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I'm a Canon Elura 65 owner who was spoiled by all the features and excellent optics that come with it. But as any Elura (60,65,70) owner will tell you, reliabilty did not come with the package and needs special care. I was looking for something a litle more sturdy, and I believe I found it in the JVC GR D850. It has great video quality in daytime light (inside or out), excellent zoom capabilties and the joystick control on the LCD housing makes it easier to use than any camera I had before. No more searching around for functions on the side, just a "data" button for detailed battery time remaining and an "auto" button to quickly switch between full auto and AE modes. It's overall design is sleek and smaller in footprint and has a lighter, more balanced feel than the Elura. I find the record/play/pause switch easier to use than the Elura's, as I have big hands with short fingers and I have to stretch my thumb to hit the rec/pause button on the Elura which caused some shaky video. The D850s is right there with my thumb. It has a firewire port (IEEE 1394) which makes life easy to extract and edit video. The D850's image stabilizer is better than the Elura's, but the Elura got the D850 beat on dark shoots, although I'm unimpressed with eithers' LED light in front. The D850's light is more blue, and is immediately prevalent in the video output. The D850 is overall quieter running than the Elura, even though the D850's capstan motor (the main motor that drives the tape around) looks beefier than the Elura's (the crux of many Elura owner's heartbreak). The D850's microphone falls short of the Elura's; it seems to pick up more sound from the back and immediate surroundings than the subject you are focused on so you have to be very quiet when shooting. The D850 camera would definately benefit from an external microphone which segways me to an overlooked problem of the camera; no mic input and no accessory shoe. Also, it has no viewfinder which is rarely used but helps in very bright situations where the LCD display would be muted out. Another annoyance (but avoidable) of mine is that it's default aspect ratio is 16:9. It was not until I went to edit some video that I discovered that my editing software does not do 16:9 and everything was elongated. I probably should upgrade my software but I'll just leave the cam in 4:3 for now. You can only do end of tape search on the D850 while in play mode; the Elura can do it in either mode. You are better off taking "stills" from video than using the snapshot button, as the stills from the snapsot button are grainier than using software to extract a still image from video. Overall, this is a good, solid camera that that can be carried around in your jacket pocket without worry of breaking it and has very good video output. If all you need is a basic DV camcorder with a simple, easy to use interface this camera is for you. If your looking for more Elura like features, the D870 is probably more up your alley.Read full review
It does work but it has a bad flicker and poor playback sound. Displays error E06 Safeguard mode same as my original camera. Have to get fixed.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This Camcorder is really small for a MiniDV camera, The LCD screen is a good size, does not have a view finder. It is easy to use, Quality is good, it is a simple camera for simple projects or traveling. It is very easy to use and gives a fairly good picture. But like all small cameras, zooming out it gets shaky so try not to zoom too far. Overall its not bad to just preserving memories.
This camera I bought hoping it would at least work all it’s doing is throwing error codes into the screen. I have looked up the error codes and how to fix them and nothing it would just throw another one and to fix it I have to send it to California. Waste of time and money.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I bought this camcorder to record videos for my series, The Amateur Telescope Maker's Workshop, which I post on YouTube. I have burnt out three other cameras making these videos. I am impressed with the quality of the camera and the conceptual ease of operation. Simply put, this is a good camera. The downside is the small size of the controls, which make it manually somewhat challenging to operate until you get accustomed to the camera. I highly recommend this product for light family type use. It takes mini DV tapes. While not state of the art, it is certainly more than adequate. Francis J. O'Reilly