Vixia HF R300 Full HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 51x Advanced Zoom

As other reviewers said, the battery time is quite short if you are planning to bring it on a trip. For taking the occasional video from family at home the 25 minutes offered by the standard battery is fine. Fortunately I also ordered the "Wasabi Power Battery and Charger Kit for Canon BP-718 and Canon VIXIA HF R30, HF R32, HF R300, HF M50, HF M52, HF M500" that includes 2 batteries, a wall charger and a car charger. Each of theses batteries last about 50 minutes or so. So I ended with a total of almost 2 and a half hours. This saved my life. The operation of the camera is quite simple and the touch interface is not that bad, just occasionally it seems to fail to detect a touch but nothing really serious. The zoom power is very good and the recording quality is awesome. There is no zoom motor sound on the recording. The image stabilisation is also very good and is necessary due to the high zoom levels you achieve with this camera. I almost did all my shooting in the Auto mode that is very good but there is also a Manual mode where you can select, for instance, night or low light or beach. A third operation mode is Film where you can select blanck and white, standard, sepia, et cetera. The good points: - Recording quality - Lightweight - Excellent zoom power with good speed - Excellent image stabilisation - Very quite operation - Very good focus response - Very affordable price The not so good: - Battery life. (This is solved by adding extra batteries) - Lack of wall charger

Garbage. Doesn’t even turn on for the second use. Terrible.

Very good camera. When I was shopping for a new camera, I saw this and waited about 6 weeks for it to go on sale. Excellent video quality and easy to use. I would have given it five stars, but I have two issues with the camera. 1. The standard battery that comes with the camera only lasts about 25 minutes or so. You will need to buy an extended battery at a little over $100. The cheaper batteries will not show you how much time is available, but the official Canon BP-727 has the intelligence that will display how much time you have. It will give you about 2.5 hours of time. I got mine from J&R -> http://www.amazon.com/Canon-BP-727-Lithium-ion-Rechargeable-Battery/dp/B0070QPAPM/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1338292192&sr=1-2-catcorr 2. There is software for Windows transfer, but not for a Mac. Apparently you can just drag and drop the videos into iMovie, but I have not figured it out yet. You cannot just plug the SDHC card into your MacBook and expect it to recognize the videos. You have to connect to the camera instead. Neither of these are show stoppers, but they are annoyances to me.

before I bought this camera I used a powershop photo camera for my travel videos. And I was very happy with the results. to the point: the good stuff: - great zoom - good image stabilization - great compact size - good LCD and menu - MP4 option - good quality - Great price - story mode is quite cool the "not so good": - I struggled with the AVCHD format until I used Roxio toast to convert all my files to a format that can work with Final Cut Pro. If you don't know your file format stuff, just use MP4. Canon should explain how to deal with AVCHD better. - You will need another battery pack with you. the standard battery is very poor. i bough another battery pack at 100 USD and I am loving it - there is only one SD slot card not 2 as advertised - Image quality is not very bright, i feel it records in colors that are quite pale. you will need to enhance colors in post production overall this is a good camera, I am a canon fan, good for your first camera and great value for money.

Purchased from Amazon 21 October 2012: It's been a really long time since I've had a video camera, last one I owned was one of those big old clunky VHS monsters :) . LOL I love this camcorder. It's easy for an old timer to use once they get use to the touchscreen interface. I'm not a pro I am just a grandfather who wants to get video of his kids and grandkids. I'm still getting use to the small size and keeping the images stable. Not like the old days when you had a shoulder pad on the camera to steady it. The lowlight capabilities are what I expected but we used lights mounted on the camera previously. Shame there isn't a place to mount a small LED type light. The zoom is very nice, especially when you are at the back of an auditorium trying to shoot your grandkid's Christmas play. The video and still images are amazingly clear. CONS: 1.) Battery that comes with the camcorder is a joke :( . 2.) You may have to upgrade your Media Card Reader in order to read the higher density cards. 3.) USB Transfer Cable is too short. 4.) Power Cord could be just a bit longer for those times when you are plugged into the wall shooting. This is a very good camcorder for you grandparents. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ACCESSORIES: 1.) Canon BP-727 High Capacity Intelligent Battery Pack 2.) Transcend 64 GB SDXC Flash Memory Card TS64GSDXC10E I prefer to use the USB Transfer Cable and the included software to get the video into my computer. I did buy a new Media Card Reader but like the old reader it wants to reformat my card, haven't figured out that one yet. Hate to think that I didn't get what I paid for there. The camcorder does it's own formatting of the card and I don't want to chance losing the video, so the cable transfer is the best choice for me.

This is a great little camera. The video quality is very good, and it has the necessary manual overides to compensate for different lighting conditions. This camera has the same lens and imaging components as the R32, but costs $150 less. What you are giving up is 32 gig of onboard memory and the WiFi connectivity, but I have no need for either. I bought a Trancend 64 gig memory card for just over 50 bucks. When I was done shooting, I just took out the card and popped it in my computer to edit the files. I saved $100 over the R32, and have a much more convient way of handling the video files. The Canon battery is a joke. It only lasts for 20 minutes, which Canon does at least state in the manual. That is not a problem, however as you can buy non-Canon replacements that last an hour or longer for 15-20 dollars. I bought two and a charger for just over 30 dollars. They don't show the battery meter, but if you know you can record for an hour, the meter is not necessary. You can also record with the A/C adaptor. I have not done that yet, but that will be nice for situations like concerts and performances longer than 1 hour. I am very happy with this Camera, and glad that I did not spend the extra dollars for the R32.

The product itself seem like a toy. The battery is outside and easy to fall off. The camcorder doesn't close. The movies not even good.

My fault but did not realize this unit was so dated. Works ok but makes you think you're in the 80's. Battery life is s h o r t bit but I bought 2 extra and a charger. I guess you gotta spend more than $200 to get an up to date model.