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Canon Elura 50 Ultra Compact MiniDV Camcorder with 2"LCD and Memory Capability

See it at Amazon.com for $799.99

Average Customer Rating
(3.0 out of 5)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

DO NOT BUY

(1 out of 5) by Leila Worthy on Jan 5, 2007 (DC)
I too experienced the "eject tape" error. Canon has repaired the camcorder 3 times at no cost, but of course it was being repaired over all the holidays. Do yourself a favor and buy something else.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

eject tape problems

(1 out of 5) by Donald A. Presley Pa on May 30, 2005
my newly repaired (at a cost of half new cost) has died once again.
customer service is a joke. i would NOT rec. this or any other product by canon. as a side note, i have a canon digital camera that showed a strange error message. canon estimated the repair to cost quite a bit, but after searching online i found you only had to hit the case to fix the shutter problem. canon never informed me of this............

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

I miss my Elura 50

(5 out of 5) by GeneTic on Jul 25, 2006
Hi folks, I've owned my Elura 50 for two years and recently dropped it in the mountains and killed it...

I've looked around for a replacement and to my disappointment found out that Canon did not come up with a "new" version or another vertical camcorder to replace E50. So I turned to other manufacturers in hope of finding something equally small and of good quality.

There is nothing out there that compares to Elura 50.

The features I look for: must be very small and vertical - must have low/night shooting capability - quality recording.

The closest size-wise was Sony Pc55, unfortunatelly its video quality was awful and it lacked indoor / low light capability.

The next was Sony Pc109. Sony claimed they managed to produce such small camera by shifting some functions onto an included docking station. Well, Elura 50 was smaller with all those and other functions right on board! Pc109 hardly fit in my hand, was very awkward to handle and lacked many features.

Elura 50 is still THE SMALLEST camcorder around. It is excellently designed. It fits perfectly in your hand. All features are VERY easily accessed with your thumb.

I love the vertical design of Elura 50 and can't imagine going back to standard "horizontal" cameras.

Video quality was excellent. Night shooting on Mexican zocalos produced fabulous video footage of night-life (in full color). I'm not sure about the quality of still pictures as I never took any.

Microphone location was excellent: it was on top of the camcorder allowing user to comment on footage with a whisper. Sound was excellent, picking up everything, distant and close up.

Special effects galore! Plenty of all kinds of neat effect you can apply to your footage (way more than in Sony).

All connections (s-video, firewire, a/v out, power etc) were all built into the camera - with no need for additional docking stations.

All that being said, there were some issues with the camera:

The CCD sensor was replaced by canon past warranty period when it was determined to be at fault (The CCD manufacturer who supplies Canon and Sony and others, released a CCD that broke, affecting many brands of camcorders).

Battery life was rather poor delivering only about 50 minutes of footage, fortunately batteries are small and carrying spares was no problem.

My advise to anyone seeking a digital video camcorder that is small and delivers good quality footage: get an Elura 50 while it is still available from some retailers. Nothing else compares. Pay with a credit card that doubles the warranty period.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

I own it sice 2002 and is working perfect!

(4 out of 5) by Alessandro Rossi on Jan 20, 2006 (Las Vegas, NV USA)
I bought this camera on 2002 and today is still working good, I never had a problem!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Be Warned...

(1 out of 5) by W. Schmidt on Mar 11, 2005 (Neptune Beach, FL USA)
This is my first review ever on a product. I'm not doing this to burn Canon or anyone else, I simply believe this product has a manufacturing flaw and everyone should know before buying it.

I bought this camera last year on 1/26/04. On Sunday, 1/31/05 (this past Sunday) I started getting the infamous "Eject Cassette Tape" error while on vacation in Hawaii (5 days after the warranty expired). Not only does this error cause the camera to keep popping the tape out but it does something to the time code on the tape itself resulting in total loss of your tape.

I never saw this problem when I researched the camera but now there are more then 20000 posts online regarding this. This simply can't be coincidence and I believe the product has a serious technical flaw that Canon is VERY unwilling to acknowledge. I spoke with Canon yesterday and they want me to pay $145 labor + parts for what they believe to be a "misaligned head" due to excess use. I have used this camera for a grand total of 6 hours. Sorry Canon, I'm putting my $300+ dollars into another brand of camcorder. I've had a good experience in the past with Canon but this one is going out the window of my 18th floor hotel room. I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER CANON PRODUCT AGAIN. Goodbye.