Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon ZR20 Digital Camcorder

This camera is a great value for your dollar. I have taken along time in shopping around and this one is the best value. Not to mention the quality is excellant. Someone in another review mentioned they had problems with this camera in low-light situations. I primarily use this camera to record live bands and I have had no such problems. The quality was great. As well, if you like there is a low-light filter that opens up the shutter wider. Unfortunatly, some blurring occurs with this filter on. However, it looks kinda cool. I would definitly recommend this camera if you are looking for a more affordable, quality camera.

The Canon ZR20 is a Digital MiniDV camcorder with a 2.5" LCD and a color viewfinder.

Zoom And Image Stabilizer

The camcorder has 10x optical zoom and 200x digital zoom. The image is not shaky at high magnification levels, since the camera is equipped with a digital stabilizer.

Picture

The camcorder records video and still pictures. The still pictures can be recorded on a MiniDV tape and one tape can hold around 700 still pictures. The picture quality (the CCD has 460,000 pixels) in the video mode is very good with low noise level.

Sound

The camcorder has a stereo microphone and a built-in speaker. The microphone input allows you connect an external microphone. You can select between 12- and 16-bit recording.

Features

The camcorder comes with a Li-Ion battery, A/V cable, S-Video cable, power adapter, battery, remote and a shoulder strap. There are several AE modes, including fully automatic "Easy Recording".

But in addition to automatic settings (focus, white balance, etc.), you can manually adjust focus, white balance, shutter speed, exposure (AE Shift). The camcorder allows you apply faders and digital effects and has widescreen mode.

It also features FireWire (i.Link, IEEE1394) jack, so you can connect it to another digital camcorder, MiniDV VCR or a computer for editing or making a copy. The remote control allows you search for still pictures on the tape using Data Code recorded during the shooting.

The camcorder features both composite and an S-Video inputs/outs and LANC editing terminal. The timer allows to perform recordings at predefined time. There is a Low Light recording capability (low shutter speed and high exposure time).

Remote

Unlike entry-level digital camcorders from Panasonic, the wireless remote control is included here.

Bottom Line

The ZR20 is a nice camcorder with good feature set. But the menu system is unnecessary complicated and the Canon camcorders are not among the most reliable (unlike Panasonic ones).

I've looked for a good DV camcorder to replace my old Hi8 camcorder. We need it to be compact to fit into one palm, and have image stablization. We also need it to have analog input to transfer old video. Some of the higher-end model have low-resolution digital camera capability, which is useless to us since we already had high-resolution digital camera. We tried to avoid spending extra money to pay features we don't need, and it leads us to Canon ZR20. Well, what a great buy! We spend less than our old Hi8 camcorder, and got a 3X better camcorder! The picture quality is super, the sound is great! ( I don't have the issue described by another reviewer.) Right after recording, we can also playback the video with sound on this tiny camcorder. All my families just enjoy playing with this new toy and have a wonderful time together. Highly recommended!

The small size of the ZR20 left everything compact...however Canon chose to place the microphone directly in front of the misplaced video heads (the tapes load from the bottom of the camcorder...a difficult task if you use a tripod). The result...a 'humming' noise so loud that you wont hear your daughter's piano recital from the back of the room, but just the buzzing of your camera. For users who want audio they can hear, skip the ZR20 until Canon fixes the problem.

I would like to take this time and give my input about the Canon ZR 20 MiniDV. First off let me say that the size of this thing amazes me enabling me to fit it in my pants pocket (compared to my old vhs). There aren't that many high end features on this but for the basic everyday recording this is an excellent camera. Be aware that this DOES NOT have NIGHT VISION if you want it purchase the ZR-40 series. I purchased this at the [store] that sells mac computers. It cost me [money] and for [the same amount] at [a different store] i could have got the ZR-40 but they were out :(. Overall i really do like this camera not overpowered with features but does the job well (my first canon camera). From now on i'll stick with them in the future (Much better than JVC and SONY). Down the road I'll upgrade my pc to firewire for video editing, that looks pretty fun. But if yourlooking for a good quality camera with a GLASS lens not plastic like the others and something stylish and small than go with any of the Canon ZR Series (10,20,25mc,30mc,40,45mc,50,50mc)

Hope this Helped in your camera buying experience!