JVC Everio GZ-MG21

...took 8mm tapes to the JVC hard drive 20gb.
The JVC is very compact it has the video and it also has a built in digital camera which is an added bonus the camera isnt excellent but its just as good if not better than the £80 digital cameras you can buy, the only thing the JVC didnt have which the sony did was night vision mode which i found to be a great extra on the sony, what the JVC had instead was a light at the front which can be turned ...
...another reason i bought the JVC was the high zoom it offered 32x optical zoom so i couldnt wait to try this out but to my anoyance its really difficult to get the picture you want and even when its on a tripod the picture is very shaky, added on the optical zoom is a high digital zoom which is not even worth putting on because the picture just shakes every where, and also on the site i bought my camera from it boasted 4 hour battery life which sounded ... more

I recently upgraded my camcorder from a sony one that took 8mm tapes to the JVC hard drive 20gb.
The JVC is very compact it has the video and it also has a built in digital camera which is an added bonus the camera isnt excellent but its just as good if not better than the £80 digital cameras you can buy, the only thing the JVC didnt have which the sony did was night vision mode which i found to be a great extra on the sony, what the JVC had instead was a light at the front which can be turned on by a button on the side and to be honest its not that good, It does light the room up but the picture doesnt seem to be very good when you play it back, another reason i bought the JVC was the high zoom it offered 32x optical zoom so i couldnt wait to try this out but to my anoyance its really difficult to get the picture you want and even when its on a tripod the picture is very shaky, added on the optical zoom is a high digital zoom which is not even worth putting on because the picture just shakes every where, and also on the site i bought my camera from it boasted 4 hour battery life which sounded great because it was a really small battery and made the camera look really small and compact but when i used the camcorder the battery only lasted 60 minutes, so i looked around and i had to buy a diffrent battery for the camcorder that made it capable of lasting 4 hours but the battery is nearly as big as the camcorder, and makes it look quite silly.
The things i liked about the camera where when you have finished filming one film and then you go to another it automatically puts it at the end of the last film no more looking for the right place on the tapes and when you want to browse through your films its made very easy with a handy little joystick on the end of the pullout screen, it also has a slot under neath where you can put a SD card for extra memory and in the menu you can pick to have your photos put directly on to the card.
The camcorder comes with a step by step manual which is easy to read through and easy to follow

No more messing about with tapes and has big memory
Very simple to use
Very light weight and compact
Bright lcd screen

Short battery life
Hard to keep still with hard zoom
Performs badly in the dark

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