Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon ZR30MC Digital Camcorder with Built-in Digital Still Mode

I purchased a ZR-25 which is basically the same camera.
My satisfaction with the camera is overwhelming. I mainly bought it for our trip to Disney, boy did it work great! It fit in my fanny pack! Let's face camcorder facts, if it is to cumbersome to carry, ya just won't use it! This thing is tiny and the video is DVD quality! I cut 2 DVD's so far, and the video is superb! One complaint people have had with this camera is the poor indoor/low light capability. True, it is probably not as good indoors as the lower lux sony's, but I found that if you set the shutter speed to 1/60, the indoor video quality improved noticibly from poor, to acceptable. In the automatic GREEN mode, the shutter speed must be at 1/100 or 1/250 which doesn't allow in enough light in when indoors. The outdoor video is so crisp, I cannot believe it. I'm satisfied with image stabilization also. Some cameras have noticibly more, but this always ends up sacrificing total recorded screen resolution, and I think Cannon made the right choice. BUY IT, LOVE IT, USE IT!
Kev out.

I must apologize for my previous review of the Canon ZR30. The review was rather negative, but the problem was in my ignorance--not the camera.

I had complained that the recorded picture was too pixelated--That anything with hard edges was represented by over-sized wobbly digital blocks. This temporary problem, I since learned, resides in my iMovie editing software.

iMovie cannot reveal the true quality of the digital footage. It simplifies the images to save processing power for editing. After reading "iMovie: The Missing Manual", I learned that the only way to see the true glory of a digital camcoder's video is to hook it up to a real television using an S-Link connection. By the way, videos edited in iMovie WILL still look great, but only after you dump the project back to the camcoder and then play the resulting DV through a real television. Merely exporting to Quick Time doesn't do it justice.

Well, I finally tried the obvious and connected the ZR30 to my real television (duh?). It was a very pleasant surprise! Gone where the jagged pixels. The picture was very smooth--and I have a large screen to boot.

Probably the main difference between the look of my footage and pro footage is in the lighting. Don't forget, real TV shows are shot under perfectly manufactured lighting conditions. My stuff shot in my house looks like... well... my dark house.

I still find that the ZR30 requires more tweaking than my older Sony TRV did. The Sony was really idiot proof: Hit the red button to record. While the ZR30 does offer automatic modes, I don't feel that they work as well. On the other hand, you can manually adjust many of the parameters and get better results that way.

The image stabling is of the optical variety. It's great because it doesn't interfere with the picture quality. It doesn't respond to bumps quite as quickly as electronic types, though, so some jerking still gets through. Just leave it on and try to be careful.

I'm feeling really happy with my ZR30 now. Sorry if I mislead anybody with the previous review

I have thoroughly enjoyed using my new Camcorder. The picture quality is excellent, and the still shots are good also, though less than photo quality.

I did a lot of research and finally decided to get the ZR30 camcaorder. I've been VERY happy with the results.

Great design, very small, still pics, digital, and all other features are great!

The only thing that is a "little bad" is the low light isn't that great. Just turn a light on and seemed to be fine.

Highly Recommended!

Despite advances in the consumer home-video field, it seems one area where we are still in the Commodore64 age.

The specs are higher than they were for older analog models, but the actual resulting picture quality is only slightly better when conditions are perfect. Imperfect conditions can result in picture quality that is worse than that of analog camcorders.

The CanonZR30MC tries to digitally sharpen data-compressed images. The result can be frustrating. If you have ever seen TV shows where they mask faces with that pixel effect, you get the idea. Obviously, the ZR30MC doesn't do it as severly, but it is very noticable.

Because of this, you have to be very careful to shoot images without too much color contrast. Straight diagonal lines also present a problem.

The image stabilizer is subtle. You'll only notice an improvement when zoomed-in tight.

On the good side, the audio is very good. It can record loud live music without distortion. This camcorder also works well with iMovie software (connecting cable sold seperately $20).

Basically, if you can shoot under ideal conditions, the CanonZR30MC provides good picture quality and very good sound. Under less-than-ideal situations (which is often if you don't record in a Hollywood studio), the camcorder leaves too many annoying artifacts in the picture. The softer image of an analog camcorder can look more natural than the mosaic look this camcorder often gives.

Give this field a few more years and I think we'll see much better products coming out. It still has a way to go.