The Canon ZR85MC, A decent camcorder but needs work!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Small Size, good Canon Lens, Great Zoom!, good outdoor shooting, good manual control

Cons: VERY POOR INDOOR SHOOTING! NO S-VIDEO JACK!!! No mic in jack, menu sometimes confusing

The Bottom Line: 
MEH.....it's an Ok camcorder, not the best out there, and Canon needs to improve video quality. Recommended with Reservations 3.5/5 = 70%

Author's Review
Well, here I am again with another camcorder review. All the reviews I have done so far have been Sony, which was by accident, I don’t want to be labeled “A Sony Guy” So, I wanted to review another good camcorder, the Canon ZR85MC. I got a chance to borrow this camcorder from work, so I decided to test it. It was a different camcorder from Sony, which was nice. I am trying a new scoring technique to go along with the epinions.com socre....My score will be out of 120, and then changed into something out of 5. You will see what each section is worth, and the score I gave it. At the bottom, you will see final score. Things like video quality and sound are rated heavily, and things like still quality, ports etc...are worth less. I will take into account if I'm reviewing a professional or consumer model, and will change accordingly. Here we go...…

MINIDV – BEST WAY TO GO DIGITAL

MiniDV has been around since 1995 when Sony introduced the VX1000 prosumer camcorder. For those of you who don't know, MiniDV is a small digital cassette that will give you a standard of 60 min of recording. Since then, MiniDV has become the most popular digital type of camcorder out there. Unfortunately, at first, the price of MiniDV cams was expensive. But now, in 2004, you can purchase a MiniDV camcorder for under $600 Cnd. A camcorder like the Canon ZR85MC would be considered a good quality camcorder that combines video and “digital stills” which I’ll get into later. The Canon ZR85MC is priced at $699.99 Cnd right now, and is expected to drop since the camcorder is so new. MiniDV offers the following features and Pro’s:

-High Quality, up to 500 lines of horizontal resolution, most camcorders, like the ZR85MC offer 500 lines of res.

-Small tape size, small body of camcorder

-High Quality 16bit sound

-Advanced features like still pictures, interval recording etc…

-Computer Connectivity with the Firewire connection

As you can see, MiniDV has some great points that put it above High8, above Digital 8, and DVD camcorders. Just to ensure any questions about DVD camcorders, I do not like them. The camcorders are expensive, the disc’s are expensive, they have slow start and record times, and often have formatting problems and quality problems when recording at a lower quality than best. The compatibility with the TV, computer and DVD is low, especially with the DVD-RAM discs. Almost no software is properly compatible with the DVD format. I’d wait about 2 years before buying a DVD camcorder anyway…So hopefully this will answer all questions about DVD, on to the review!


THE CAMCORDER BODY ( 11.5 / 15 )

When you first pick up the ZR85MC camcorder, you will see and feel the small size of the camcorder. It is noticeably smaller when compared to last years ZR models, (BTW, the ZR85 replaces the ZR65). It is easy to hold and has a comfortable hand strap. The front of the camcorder has the lens, which is fitted for 30mm attachments and filters. Below, there is the stereo microphone, and below that a hard piece of plastic covering the Firewire connection. Moving along the left side, there is the LCD screen and above that, the four stainless steel buttons that act as playback buttons when in VCR mode and act as other functions when in CAMERA mode. Some of functions include the focus control, Record/search modes etc… Toward the bottom/rear of the left side is the menu button plus the scroll wheel for navigating through the menu and selecting/adjusting features, like focus and exposure. I am happy Canon has placed the menu buttons outside the LCD screen so you don’t have to open the screen to navigate the menu, you can use the colour viewfinder instead. I wish the ZR85 had a manual focus ring around the lens because it is an important feature and makes focusing much easier. I don’t really like the scroll wheel because I find it difficult to use. I much prefer the Sony scroll wheel found on their Digital 8 and High8 models. The LCD screen is of decent quality, at 112,000 pixels, it provides a clear picture. I found it to be very red in colour at some times which was annoying. At the back of the camcorder, the battery is present, as well as the switch dial, which switches between CAMERA and VCR modes and features the record button. It also features the switch between manual and auto mode. On the right side, there is the hand strap and the switch to go between TAPE and MEMORY CARD when the camcorder is on CAMERA mode. TAPE mode is to record video to the tape, and the MEMORY CARD mode is to store pictures onto the memory card. The tape compartment is at the bottom, which I hate for use with a tripod; however, it is constructed out of metal, which is a good thing. I have liked Canon’s build quality in the past, and the ZR85 is no exception. Strong plastic is used and it is put together well. The ZR85 also features a cold shoe on the top of the camcorder for attaching self-powered lights.

THE IMAGING DEVICE AND ZOOOOOOM!!!! ( 11 / 15 )

The ZR85MC features a 1/6” CCD or CHARGED COULPLE DEVICE. The CCD takes light from the lens and converts it to a video signal with audio onto the MiniDV cassette. Now, I don’t like how manufactures continue to use smaller CCD’s in their camcorders, it worsens the quality of the video due to the reduced amount of light entering the CCD sensor. The reason manufactures do this is primarily to save money and make camcorders smaller. Eventually, they will design a small CCD with good lower light abilities. Unfortunately, this Canon model does not solve any problems with low light or indoor shooting. I’ll talk about that a little later. The Canon ZR85 can reach up to 510 lines of horizontal resolution. The ZR85 has an impressive 20x optical zoom to get right into your subject. I found the zoom control smooth, but sometimes the camcorder went out of focus at high optical zooms. Now, the digital zoom is a gimmick, especially a 400x digital zoom. DO NOT MAKE YOUR PURCHASE BASED ON DIGITAL ZOOM. If a salesman tells you this camcorder has good digital zoom so you should buy it, don’t listen to him, he obviously just wants to sell a camcorder. All digital zoom does is crop the image and blow it up, severely reducing quality. I just turn the digital zoom off. The ZR85 also features an image stabilizer, which works quite well in removing small camera shake, even at full zoom. The ZR85 features 680,000 pixels packed into that 1/6” CCD, but only 340,000 pixels (picture elements) are recorded to the tape. Why waste all those pixels you ask? Well, it has to do with the image stabilizer. That prevents camera shake when you zoom in or don't have a steady hand. Anyway, the way it works is the image stabilizer compensates for movement by shifting the image around in the CCD. So the camcorder uses those extra pixels, 340,000 to be exact, for the image stabilizer feature. That's why they call it electronic image stabilization. Take a look at this diagram I made for more information. Just take the link and paste it into your address bar...

http://img40.photobucket.com/albums/v124/camcorderman/Image_Stabilizer_diagram.jpg

Overall, the lens is good and the camcorder features great zoom and decent focusing.

PORTS ( 3 / 5 )

The Canon ZR85 features an A/V (audio/video) port for viewing on a TV, a USB port for transferring stills and a Firewire port for transferring video to the PC or MAC. The headphone port is also the A/V connecter, which you can switch in the menu. Now, the ZR85 does feature an analogue to digital conversion, which allows you to transfer old footage into digital. Click on this link for a diagram of the conversion process. Just take the link and paste it into your address bar...

http://img40.photobucket.com/albums/v124/camcorderman/Analigour_to_digital_converstion_chart.jpg

What I did not like is Canon has removed the S-Video connection for the ZR80 and ZR85, which is completely stupid. Even the lowest VHS-C model from JVC features an S-Video jack! S-Video gives better video quality when viewing on the TV. I think for a $700 camcorder, they should have included and S-Video port. BAD BAD CANON!!! It is also lacking an external microphone jack or powered accessory shoe so there is no way to increase sound quality. Although you can still connect to the TV with the traditional included A/V connections (RCA jacks) an S-video jack would have been nice!

VIDEO QUALITY AND LOWLIGHT / INDOOR SHOOTING ( 12 / 20 )

Although I haven’t been too impressed with the ZR85 so far, it did cheer me up when I saw the video quality. Outdoors that is…indoors in a different matter. I found the ZR85 had good colours, due to the high quality of the lens. At most times, the camcorder did produce good saturation of colours, they all looked like they should. I found however, that when you first turn the camcorder on, it takes longer then most camcorders to get the proper colours. At times I found the saturation had too much red, and other times it was under saturated. The good thing was, even though the camcorder has 680k with only a 1/6” CCD I couldn’t find any purple fringing (purple halos or lines around bright spots, like a light, or bright reflection) Overall, the camcorder produced good outdoor shooting. Indoors…. Well…Indoor shooting…. was…. ummmm…it was bad. Poor quality video graced my television when I played back my video taken in my living room with 2 normal tungsten lights on, which was enough for my TRV38 and well enough for my Pro PD170 (I should hope so!) The CCD on the ZR85 is way too small, not enough light can enter the lens. This results in a visible picture, but it is filled with grain and noise. It’s almost unwatchable at times. You must have good, good light in your house for decent quality on the ZR85. The ZR85 does feature a nightmode, but it is nothing like Sony’s Nightshot that uses infrared. The ZR85’s nightmode slows the shutter speed down to let more light into the lens. It’s kind of a gimmick cause it makes your video all choppy. Overall, I was pleased with the outdoor quality of the ZR85, but indoors…. Canon…. you have some work ahead of you!

SOUND ( 14 / 20 )

The sound from the ZR85 was good. I liked the quality of the audio, and the mic was able to pick up sound quite far away, which is it a good thing as well. The ZR85 records audio in 12 bit or 16bit audio (for you techie’s, 12bit is 32 KHz, and 16bit is 48 KHz sampling) 12 bit allows you to dub another sound track right on the camcorder, using the camcorders microphone, but I recommend recording in 16 bit audio, which is much better, CD quality audio. You will definitely hear a difference. If you want to add music, narration etc… you can use the computer with editing software to add it in. Plus, if you record onto the camcorder, you can’t remove it. I also found that the microphone picked up a lot of motor noise from the video heads, which is not good. You don’t want to be filming your child, and all you pick up is the wWWWHHHRRRRRRR sound. I did like however, that Canon has offered a wind cut feature that cuts out the crackly, whistling sounds when filming in windy conditions. I wish the Sony camcorders had that feature.

MANUAL CONTROL ( 8 / 10 )

Overall, the ZR85 has good manual controls. I liked how most of the manual controls were found on the body of the camcorder so I don’t need to fumble through the menu like the new Sony camcorders. There is a switch on the back part of the camcorder to change between auto and manual modes. I liked that feature, kind of like a digital camera. The focus and exposure controls are found on the body and you need to use the scroll wheel to adjust them. I really wish Canon has placed a manual focus ring, makes things so much easier! In the menu there is basic White Balance controls, which gives you proper colours in varying light conditions and also 10 levels of shutter speed. The shutter speed changes the amount of light entering the lens. A higher shutter speed lets less light in, meaning that is good for action video, like someone running or playing sports, it makes less blur. A lower shutter speed lets more light in, better for night use, but makes video choppy. The nightmode on the ZR85 is basically an extremely slow shutter speed. The camcorder also has program AE modes which has presents for different shooting conditions, like sand and snow, lowlight, sunlight, sports, portrait modes, etc… If you’re looking for manual IRIS and gain controls, this is not the camcorder for you, but overall, I liked the manual control found on the ZR85.

PLAYBACK ( 4 / 5 )

The playback on the ZR85 was good, the 4 stainless steel buttons acting as playback buttons (play, stop, rewind, fast forward) in VCR mode. The rewind speed was fast, but loud. I like how Canon has included a remote control, so it’s easier to watch your movies, you don’t have to jump up all the time to use playback controls. The remote can power everything on the camcorder, the menu the manual control…it’s more complicated than my Receiver remote control! To watch on your TV, just plug the A/V cable into your TV or VCR.

STILL QUALITY ( 4 / 5 )

Well, this is something that a lot of camcorders offer these days. Stills are stored on a memory card, in the ZR85’s case, a Secure Digital memory card (8mb included) You simply put the camcorder into CAMERA mode, and switch the little button on the top right side of the camcorder to the Memory card symbol. Then, press the photo button on the top of the camcorder near the zoom control to store the picture to the memory card. In memory mode, the camcorder can record stills up to 1024x760 quality, or XGA quality. I wouldn’t bother printing these stills; they are just good for emails and web sites. If you really want stills, buy a separate digital camera. Do not buy this camcorder for its still pictures. If you do want to print pictures however, this camcorder does support Pictbridge which is the new universal standard for printing right from you camcorder/digital camera into a Pictbridge enabled printer. If you want to grab a quick still picture and don’t want to switch between tape and card mode, you can take pics in tape mode as well and store them to the memory card, but only at VGA resolution (640x480) Overall, for a camcorder, the stills aren’t too bad. If you are planning to take lots of stills, get another memory card like 64 or 128mb size.

USB / FIREWIRE CONNECTIVITY / SOFTWARE INCLUDED ( 4 / 5 )

Let’s get one thing straight between firewire and USB. The USB transfer on the ZR85 is for pictures only, not for transferring video to the PC or MAC. The firewire connection (aka IEEE1934 and i.link) is for transferring video. USB is a much, much slower and poorer way of transferring video. With firewire, you transfer at a sustained 400 kilobytes a second, meaning you maintain full digital quality. The software included with the ZR85 is good for stills. You can organize and do basic editing. The camcorder also comes with DV Messenger, where you use the firewire connection to have the camcorder act as a web cam. To do any video editing, I recommend the Pinnacle Studio 9 DV Kit, it comes with a Firewire Card, cable and the easy to use Pinnacle Studio 9, which allows you to edit, add transitions, audio, titles, sound effects etc... to your movies. You can then burn them to a DVD or VCD or to the internet, save on the PC or back on the camcorders tape. If your more of a professional (like me) then I recommend Adobe Premiere Pro or, if you have a MAC, Final Cut Pro. I do caution however, you need 13 gigs for every hour of video, so make sure your Hard drive is big enough! (Probably 60-80 gigs)I do recommend video editing because it makes your movies a lot better and more fun, and you can burn to DVD and don’t have to use your camcorder playback. It’s the way of the future!

BATTERY LIFE ( 3 / 5 )

The Canon ZR85 comes with the Lithium-Ion BP-508 battery, which actually isn’t bad. It gives you about 1 hour 20 min using the LCD screen. Most camcorders usually don’t throw in such a good battery. Hell, my Pro PD170 only came with a 45 min battery, and that camcorder was $5000Cnd. Anyway, if you are going on vacation, or you use the camcorder a lot, I do recommend getting an extra battery. You have no idea how much you will use it. I recommend the 2-hour
BP-512 or the 5-hour BP-522.

IMPORTANT FEATURES / MY FAVOURITES ( 3 / 5 )

There are a couple of neat features that are put into this ZR85, like the skin detail feature which softens skin tones on close up details so things like pimples and blemishes don’t show up as well. I like the manual control on the Canon, I was really able to control quite a bit of features and the Program AE modes really came in handy and work well. I also liked the big zoom and the digital effects built into the camcorder. You should leave effects for the computer, but there were some cool ones like ball and square that made some cool effects. Last but not least is END SEARCH. This feature allows you to press a button and it will fastforward or rewind the tape to the last point you recorded on. This is great so you don't waste any tape or have any "Blue screens of death" intruding on your videos. Now, this feature only works with a tape that you are recording on. Almost any tape you buy will not have cassestte memory, so once you remove the tape, the feature will not work until you record on the same tape again. Now, if you have the more expensive tapes with cassestte memory, then you can use the END SEARCH feature anytime, your data will not be erased.

COMPARSIONS ( 3 / 5 )

The ZR85MC has the same image sensor and lens as the
still-less Canon ZR80 and higher end ZR90MC, so the same problem persists with the low light. Although the ZR90MC has a crappy little "Light" it does nothing, and it's range is very bad. It's more like an auto focus iluminator for stills instead of video. Some other better camcorders in this price range include the Panasonic GS9 or GS13, as well as the Sony HC20 and HC30. I am recommending these as an alternative stictly based on video quality...I find the Panasonic and Sony both offer better low light and outdoor shooting. Feature wise, they are all about the same with the ZR85, other than the lack of stills on some of the camcorders, namely the Panasonic GS9 and Sony HC20.

INCLUDED ACCESSORIES ( 4 / 5 )

These are the included accessories with the ZR85, it’s a pretty good bundle:

-AC adaptor
-Remote (with batteries)
-BP-508 Lithium-ion battery
-A/V cable (stereo sound)
-USB cable (for stills)
-Shoulder Strap, lens cap
-8mb SD Memory card

RECOMMENDED ACCESSORIES

These are the accessories I recommend that you will definitely need:

-Extra Battery (BP-512 or BP-522)
-tapes (duh!)
-lens protector (I highly, highly recommend this to protect the lens….they are about $15 Cnd and save you from $300 in repairs if the lens is damaged. They are worth it!)
-Carrying bag

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well, the Canon ZR85MC is a decent camcorder. It’s not a great camcorder by any means, I actually don’t like it as much as last years models. I find Canon has “degraded” their famous ZR series over the last couple of years, which is too bad. I liked the ease of use of the camcorder and all the features it had to offer, and although the camcorder features the great Canon Lens, it still needs help in the video quality area, especially indoors. I was NOT impressed with the indoor shooting capabilities and video often suffered from undersaturated images. I do still recommend this camcorder, but buy with caution and make sure you know what you’re going to be doing with the camcorder. If you have questions about this camcorder or other camcorders and digital cameras email me at jamesporemba@gmail.com. Make sure you read the review before emailing though, because I get a lot of questions that have already been answered in the review!

TOTAL SCORE : 84.5 / 120 = 71 %

converted to a score out of five : 3.5 / 5 = 71%



Thanks and HAPPY SHOOTING!

Review by: James Poremba