Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon ES8400V Hi8 Camcorder with 2.5" Color LCD Screen & Image Stabilizer

Its light, simple to use, and the picture quality is excellent. For under $300 this is a great piece of technology. Forget Digital, its not worth the price and hipe. They record on magnetic tape also, (surprized?) but offer you the option of PC editing. Big deal. Are you really going to go through all of that fuss? Sure Digital gives you a TAD more sharpness, but unless you are a fanatic, and you are not if you are browsing Hi 8 camcorders, go with this model. I have had many a Sony product break down after a year or less, so I don't even look at Sony. Canon makes wonderful cameras, and great lens for the photo industry. The camera is very well thought out and easy to use. My 80 year old mother taped me making a pizza and it came out great. I had my bestgirl go for a ride practice with it and she came back with a respectiable 20 minute video, that was really quite funny, after only a 3 minute lesson on operation.
The Digital zoom takes over automaticly when you reach the limit of the optical zoom, and like any other digital zoom quality goes down when you reach way out there. The first 1/3 of the digital zoom is still not bad at all. I like the seconds counter in the viewfinder, it helps you cut your take so your movies are not boring, it counts up to 10 seconds.
I used to make serious amature movies, and this camera and its features rival the professional film camera I used to use. The fade feature is very nice. You will not be disapointed with this model. The viewfinder is B/W, not a big deal, as you trade this off for features that are useful, as comparied to the next level down that has a color view finder but does not have a LCD display. That feature (LCD View screen) is really nice to shot things with out looking in the viewfinder. Hard to see in sunny outdoors, but very handy. And you don't need a battery hogging large screen. As you can see I am sold on this Camcorder, its my first Canon Product and I think its well designed and well made.

I don't claim to be any type of expert on camcorders (and this is my first) but I was really surprised just how great a unit the Canon ES8400V is! I was shooting video within five minutes of opening the box! It's that easy. But don't let it's ease of use detract from it's capabilities because this little guy (yes, it's small) has an array of high-end features, bells and whistles too for those who want to go there. I truly cannot recommend it highly enough! I gave it the full 5 Stars because I really couldn't think of anything negative to say about it.

This camcorder is great.It has image stabilization witch helps alot.The flip out screen is big enough to watch what you recorded.Highly reccomended.

Excellent first camcorder. Bought it and in ten minutes I was recording and reviewing the tape of my first born child.

Amazing 800x digital zoom, 22X optical, and image stability. If you are not looking to be a motion picture director and need a great video recorder that works with all the basic features, get this Canon. The price is really nice too.

I love the light on the right side of the camcorder as well, it improves the picture greatly. As an IT professor I know that the industry tries to "sell" the high cost of some products when most camcorders are not used professionally but used by non-pros for personal use.

The reason for not giving the product five stars, well, there is no such thing as a perfect product.

I had bought a ES2000 model (very first model in Hi8 - 6 Years ago) and I like it. Accidentally, I had dropped it and called the Customer Service (luckily, it was just before the 1 year warranty expiry). They were very nice and they adviced me to take it to a local repair center. Found out that the motor was damaged and got it repaired within 20 Days. I was using it after that and it didn't give any problem for a long time after that. I have adviced my friends and they like this model.

Now, I recently bought the OPTURA 100MC camcorder, as I wanted to burn DVD/VCD and get digital quality.

If you want a cheaper camcorder, this is good. If you are willing to pay some $$, Optura 200MC (Recently released) is good. Compared to Sony, far cheaper and better quality.