Unreiable

I have a Canon HV20 camera which I purchased less than 8 months ago and at the moment, it is a piece of junk. Here I am in Antigua Guatamala to shoot video of the Easter celebration, one of the most exciting in Cantral America. I have spend many hundreds of dollars to get here, not to mention the $1200 for the camera, and on the morning of Palm Sunday, I try to turn on my almost new camera and it doesn't work.

My previous Panasonic camera worked flawlessly for four years before it was stolen. It even continued to work after I dropped it from a Ferris Wheel in India.

Obviously, the fact that the HV20 is unreliable should be enough to disuade anyone from buying one of this camera but I will point out sone other things.

First, admittedly the picture quality is wonderful, the best of any camera I have used, and I have been using video cameras for over 25 years.

On the other hand the controls are terrible, the worst on any camera I have ever used.

To begin with, Canon has decided to eliminate the projecting viewfinder. Because of this I find that everytime I start the shot, my finger bumps into my nose and I get a jump at the begining and end of every shot. (I am forced to view with my eft eye.)

The zoom wheel is small and located in a spot where I always had to search around to find it again, often spoiling the shot. Hiow much better to have had a small bar near the shooting button which could be raised and lowerede by the thumb. Instead they choose to place the menu button there, a button that is hardly ever moved.

Thirdly, the on-off button is quite idfficult to manipulate and I suspect it is the cause of my camera's problem. It seems to be very badly designed and difficult to use, particularly for a westerner with large fingers.

I suspect that the camera makers never really tested the camera with actual users.

I recommend that you avoid buying this camera, at least till Canon makes some serious changes to bring the mechanical quality of this camera up the its picture quality.