Customer Ratings & Reviews

This review is written from the point of view of someone using this camera for making independent low-budget films. I will cover negatives, mitigating factors for those negatives, and finally discuss the reasons you should buy the camera. Let's get the negatives out of the way first: the R60 is not a "prosumer" or professional camcorder. It lacks many of the controls and jacks that you'd want on a high-end camera and it requires some cleverness on the part of the operator to work around the "full auto" behavior it wants to have. You don't get a hotshoe, XLR, SDI, or any external manual controls for the imaging hardware such as the focus and iris. It takes MPEG-4 AVC video in 4:2:0 color space which can cause some halos when chroma keying (AKA "green screening") in post-production. The included battery doesn't last as long as you'd probably like, especially if you plan to spend many hours shooting footage. Low-light response is grainy because the sensor isn't made for it. Being so light means that camera shake can be a problem, even with a steady hand and the built-in image stabilization. You need to understand these limitations to make the most of the camera. Now, let's talk about why most of those negatives don't matter much! There is a 1/8" microphone input, so you CAN attach external microphones, but you need to be aware that external audio sources MUST BE SELF-POWERED. Fortunately, there are plenty of powered external mics and ways to connect unpowered ones up. The camera's manual controls are behind a few touches to the flip-out touchscreen which makes them impossible to change during a shot, but most of the camera's automatic functions track changes very well; about the only thing that needs to strictly be under manual control is the white balance and this camera does fine balancing against a typical grey card. Cold shoe adapters are very cheaply available for attaching external on-camera lighting and shotgun mics. Batteries from Canon are ridiculously expensive for a camera this cheap but if you look for a "decoded Canon R60 battery" you will find fully compatible extended life third-party alternatives that are quite affordable and will give you about 110 minutes of shoot time per battery. In a pinch, this camera can be powered from its AC adapter! Low-light response gets quite grainy, but the amount of grain is acceptable in many instances. If you're shooting a film you should be lighting your scene anyway. As for the chroma keying halo problem, that's what happens when you use a sub-$1000 camera; the 4:2:2 color space of more "pro" camcorders is preferable, but the truth is that 4:2:0 is not nearly as big of an issue with this camera because it shoots in 1080p. Halo artifacts are much harder to see at such high resolutions, and if you find that this camera's chroma keying performance for your shots don't quite work for you, resize to 720p first and the halos will almost completely go away. For the camera shake problem you will need to get a weighted camera stabilizer. The best option for someone on a budget would be to build the "$14 Camera Stabilizer" by Johnny Chung Lee. Professional stabilizer grips exist but they start around $140 which makes them quite expensive for the low- to no-budget filmmaker. There are plenty of positive reasons to choose this camera, too. One is the 8GB of internal memory. If you run out of SD cards on a shoot or one of your cards stops working or is damaged, you'll be VERY happy to have that internal memory available to fall back on. The stereo internal microphones on the front do a great job of recording environmental sounds despite the obvious issues with any on-camera microphone; you'll want to manually force the audio levels down because the default captures as much environmental noise as possible and you don't want that. The camera can shoot AVCHD or MP4 format video, but you should probably avoid AVCHD since all of the best shooting modes are only available in MP4 mode and AVCHD on this camera has absolutely zero quality benefits. MP4 can also be directly uploaded to YouTube and similar video hosting sites without modification or transcoding involved. You can choose from 1080p in 24p, 30p, or 60p frame rates; there is also a 4Mbps option that records 720p in 24p or 30p frame rates. There's also the worst-case scenario with cameras: breakage. If you bust a camera like this and are out $400, you're a lot better off than if you busted a $1600 prosumer camera! If you've heard about how DSLR cameras are all the rage for filmmaking nowadays, I can tell you from personal experience that they are not as great as they're hyped to be and the limitations are extremely frustrating and expensive to work around. The R60 produces better video than all but the most expensive DSLR systems when you add any sort of movement at all. DSLR systems don't have silent auto-focus, automatic exposure control, and require very expensive camera rigs to even be able to function like a camcorder. MPEG-4 compression on DSLRs is usually in 4:2:0 color space just like the R60 and often has worse compression, plus DSLRs can overheat and can't usually shoot more than about 20 minutes of continuous video. Considering an R60 costs 1/6 the price of just a single 5D Mark III DSLR camera body (that's no lenses and no camcorder rig at all) there is simply no comparison. Your cheaper DSLR may take better "still video" and is good as a second camera, but the R60 will always be a better choice for filmmaking than any remotely affordable DSLR. If you understand the limitations and how to work around them, this camera is an excellent camera for filmmaking. The price is amazing for what you get and the quality of the video is spectacular. I highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, my Best Buy representative did not have the knowledge regarding the difference between the 3 canon models offered and I went with the middle of the road R60 which has internal memory ( an unnecessary feature) and a remote Wi-fi feature that is ridiculously useless! I recommend the Canon R600 which is identical camera except for the additional useless features added on to the R60. Save yourself money and get the R600. The camcorder itself is great! Good quality and easy to use on either model. However, getting your video to upload to your computer and then using a special converter software to use the video is time consuming. It could be easier....

I bought this camera for shooting high school football games. It has a great compact size and takes a quality shot. All the games I record are at night and so this was a concern. To my pleasant surprise it was really good. No issues so far and I love the compact size and duration of battery time. I would recommend this to anyone looking for small size and functionality.

I went in to my local Best Buy to buy a camcorder and quickly realized that handheld camcorders are a dying breed! There were four options to choose from. That being said, this was a good buy. I compared the Canon with a Sony model. I liked the lense of the Sony better, but truth be told, the Sony felt like a kid's toy. It was made almost entirely out of plastic and I just didn't like the feel of it at all. The Canon model also has a lot of plastic, but it felt more solid. I liked the touchscreen on it. It is simple to operate as well; just open the screen on the side, make sure the lense covers are open and press record! The setup is also very easy. You can go in and choose a couple of different recording formats, with the options you have being the most common formats. I set this one up for mp4 and it was worked great. The slot for the SD card is easily accessible and I have been able to switch out SD cards quickly and without any issues. The recording quality is good, but not great. I think this is where the Sony would do a bit better But, it was just fine for what I needed. You can record in HD, but I think the colors aren't quite as vibrant as other brands. The main reason why I bought this camcorder though was for some basic recording and to be used by different employees. For that reason, ease of operation was very important to me. All in all, this is a solid, easy to use camcorder. I haven't had one employee yet who couldn't pick it up and begin recording with no issues. If you are looking for something that is easy to set up, easy to operate and still have a pretty good picture, then this is a good buy.

Overall, thsi camcorder is better than I originally expected. I depbated which one to buy (8GB / 16GB / 32GB) but then realized that the specs on the Canon cameras are all the same except for the internal storage. Once I realized this, and understood they took a micro SD card in the expandable slot, it was a no-brainer to buy the chreaper 8GB as it was cheaper to do this and buy a 64GB Scandisk card. We have used the camera both indoors and outdoors and the cameras picture is good in both conditions. We use it mostly at our kids sporting events and it performs well in low light situations. The camera is small enough that you can throw it in your coat pocket, and the battery life is really good. So far, I have no complaints with this camcorder.

One thing I noticed is that this little cam does great video. This unit is light weight and easy to handle. Thanks Canon for a great product.

In ideal lighting conditions, it works great. Very easy to use, quick to start shooting. I do like the WiFi software. I can see how a lot of people give it bad reviews because it "does not work"... well, I was about to as well, until I finally figured out how to pair it and use it. With you wouldn't have to do the pairing every single time you want to use the WiFi, but, at least it has the feature and it works. Could definitely be better for low lighting conditions.

The bb associate suggested me the camera, and I am very happy with it, great videos, easy to use, and a very good deal for the price.

This camera is lightweight, takes sharp video, and is easy to use!

Very easy to use, video clear,zoom easley reached,

Bought this camera to record my son for relatives that don't live close. Needed an easy to use camera, as Im not a fan of taking pic/vid but people want it. It recorded with easy and looked wonderful.

I needed this camera for a work project and needed it to provide high quality video, but be easy to use without much study. It is intuitive and accomplished my objective. As a bonus, I will be able to video my new grand daughter with ease!

We use this camera to record a youth girls soccer team and each game we ask a different parent to operate the camera. With little instruction, the parents are able to operate the camera and produce a really good video

Not the most expensive and feature filled camera, but for the price it does an ok job. Easy to figure out the basic recording features. The software to connect to your computer via wireless does not work. I read other comments about problems with this and thought I could figure it out, but no luck - and I work in IT. I don't give up easily, so if I figure it out, I will post an update.

Easy to use. Great quality of picture; nice options; steady option works well; I like the zoom quality. Edit options make for a better end product. Reasonably priced.

Camera is simple to use. Picture is great and image stabilization is effective. Screen menus are simple to understand.

The camera is small/easy to pack/carry. The one drawback is the lack of a USB charging cable to connect to the custom charging plug, however I found a 3rd party one so now my recording time can be for hours on end with any high amp use battery pack. Also some features are disabled if you want to enable recording with the touchscreen closed.

I was hesitant to purchase a camcorder because of the video on my smartphone, but this camcorder is easy to use, records great video and is very compact.

For those looking for slightly more than simple features, this is a great video recorder. It's easy to use and has an excellent zoom and video quality.

Purchased to video shows in a theatre, and it has good visibility in variable light and picks up sound well. Interface is very intuitive as well.