Canon - VIXIA HF R20 8GB Flash Memory Camcorder - Red

I have had a chance to use this camcorder for a few days now, and must say I'm am pretty pleased! The picture is great and for being so small, it is pretty easy to use. The problem with these smaller camcorders is the amount of shake that shows up in the video, and when recording in digital, it tends to tear the video horizontally. With the image stabilization on, the shake is just about completely gone zoomed out, but there is quite a bit when zoomed in a lot (which is typical for any handheld image capturing device). The playback HD of this camera is incredible! Direct playback from the camcorder to my 42" plasma does seem a little bit under contrasted (I come from a photography background, and notice those sort of things, most people won't), but looks perfect on my 21" LCD computer monitor. It also has 8gb of flash built in, so you don't HAVE to buy an SD card immediately to use it. It will take 2 additional SD cards for additional memory, and I recommend getting more than the 8gb it comes with, as HD video does take up a significant amount of space. The camera will also intelligently switch from one memory source to another when the first one is full. There are only two downsides with this camcorder that I have found. One is that the touchscreen is a bit small for my big fingers (would be ap problem with any 3" touch scene and my fingers). The other is the short battery life. It gets a little over than an hour on the stock battery This is typical for these camcorders from what I have seen in my research. The upside is that these batteries do seem to cost a bit less than most other manufacture's batteries.

I got this camcorder as an early Father's Day present (a big one at that!) to record a friend's wedding for them. It is a great entry-level HD camcorder. Good things: VERY light! Very small, dual SD card slots in addition to internal memory is AWESOME! 1080. Amazing in good light! Microphone works quite well too. A couple of annoyances: in order to do 1920x1080 (1080i), you need to select one of the top two recording qualities. The main complaint I have against the camcorder is the User Interface takes some getting used to. Lower-light video is not the greatest, but I see this mostly as a personal camcorder, not a professional level. The battery life is short (around 1:10:00), so bring another battery with you or keep an outlet nearby!! The camcorder saves in AVC-HD, and the best way I found to work with it was to download Windows Live Essentials, use the movie editor, import, export as 1080 WMVs, convert those down to DVD compliant MPEG-2s using DeVeDe, then created a custom menu for everything using DVD Styler. Windows Live Essentials requires Windows 7, but DeVeDe and DVD Styler are FREE and OPEN SOURCE (I know DeVeDe works on linux to boot).

Fantastic camera. HOWEVER the single feature I requested any camera I bought must have was to record directly to the m4v, mp4 -or- mov formats. Why? So I could take the SD card out and stick it in the adaptor for my iPad and play it back without converting. It took eight Best Buy employees before I found one that even understood what I wanted. He then picked out this camera and told me it's the only one on the market that can do this. Incorrect. But I bought it. Sorry it doesn't record. To any of those formats. Then when I went back to try and resolve this 4 completely different employees all assured me that what I wanted to do is totally impossible unless I spent $15,000 to $20,000 on pro equipment. Totally inaccurate and wrong again. And I have to keep the camera because they won't take it back. Don't get me wrong it's a good camera but not at all what I wanted.

I got this camera after seen various other models and prices ranges.. It's an excellent option for me and for the price range.. True that the battery has a short life but I bought an extra one and I keep it charged and this gives me a 2hr of shooting, a decent time for me. Also have great features as WEB Sharing, film effects, touchscreen and dynamic image stablization..

We bought this to record my Father-In-Laws celebration of life ceremony. It worked great without much training on my part. I am normally the guy who says "have you read the manual yet". I would highly recommend this to anyone. You will want to get a second battery. You will shoot video and run it dry after awhile.

i am new to video recording. i think this camera is fantastic. the sound recording, i record my band live, is better than any i've heard, and it's in stereo. very cool.

Bought this for a wedding, wanted to take movies and pictures. Both movies and pictures came out great.

You can add all the memory you wish, but the battery will still only last less than an hour. Brought this with us to Hawaii, Beautiful video, easy to use, but on a tour, was only good for an hour of footage. a second (Or more) battery is almost a must.