improvements.

I like the fact that you can take still pictures on the digital card (not on the tape) while filming and not affecting the recording on the tape. Not many other cameras can do that. They can take stills but it goes on the tape, not on the card.

Unfortunately the pictures are pretty bad quality. For one there can be no movement. Otherwise everything is blurry. That means you can't be shaking as well. You can switch to "Sport" mode to take pictures with movement but then you loose on the colors. I guess that's what you get for 1.3Mpixels. It needs lots of light too. You can switch to "Night" mode but you loose on the colors and it's not much better.

Other pros: top loading, good menu, features ("Sport" mode, digital effects (fade in-out)),you can flip the screen to look at yourself while you film, good battery life, charger integrated, comes with remote and cables, nice bright LCD display, feels good in the hands, good zoom.

Other cons: I don't like to have the menu wheel behind the screen, the buttons are small, the software that comes with it is not very good, stabilizer does not help me.

I was hoping to use it as a web cam but I need a Fire-Wire cable and a card and ... I gave up, too complicate. If you read this and know a simple way of doing it, please tell me.

I bought the Elura 60 (as opposed to 65 or 70) because it is cheaper and the other features I can get by buying separately. At 14 times the zoom is already a pretty good zoom, I don't need more than that. Also, you can get a separate lens to compensate. Don't buy a video camera that pretends to have a huge digital zoom. For still digital cameras it is good but for video camera it is useless, the quality is just too bad. It's not Canon, it's any type of video camera. The only thing I may wish to have one day is a Hot Shoe, but I don't need that now.

I simply went on E-Bay and bought a large battery, wide angle lens, zoom lens, filters and a mini tripod. It's not the best quality but I save lots of money.

The Elura is definitely not for pros but it will do it for beginners and more.

Update 06/12/29:
-I found out that the pictures taken while filming can only be on a smaller format, which is disappointing.
-I also discovered that there is no point to take pictures as you are filming since you can do it while reviewing the film! That's another great feature since you can concentrate on the target (and see it for real) more and not tilting the camera as you press the picture button.
-On the morning my daughter was to be born, the camera started to be showing problems. Actually I am not sure if it's the tape or if it's the camera. It would only record 50% of the screen, by leaving wide stripes across the screen! So no I seen my daughter coming to this world behind large bars... When reviewing it, it also has problem to stablize. At pretty much the same time, the tape for my son (I use different tapes for each of them) became completely unaccessible!! As soon I put the tape in (which was good for about 15min of recording) the display shows an alarm: " REMOVE THE TAPE!!! " and sounds until I remove it. So I lost one tape, and good memories...
I still have to try these two tapes into another MINIDV compatible camera/reader to see what it will do. I am not sure again if that's the tape or the camera (I bought the tapes at the same time...)
-Also the camera goes from color to black and white for no reason. This happens when there is low light.