High-Quality, Oodles of Features, Great Price, Shop No More...

Author's Rating:

Pros: Too many to list

Cons: None.

The Bottom Line: 
Best value for the money. Absolutely nothing negative about this camcorder. A feature laden camcorder in a compact package that delivers both solid performance and bang for the buck.

Author's Review
Ok, I've read every review I could get my hands on regarding this camcorder and I am incredibly skeptical of anything negative anyone may have to say about the Canon ZR-70MC.

I have owned this camcorder since July 1, 2003 and wanted to get some real, practical experience with it before I wrote a review.

Let me start by saying that I have owned other camcorders in my life and paid nearly $1600 for the Sony camcorder this Canon ZR-70MC is replacing. Additionally, I was in the retail camera and photography business for over 5 years and have experience as a professional photographer and amateur film maker.

Optics - the optics in this camera are top notch and far surpass any of the current competitors out there. Canon lens are some of the best and most reliable in the world. (Sony has to subcontract lenses from Carl Ziess' on it's nearest competing camcorder, and even then, optically it only has a 10x zoom lens!) Canon has something like 80 years in the photo optics business. This is one of the cornerstones of their business.

Sound - digital is digital is digital. Frequency response measured from 20 - 20,000Hz is all 98% of all human beings are going to hear. Recordings I've made on a sound stage with the camera recording on it's "worst" settings - EP with only 12-bit sound - comes out crystal clear and can be recorded straight to CD or DVD with no modification and no noticeable loss of response or gain from the original. (My experience has shown that only very sensitive and specialized recording devices can tell the difference between typical CD quality audio and what you will record and play back in your very own CD/DVD players.) I experienced no whine, noise, or other perceivable audible interference from this device, even after putting the tape through a sound editor that discriminates between different frequencies...There was nothing, nodda, zero, zip, got it?!

Usability - You can easily pick this camera up and begin shooting video in a matter of minutes, and if you spend 15 minutes reading the first 30 or so pages in the owners manual, you will learn all the basics you need to know about the camera as well as how to use many of it's wonderful features. The manual is well written and straight forward. (No degree in rocket science necessary.)

Cost of operation - easily 1/2 the price of it's closest competitor, Sony, and easily has twice the features of the Sony.

Image Stabilization - Canon's is about 3x better than Sony's. Sony seems to be using the same Image stabilization technology it's been using since it began trying to hold an in-focus image still. Canon's technology is new to this camera line, and is by far superior. It works very consistently, and under a broader range of uses and implementations than Sony's.

Feature & Settings selection - Canon uses an industry defacto standard of a combo dial & press button input device to change settings and turn features on and off. The choices are displayed on a menu that only let's you select the features that are available, depending on the camcorder mode you are in. Sony uses a slick, touch video screen to change settings and features. (In practical use, though, all you really get from Sony is a dirty little finger print smeared video screen with poorly devised menus that frustrate you through the many long and complex navigation paths.

Low light operations - Sony = grainy black & white, or that neo-military night vision green. Canon = full color whereby the amount of graininess depends on the level of darkness or whether the built in LCD light was used, or not. (Note: the LCD light is not a true video light like that built into many other camcorders. It is a specialized light that works in only one camera setting to allow very low light taping to occur while still maintaining much of the colored spectrum, vs. taping in either b&w or night vision green.)

Battery life - Get about same number of minutes as when the battery pack was new, nearly 6 months ago. I have run some 100 hours of actual filming through the camera, to-date. (Generally speaking, this is a lot of video in 5 months time, whereby most home users record somewhere between 12 - 20 hours of video, per year.)