Canon HV20 3MP High Definition MiniDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
by Canon
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Our Price: $1,022.87 Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days Buy Used: from $300.00 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon HV20 3MP High Definition MiniDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Customer Review: great hd video,good low light, fun 24p
Summary: 5 Stars
I have a sony FX1 since 2 years and then I had bought a sony HC1 which I had to return due to unacceptable video noise in low light conditions. When you have used sony FX1 you know how the low light videos are supposed to look, so I had something good to compare the hv20 to. I got this hv20 camera and I have played with it checking its potential outdoor and indoors. I switched between 24p and 1080i for same shot with same lighting conditions and see that the 24p does really make the video cleaner in low light, it was way better than the sony HC1 which I had bought. Of course the sony FX1 low light footage is much better than hv20, but using 24p in low light does make the hv20 acceptable. I could not really make out the difference of FX! and HV20 in bright daytime videos other than that the hv20 has more color saturation.
My fears were laid to rest and I like the hv20 low light and daylight videos.
For 1/3rd the price of sony fx1 this camera is a keeper.
24p is something which some people will like some wont. Action or movement of objects will appear a little jerky in 24p which is as expected, but it does look different from 1080i. Non moving shots with 24p looks great.If you pan the camera in 24p mode the video stutter is pretty apparent.
TO give you a idea what 24p looks like imagine watching a video on a monitor which has low refresh rate you see a ghost object follow the object after it moves. I took the camera and drove around in the night to see how it handles the nightlights... 24p mode is not something you would use in that situation as whenever you pan the camera the blurring effect becomes very pronounced due to the lights. But still the video was pretty good. 24p mode with cinema effect added makes it little bit better. 1080i mode looks pretty good without the 24p motion blur while I took the drive.
I connected the hv20 to my 42inch 1080p lcd TV through HDMI and it looks really good. I was surprised. Outdoor videos are very sharp and colorful. Indoor videos are also pretty good. More saturated colors than sony fx1 but very nice to look at. It is difficult to get steady shots with the camera as it is lighter. If you can keep you hand steady during the shots the footage is as good as in hd channels. But it is great to take it to disney or vacations without having to carry the sony fx1 bulk.
It has a neat little timer which displays for 10secs when you start to record so that you do not make a shot too short or too abrupt.
Battery life is little more than an hour with the lcd open so I bought an extra bp-2L14 battery.
Hopefully they will come out with the great FX1 low light performance in such a small package soon.
overall this was a very good buy. You will love playing with the 24p mode.
conclusions ..very light , pretty fast auto focusing,small form factor, 24p mode video, good low light videos,really great daytime videos and the wife loves this camera as it is much smaller than FX1!!
Customer Review: 10 Stars
Summary: 5 Stars
My fiance and I took this camera to Tokyo, Japan, and filmed our trip and wedding ceremony in the inner garden of the Meiji Shrine. I purchased a pair of high-capacity batteries, but shooting only about 1 hour's worth of footage each day, I only needed a single one.
This camera uses widely available standard mini DV tapes. This is a huge plus in my opinion, since the video didn't need to be off-loaded each day to free up disc space on an internal drive.
Form factor is good for a camcorder of this small size and weight. It's comfortable, smaller than my last camcorder, and lighter than it looks.
Outdoor footage under natural light looks stunning. Every bit as good as the hi-def television channels. While footage shot under standard indoor lighting is a bit grainy, it's still watchable and better than any consumer standard-def camcorder. External lighting will help a lot for indoor shots.
Editing 4 hours of footage down to a 1 hour movie was easily accomplished with Apple's iMovie HD on my dual G5 Macintosh. iMovie HD handles the 1080i video fine, although it's a bit slower with rendering effects, but hey, what do you expect? There are a lot more pixels involved with HD video.
So now we've got widescreen DVD's of our wedding ceremony and trip, built with Apple's iDVD. The DVD's are down-converted to 480P, but they still look great. Best of all, I've still got the tapes, which I'll re-edit when HD DVD (or Blu-ray) DVD burners become more available. Our precious memories are future-proofed.
This camera will also accept a mini SD card for 3.1 mega-pixel still photos. Very convenient.
Essential accessories are a decent tripod, at least one high-capacity battery, a neck strap, and some kind of padded bag. If you want to take still photos, get a mini SD card. A 2 GB card will hold 1000 photos. If you'll be shooting a lot indoors, the canon video light works with the hot shoe on the camera, is plenty bright and works much better than the bluish built-in LED light.
Everyone who's seen our DVD has commented on the excellent video quality.
This camcorder is a fantastic piece of technology. My wife and I are super-pleased with our wedding DVD, and our friends and relatives that weren't there get to experience the best parts of our trip in life-like detail.
There are cheaper options for HD camcorders, and much cheaper options for standard-def camcorders. But after seeing this video project through from beginning to end, I couldn't imagine doing it with a different camcorder.
10 Stars!
Customer Review: Quite simply amazing!
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had 3 camcorders. My first was a Ricoh 8mm and I loved it for years. My second was a Sony PC110 mini DV, which is a wonderful camera but I recently upgraded my television to a 46" widescreen Sony LCD and found the picture from the camcorder somewhat lacking. I've had 3 Canon Digital Elphs and recently got a Canon Digital Rebel XTi SLR camera and I really enjoy the results from them all. So, I thought that I'd try the Canon HV20 and I'm extremely impressed with it! It is small enough but large enough to control. Once it straps on your hand, all of the buttons are well placed and easily accessed. My ONLY compaint is that you have to slide a button to turn on the still camera if you want to shoot in 3.1MP resolution. A very small complaint. The visuals produced by this camera are stunning. The color is just superb. Sound is superb (stereo but not 5.1). All the resolution that you would ever want. It almost looks better than real life. Auto focus works well and the zoom is adjustable as to its speed. It is fully automatic or you can use it fully manually. I've just started to explore all that it is capable of. Battery life is just okay, but with the optional BP-2L14 (It sits flush with the viewfinder and adds very little to the overall weight), It will provide all the power that you would probably ever need. It's reasonably price and also available from Amazon. I've also got a mini SD card (as opposed to a micro SD card) and the photos (blown up to 5 by 7) are as good as any 3.1 camera can produce. With a 2GB mini SD card (available from Amazon and not expensive) on full resolution, you get almost 1,000 photos! Amazing. Use the high definition DV tapes for best results, which are available from Amazon. It comes with all the hookup cables but not a HDMI or composite cable (YES it has an optional firewire hookup! It has an HDMI output but just not the cable). It also packs with a hand strap but not a neck strap, but there ARE hooks for a neckstrap (unlike my Sony PC-110, which was extremely annoying to me). You can read about all the bells and whistles that this camera provides but just let me say that you'll be totally knocked out by the image quality on your High Definition television. It's like watching the Discovery channel in High Def. Really, it's just that good! To be able to fit all of this quality into such a small package is simply amazing. A few years ago, this would be the stuff of dreams. You simply will not be sorry...Customer Review: HV20 - relatively perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
At the end, much of quality perception is relative (to what you're used to and comparing to) - both for audio and video. My first "digital" camcorder was a Sony DCR-VX700. Bought it 11.5 years ago in the first year or so of consumer mini-DV. The detail and color blew me away....until I bought a Sony TRV-900 and then 950 6 and 4 years ago, respectively. The apparent sharpness was a bit better but the color from these 3 chip beauties just blew away the 700. Suddenly the 700 footage didn't look very good. The 950 continued to impress...until I got an HD-TV and saw the image on Discovery Channel HD. Suddenly the 950 didn't look so good.
I tried a Panasonic SX5 (AVCHD) briefly and the outdoor images, at highest bit rate, blew away my 950. They didn't compare to Discovery HD but it was a real step up. Outside. Inside, under "normal" lighting (not low light), the image and color were awful - looking equal too or maybe even inferior to my 950 (which had blown me away not long ago).
Got the HV20 a month ago and took it to Colorado to really test it out. It blows away everything I've seen in a consumer format to date. I can say outdoors, with careful pans, the images are equal and often superior to Discovery HD (in terms of sharpness. Color seems, on a purely subjective basis, comparable). The image is jaw dropping. There is no motion artifacting that I can detect. Inside, in "normal" indoor lighting, it still produces an awesome image - though not quite like outdoors. In lower light, the CinaMode setting still produces a very decent picture (even without 24P).
I have no doubt, however, that this is still relative. If I bought a Canon XH A1 or Sony HVR-A1U, I suspect I would no longer be as thrilled with the image. Learned that from experience. The same, I know, is true of audio. I'm less of an audio fanatic (at least for my home videos), so I haven't played and compared as much. If I was used to using a high quality, detached mic, I would probably be very disappointed in the audio. As a guy who has never used anything but the integrated mics, I'm relatively pleased.
Conclusion - if you're coming from a world of SD consumer camcorders and integrated microphones - you'll be blown away by the video and relatively satisfied with the audio. If you're already "conditioned" by very high end gear, you may not.
Customer Review: Incredible Camcorder, Incredible Value!!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
My only real "wow" moments in regard to electronics have been the following: the first time I saw the 3D game Doom, first seeing eWorld and the "web" back in 1995, and the first time I watched a movie on DVD. And now I've added the HV20 to the list. When I first played back some footage (on a non-HD Sony Wega TV, too), I was blown away. I had read at camcorderinfo that the HV20 is a $1,000 revelation, but experiencing the imagery for myself was thrilling.
The past couple camcorders I have owned have been, oh, upper mid-level consumer models ($600 - $800), and none have achieved image quality anywhere close to the type of imagery which comes from the HV20. When I'm out taping, I find that the CMOS sensor in the HV20 captures elements I just assumed that it would not, like incredible detail ("I didn't even NOTICE that there was a spider web there.") and the most subtle ambiances: like a very fine still camera, the HV20 will accurately capture the *mood* which makes a moment worth photographing in the first place.
I have no gripes whatsoever about any of the controls. If this were a much larger, professional camcorder, I might mention that the manual focus wheel on the side of the camera is not as handy as a large ring out by the lens, and that the buttons on the HV20 can generally be referred to as "small." Naturally on such a small, consumer-level camcorder all of your favorite, go-to buttons cannot be within reach of the one hand which holds the camera. At any rate, if you like playing with manual controls like focus, you will be using both hands, and with two hands, the manual controls on the HV20 are simple to operate. And for a consumer camcorder, it has most every manual control you can imagine (other than Gain, which is generally only of interest to professionals).
Alas, the HV20 is not the greatest motion picture camera in the world: like all camcorders ever made, it will be difficult to get everything you want in a dark setting. That's it though. I cannot think of anything else which would prevent me from saying that this has to be the best camcorder ever made at this price point.