Rating: 
Summary: be prepared for its tape noise
Review: First when I got the camera (I purchased from online), I kind of like it. Very compact. It does not come with DV tape and I purchased one from local store. Once I load the tape and I heard the noise that the tape is rotating even without making any videos. I called Canon customer support and described the noise and was told it is like that and nothing particularly wrong with the one I got. When I told the custmoer representative that the camcorder my friend purchased from Sony does not seem have such problem and that guy simply replies 'OK'. Make me feel that since you chose Canon, you have to live with our problem. By the way, before I made the purchase, I read quite a few reviews about Canon poor customer services. Now I understood.Regarding the SD card loaded with a lot of 'wallpaper'-like pictured as decscribed by the first reviewer, you can delete them. Thoese pictures are just protected, You can unprotect the pictures first and it will allow you to delete. But I suggest that you copy those pictures to your computer first before you do anything. Those are very nice background and you can use them as a frame, background for your pictures when you edit later on.
Rating: 
Summary: One mechanical feature un-reliable
Review: Have this brand new Canon ZR85 for about 3 weeks. All satisfaction so far except 1 serious mechanical feature. Explain below:
This camcorder is for making movie, that means "move" (not still). The tape is for 1 hour, that means need to mount on something that move rather than to hold steady by hand and move arround to capture movie for that whole hour.
I mount the camcorder on a swivel head from Bogen-Manfrotto, and the swivel head mount on my bicycle. I ride the bike on fairly good pave road with little road vibration to record scenery for several hours.
Turn out that the camcorder mounting base is made out of non-metal (plastic) can not take vibration and the thread become damage. Is this considered that user's abusing or manufacturer false to not design carefully for the "mov"ie device?
I have to turn myself to become a "tripod" now since my ZR85 has no longer usable mounting base.
Rating: 
Summary: Great camera
Review: I agree with the 12 year old. I have used this camera for three weeks and think it is just great. I have been to two birthday parties indoors and the lighting was great,I used video and still pictures. I love that it is so quick and easy to go back and forth between the two.I have also used it in a Butterfly Museum and the pictures were so true to color that my friends want copies sent to thier computers.When I first bought this I was just looking for a plan digital camera and I'm so pleased that I chose this instead.When I bought it my children and I (ages 12 and 15)took a tape and the book and learned how to use it and tried every feature indoors and out and had such a good time and now we know how to use it.I suggest to the people who didn't read the book to go and open it and learn something.We think it great and will let our friends that are looking to buy a camera to give it a try. Also a great price for the features.
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: I am really surprised by these other reviews on lighting. When shooting in the dark I used the night mode button and it allowed me to take great footage in the dark. I also found the DV Messager software to be extremely user-friendly. It allowed me to import my footage for editing (gotta love Final Cut Pro). Overall I think it is a great buy for the buck.
Rating: 
Summary: very poor camcorder, try to avoid this one
Review: I got this as christmas gift, and used it mostly indoors, sometime at night, for the past month. The still pictures came out very bad. That doesn't bother me much since I have digital cameras. However, this camera is very poor indoors, even with the night mode, the video came with very high background, color granules everywhere. it is much worse than the old miniDV I have, a Sharp model I got in 2001, which is very bulky but has been very reliable. I made two DVD side by side, and the one with Canon looks horrible. Outdoor shots are fair, but many occasions I have to take shots indoor or at night. I would go with other models if possible.
Rating:
Summary: Great little Cam.
Review: I had my concers at first about this cam. I've read in several places that the stil pic quality wasn't good, and that the quality of the film was poor in low light. Well I'm glad to say that I have not had those problems at all. There are all sorts of tweaks that you can do with the cam that will make it look great in most places. I've had the cam for about a week now and both the Wife and I find it very easy to use!
Rating:
Summary: All these other reviews are crap!!!!
Review: I was looking to upgrade from my VHS-C to the Mini DV format since it is supposed to be much better, but believe that it was a big mistake getting this camcorder. To me the quality isn't much better than older formats and nothing to gawk about in awe as some may have you think. I will probably be using my VHS-C until it breaks now that I have seen this Mini DV format in action and how horrible it can be. In this review I would like to talk about why this camcorder is so bad. PROBLEM #1: VIDEO QUALITY IN LOW LIGHT AND INDOORS This camcorder records video that is absolutely horrendous in low light and indoors. My 3 year old Panasonic VHS-C is absolutely leaps and bounds above this camcorder indoors and outside at night time as far as quality is concerned. The picture quality is so bad that it is not even worth trying to watch unless you want a headache. The night mode that the camcorder has does absolutely nothing except slow the shutter speed down to the point where everything looks like distorted robot movement. As another reviewer stated I can not stress how bad the quality of low light and indoor video is on this camcorder but heres some comparisons. Old 8mm camcorders (the kind you view with a projector remember these) look 100 times better than the ZR85 as far as quality is concerned in these situations. My digital camera and VHS-C camcorder look like a Hollywood film production compared to the ZR85. Basically think in you're worst imagination what it can look like and then multiply those bad thoughts by 1000 to get a clear picture of how bad it is. This was not the fault of the lighting in my house or outdoors where I was recording, I tried using streetlights, LED flashlights, a 2.25million candlepower spotlight, halogen flashlights, my backyard 500 watt floodlight, all the lights in the house on, all the lights in the house off, etc and in every situation the video quality was pure garbage. I tried changing settings on the camcorder to improve it such as the low light setting, night mode, changing the white balance, shutter speed, etc, no improvement there either. I even went to the store and bought the light that mounts to the top of the camcorder and tried with that on and no improvement there either. The picture is so dark that even under any of these lighting conditions you can't see anything with clarity. I did have two other people with me at the same time recording with my digital camera and VHS-C and both of those were hugely better than the ZR85. PROBLEM #2: OUTDOOR PICTURE QUALITY I wasn't too impressed with the outdoor picture quality of this camcorder either. This was my first attempt at a Mini DV camcorder and I was expecting a big improvement over VHS-C but as it turns out they look about the same to me on a 36" tv. The outdoor quality is much much better than indoor however. PROBLEM #3: BATTERY LIFE I'm not sure how canon rates it's battery life or how others got more than me but the battery life is unacceptable on this camcorder. Using the LCD I got around 30 minutes before the thing was dead, with the viewfinder about 40 minutes, that is ridiculous.
RECOMMENDATION As far as good things there really were none that I can think of about this camcorder compared to others I looked at in the store, and I'm hoping the store I bought it from will let me return it or exchange it even if I have to pay a restocking fee it's worth it to me. If you are looking for a Mini DV camcorder and want to occasionally shoot video indoors or at night I would recommend straying far away from this POS. I haven't tried any other models yet but I don't believe that any of them can be as bad as this thing. I may try one of the other brands with night vision before sticking to VHS-C but as of yet I haven't been convinced that Mini DV is worth changing to.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst camcorder i've ever owned!
Review: I was looking to upgrade from my VHS-C to the Mini DV format since it is supposed to be much better, but believe that it was a big mistake getting this camcorder. To me the quality isn't much better than older formats and nothing to gawk about in awe as some may have you think. I will probably be using my VHS-C until it breaks now that I have seen this Mini DV format in action and how horrible it can be. In this review I would like to talk about why this camcorder is so bad. PROBLEM #1: VIDEO QUALITY IN LOW LIGHT AND INDOORS This camcorder records video that is absolutely horrendous in low light and indoors. My 3 year old Panasonic VHS-C is absolutely leaps and bounds above this camcorder indoors and outside at night time as far as quality is concerned. The picture quality is so bad that it is not even worth trying to watch unless you want a headache. The night mode that the camcorder has does absolutely nothing except slow the shutter speed down to the point where everything looks like distorted robot movement. As another reviewer stated I can not stress how bad the quality of low light and indoor video is on this camcorder but heres some comparisons. Old 8mm camcorders (the kind you view with a projector remember these) look 100 times better than the ZR85 as far as quality is concerned in these situations. My digital camera and VHS-C camcorder look like a Hollywood film production compared to the ZR85. Basically think in you're worst imagination what it can look like and then multiply those bad thoughts by 1000 to get a clear picture of how bad it is. This was not the fault of the lighting in my house or outdoors where I was recording, I tried using streetlights, LED flashlights, a 2.25million candlepower spotlight, halogen flashlights, my backyard 500 watt floodlight, all the lights in the house on, all the lights in the house off, etc and in every situation the video quality was pure garbage. I tried changing settings on the camcorder to improve it such as the low light setting, night mode, changing the white balance, shutter speed, etc, no improvement there either. I even went to the store and bought the light that mounts to the top of the camcorder and tried with that on and no improvement there either. The picture is so dark that even under any of these lighting conditions you can't see anything with clarity. I did have two other people with me at the same time recording with my digital camera and VHS-C and both of those were hugely better than the ZR85. PROBLEM #2: OUTDOOR PICTURE QUALITY I wasn't too impressed with the outdoor picture quality of this camcorder either. This was my first attempt at a Mini DV camcorder and I was expecting a big improvement over VHS-C but as it turns out they look about the same to me on a 36" tv. The outdoor quality is much much better than indoor however. PROBLEM #3: BATTERY LIFE I'm not sure how canon rates it's battery life or how others got more than me but the battery life is unacceptable on this camcorder. Using the LCD I got around 30 minutes before the thing was dead, with the viewfinder about 40 minutes, that is ridiculous.
RECOMMENDATION As far as good things there really were none that I can think of about this camcorder compared to others I looked at in the store, and I'm hoping the store I bought it from will let me return it or exchange it even if I have to pay a restocking fee it's worth it to me. If you are looking for a Mini DV camcorder and want to occasionally shoot video indoors or at night I would recommend straying far away from this POS. I haven't tried any other models yet but I don't believe that any of them can be as bad as this thing. I may try one of the other brands with night vision before sticking to VHS-C but as of yet I haven't been convinced that Mini DV is worth changing to.
Rating:
Summary: Great Camcorder
Review: My husband and I purchased the Canon ZR85 MiniDV Camcorder about a week ago in preperation for the birth of our first child in April. We were either going to go with this camcorder, or purchase a Sony camcorder. We thought long and hard in the store, and we really believe that this is a much better camera. Not to say bad things about Sony, but their camcorder only had a 10x optical zoom, while the Canon ZR85 has a 20x optical zoom. The picture quality also seemed to look better on the Canon camcorder. When you are moving the camera from side-to-side the image on the LCD display kind of floats. It was much more jerky with the Sony. We absolutley love this camera. We had fun taking pictures with the still shot last night and I e-mailed them to a friend of mine that I haven't seen in years. The quality of the pictures is excellent. But as with any digital camera, printing the images out on a photo printer might not look as good as on the LCD display or on your computer screen. I do not know, because we do not have a photo printer or plan to get one. But for e-mailing pictures to friends on the computer, I can testify that this camcorder takes beautiful pictures. I even saved one of the pictures to the desktop on my computer, and I swear it looks like a magazine photo. My husband and I were surprised how good the pictures look. We didn't buy the camcorder for the still shot feature, but we love it now and are so happy this camcorder can take digital pictures. The video quality is excellent as well. We haven't done much filming yet, just playing around the house with it. But we have hooked it up to the TV to watch what we have recorded and it looks even better on TV than on the LCD screen when you were taping. The image is very steady, clear, and crisp. Colors look amazing. My old maroon/auburn couch really came to life when taping. It looks better recorded than it does in person. I love the zoom, it is amazing how far away you can see with this thing. I also love how it self-adjusts. You can look at a bright window and the camera will focus and adjust the lighting, then you can turn away from that window and look at a dark corner and it will quickly re-adjust. It's really awesome. We are very pleased with this camcorder. The only thing we are unhappy about is the memory card that was included with the camera is very small and canon put a lot of trash pictures that look like wrapping-paper on it that you cannot delete. This takes up almost all of the memory space on the card, only leaving you with enough room for about 10 or 15 pictures. But no biggie. That is the only complaint that we have, and that is such a nothing-problem. We plan to buy a bigger memory card anyway, so that we can take more still pictures. This camcorder is really great. Make sure you purchase a bigger battery, but that goes for any camcorder. You will love this camcorder.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to use, nice images, but I've had a couple of problems
Review: The camera is very easy to use, and is small and handy. It has more functions than you'd really want in such a camera -- if you are ever going to do something with the footage you will be using a computer and an editing program, so you don't really need the editing modes on the camera. Still, there's no complaint here, and it's flexible enough for most users.
My only complaint is that for some reason on my camera when I flipped the lcd viewer around to see from the front the image didn't rotate. I know it's supposed to do this, and it did it with the model at the store. Or: when I closed the lcd viewer with it flipped around the image shut off and I couldn't see it anymore. I'm assuming this had to do with a bad wire. But, I had no problem returning it to get a new one, so this wasn't a huge problem, only inconvenient.
All in all I would say that this is a solid entry-level camcorder, that is fairly priced and easy to use.
| 
