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Canon Optura 20 Mini DV CamcorderThe Optura 20/Optura 10 has a personality all its own. It is highly intelligent, yet its remarkably easy to use. Its sleek, cutting edge...
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The Optura 20/Optura 10 has a personality all its own. It is highly intelligent, yet its remarkably easy to use. Its sleek, cutting edge design totally meshes with you and your lifestyle. Versatility is at its core. It produces video which blurs the line between reality and your TV screen. Camera-inspired features open the door to a photographic world filled with flexibility, control, and excitement. Connectivity is as simple as it is extensive. New imaging opportunities are not only possible, they are yours for the taking
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17 Reviews from Shopping.com
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Motor noise ruins that great camera !
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Pros: Great picture, lots of manual settings, comfortable to handle.
Cons: Motor noise picked up by built in mic; 16:9 feature useless when shooting.
The Bottom Line:
You can shop around to find a camcorder with better audio (less noisy motor) but you will not find any with that picture quality and all these features
This is a great camera for the price. The visual quality is awesome for a one-chip cam. It has all the bells and whistles you ever gonna need. I particularly like the fact that you can make lots of manual adjustments if you wish (white balance - shutter speed - focus...) and it comes with good usable software. The large LCD monitor is a plus. Even if it is heavier and bigger than most DVD cam out there, I still prefer that. You can breathe and shoot at the same time and get steady shots. And if you are into editing on a Window XP platform, you cannot ask for better. I don't expect great performance while shooting in low light condition. So I was not disappointed.
But... the built-in microphone is picking the motor noise badly... I don't understand how Canon, an experienced company, can come up with that less than acceptable problem. They should had located that mike ABOVE the lens, not below, near the motor)... I will have to buy an extra microphone (over $200 in Canada for the Canon model) to hook in the horse shoe.
I am not impressed by the 16:9 feature that is sqeezing the picture in the monitor (like old movies on TV) instead of giving a real cropped, panoramic 16:9 image on the LCD monitor. How can you frame properly and create an interesting image then ?
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