Camcorder Reviews

I recommend NOT to purchase this item. Look for another one.
The lens itself seems ok, although I can't really say, but the adapter which is built in to the lens is shoddy and cumbersome and ruins the the whole deal. The adapter is a quick release type where one end attaches to the camera and the lens simply snaps in, or is quickly released. This would be great, except for two very important things. One, the lens fits very loosely in the quick release adapter. This causes some MAJOR distortion, especially when moving. Two, the housing is made of thin plastic which does not seem very durable. In fact it is so cheaply thin that I am afraid to leave it in my car because the heat may distort the plastic. One drop, even a small one, and it is done for.

I don't know if three is an accurate rating but almost all of my indoor pictures are dark. I have to be three feet or less to get a good picture. Are all cameras like this?

Otherwise I am completely satisfied with the camera LJM

I have purchased this particular camera due to its ability to record images to the floppy disk. I traveled across the country by bicycle and uploaded pictures from public libraries along the way, where computers would not allow to install software and have USB port, but always had available floppy drives. This worked very well!

The camera showed amazing performance in representing the colors in its pictures. Focus was always good, images were clear and beautiful. Macro mode worked extremely well. Camera is reliable and battery life is superb.
With 1.3 Mega Pixels, images are perfect for computer use or make print outs of standard size.

Shutter delay makes it difficult to shot moving objects unless you are used to guessing the right moment. Sensitivity in dark conditions was very low, on automatic mode at least. I don't know if adjusting white balance or exposure compensation would improve the sensitivity. I always found automatically taken pictures to be of best quality.
If there is a need to use the MAJOR feature of the Sony MVC FD 100 function - floppy drive, then this is the excellent choice.
FD 200 that replaced 100 in 2003 offers 2.0 Mega Pixels Matrix with identical features.

Here are few sample pictures taken with this camera:

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/mikhail4/travel8/flower_after_rain_macro.jpg

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/mikhail4/travel8/sunset_on_trans_canada.jpg

http://www.angelfire.com/linux/mikhail5/travel11/nice_mushroom.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/pont331/clouds_ahead.jpg

All in all, this camera provided exceptional service and I recommend it to anyone that needs to use its ability to save images on floppy disks.

I bought my Mavica as my first digital camera and have never been disappointed with it. It has travelled everywhere with me and has taken many awesome pictures. It was very easy to learn to use and the manual for it is well written and understandable.
I'm just now getting around to getting a memory stick for it so that I can record my photos as TIFFs. I suspect that after I use that, I will love it even more.
I have learned everything that I know about digital photography with my Mavica by my side. I learned how to set white balance, ISO speed, and spot metering easily and quickly. I would love to have a camera with a bigger resolution and a smaller size, but my Mavica takes such beautiful pictures that I'm not going to replace it.
I use it mostly to take pictures of my daughter and her classmates. The individual pictures taken indoors in UV light with a flash are amazing. In fact, after her class Christmas party (2003) they were so good that I printed them onto photo fabric and made the teacher a scarf with pictures of the children.
I love this camera and have been VERY happy with it. I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

I bought this camera in January 2006. Used it for about 2 weeks and the shutter started sticking, opening occasionally, then not at all. Exchanged it hoping it was just that camera. Now I'm taking the second camera back 4 months later, it started in with shutter problems, not opening again. I thought maybe it was related to battery life...so today I went on an event, the camera was on the charger all night, battery shows full, took one photo and when I turn the camera off, it doesn't close or sticks half closed. Now I'm back to the store where I purchased it, don't know if I can get another brand camera or if I'll be on #3. I love the camera other than that aspect of it. Don't know if I'd recommend it to anyone else, I am VERY disappointed with it.

I had it repaired within 1st month bought it. The image was distorted, and there are many dark horizontal lines through. The service center was prompted though, they told me something wrong with the lens barrel, and had it fixed on the same day. But then 1 month after the repair, similar problem came back. There are many dark horizontal lines, and image is over-exposed. I'm gonna send in for another repair soon. Although the features are good, I don't think the quality is good, especially there are a lot of image noise when taking pictures in the dark. Also, it's quite noisy when you zoom in and out. The image is quite blur at night.

I am very happy with my camera. Is so beautiful and tiny. Also takes very nice pictures even though is so tiny.

What I like: this camcorder is lightweight, great for movies & pictures. Easy to use. I've taken it on vacations and it works great in all weather conditions, overly sunny, rainy, fog, snow, and heavy winds. It's fair for indoor action as well. I'm the worst person for handling camcorders, I usually shake the picture making everyone dizzy. Using this camcorder, I've noticed there is less shake to my pictures.

What I don't like: the night shot is not good for low light, but it works fairly clearly in no light. The "easy" button doesnt quite make things easier. There is not very much battery time, but it is offset by the fact that the tape only goes about 30 minutes.

I found it very easy to use. the resolution is great for home use.
The Picture packge software worked as advertised, but when I shut the computer down, it hung with an error. According to the manufacturer of the software, they do not know if there is a conflict when using MS Windows XP media center OS. It worked fine with windows XP professional OS.

I've purchased this camcorder a month ago and it was one of the best buys in my whole life.
Movie quality is better than you could expect (at least beeing an amateur like me).
Still quality is not so good. I saw digital images taken using a digital camera and colours are much vivid than dcr-dvd203 (remember you are purchasing a camcorder)
Easy to use: 10. I had never used a camcorder before and this camcorder is EXTREMELY easy to use. Even without using the "EASY" button.

Pros: Easy to use, good movie quality, 2.7" LCD, Color Viewfinder, TouchScreen, SuperNightShot, DVD recording format.

Cont: No manual functions, can't record movies AND take pictures at the same time, poor still quality in low light spaces, just 30' to 45' using the battery supplied.

I own any number of Canon products (printer, film camera, Rebel XT, Powershot A40...), and I'm done. Their business model is just set up so that you just have to keep on buying, and it's driving me nuts (for example, the printer only works well if you use the premium Canon paper, and it has 6 ink tanks, only 3 of which I can ever find in the stores, so I'm forced to buy extra inks that I don't need in a "pack" so that I can get the photo cyan that I actually need -- at a cost of $70. Next time, I'm just buying a new printer. The A40 was ok, but is now broken (just this morning I was considering buying the A60 as a replacement, but when I found out that I still need to buy a whole bunch of stuff to get the video I took onto my computer, I decided I'm going with Nikon.)).

For the camcorder, the whole purpose of buying a DIGITAL camcorder was so that I could transfer to the computer, edit, burn to disk, etc., without having analog loss issues. I've read as much as I could, but NO WHERE did I see that if you don't have a firewire connection or a special video card, you can't transfer with this camera. I actually have the video card, but it stinks (which is why I wanted to upgrade from my existing analog camcorder to a digital one), so you end up with a horrible transferred picture. The included USB cable, as well as the "DIGITAL VIDEO SOLUTIONS" disk are not for VIDEO solutions or transfers, they are for STILL IMAGE transfers (of the 48 pages in the "video" solutions software manual, only 5 relate to "video" transfers -- they deal with how to install the driver, and are for the Optura 60 and 500 only -- the rest is dedicated to the relatively useless still image functions, how to download those, use direct print or something, etc.). How the frig' someone can sell a DIGITAL VIDEO device with NO means of transferring to a computer or doing anything with the video is beyond me (even if you do have a firewire connection, they don't include the firewire cable). Note that the Optura 60 includes all the same cables, etc., that the Optura 50 has, but for some reason video transfer with the (same) included cables is enabled for the Optura 60, but NOT for the Optura 50. I was already on the fence about getting the 60 or not, and had I known I might have picked up the 60 instead. But now I'm just stuck.

The main reason I went with the Optura line is that, all else being equal, it takes the same batteries as the XT, and I already had two of those batteries, with a portable charger. So now I have three, which was convenient on our recent trip. Of course, the $50 I saved on being able to use my extra batteries is going to be more than eaten up by having to buy/install a firewire card and cable, as well as having to buy video editing software. I'm not looking for anything fancy, just something basic to capture the video and let me burn it to a DVD. But Canon doesn't even include that.

As to the merits of the camera itself, with the exception of trying to get the video to some other device, it is pretty easy to use. I can't speak to the quality of the video just yet -- I've spent most of our first day back trying to figure out how to get the video to the computer, and then went nuts when I realized that I just can't with my current configuration and what they include. Most reviews I read before purchase said the zoom range wasn't that great, but it wasn't that bad, either. I tend to disagree -- I really would have liked a little extra room on the wide range in particular -- filming family (young kids) on the trip I found myself continually having to back up to fill them all in the frame (admittedly, they are young kids, so they were getting pretty close -- if you have a more compliant subject this may not be an issue). In keeping with their business model, though, you could get a wide angle attachment for "only" $120. One of the function buttons gets hidden by the screen if you tilt it -- a pretty stupid design, since most people hold the camcorder slightly below eye level, and tilt the screen, and that's when the button is blocked.

The other feature that distinguishes this camera from others is the steady shot (optical on this one vs. digital on most camcorders). I thought this feature worked relatively well, but nothing spectacular.

All in all, I wouldn't buy this again, and I'm done buying Canon products. I just can't help feeling like I'm being nickel and dimed. If you are interested, consider the additional costs of cables, DV cassettes (at least I knew those weren't included ahead of time, and was able to compare accordingly), video capture/editing software, and possibly the wide angle attachment. Even with all those issues solved, though, the limited zoom range is the killer (the attachment shifts the entire zoom range, so it's still only 10x, and doesn't get as close on the tele end, unless you have the action stop and then go back and forth putting it on and taking it off -- too much of a hassle, if you ask me). As for me, I'm done with them.

The Optura 50 certainly isn't perfect and there are any number of higher-priced cameras which outperform it. However, the feature-set and performance for the price make the Optura 50 an excellent value.

The automatic white balance on the Optura 50 is more easily fooled in difficult lighting than rival cameras so you may frequently find yourself manually choosing a white balance setting. It's not a huge problem since the controls are easily accessed but it's something to be aware of. Low-light is not this camera's strong suit due to image noise.

A more serious issue is that a minority of units exhibit higher than normal tape transport noise. Several people including myself have had to exchange cameras that were much louder than they should have been. I haven't heard of anyone who got two bad cameras in a row though.

Strengths:
Optical Image Stabilization (unheard of at this price-point)
Easily accessed controls
True, high-resolution 16:9 widescreen mode
Microphone-in port with manual audio level control (unusual at this price-point)
Accessory shoe (cold)
Tilting, extendable viewfinder

Weaknesses:
Other cameras provide a better image in low light
Automatic white balance could be both more accurate and more consistent.

We have been using the Canon Optura 50 miniDV camcorder for almost a month now and we are very pleased with its performance. The picture quality is very good, it is easy to operate, and the digital camera is easy to use with good quality pictures. I have not yet tried the software to burn DVD's, but if that works as well as the camera it should be a breeze. I highly recommend this camera to others.