1 comments about Sony HDR-UX10 4MP DVD High Definition Handycam Camcorder with 15x Optical Zoom.

1. An excellent HD camcorder. Saves to DVD+RW or ProDUO (I use the 4 GB Sony). Pictures are crystal clear, and the 5.1 surround sound is excellent (sounds exactly as if you're outdoors). An excellent price, too! A great buy, IMO!

5 comments about Canon FS100 Flash Memory Camcorder with 48x Optical Zoom (Wine Red).

1. First things first, I do not currently own this camcorder. However, I have been researching all the issues with the .MOD file extension and have come across a potential method for the Windows Movie Maker crowd. Although I have no way of trying this myself, I felt compelled to throw it out there so that others may benefit from it (if it works).
   
   Windows PCs - Windows Movie Maker
   
   a) Launch Windows Movie Maker
   
   b) Go inside Tools -> Options menu
   
   c) Make sure that the encoding setting is set appropriately. If you are in tjhe US or Japan it should be NTSC, but everywhere else it should be set to PAL.
   
   d) Set the aspect ratio to 16:9 if that is the format you have been recording in (for 4:3 select "4:3")
   
   e) Click OK and you are set.
   
   f) Select "Import..." and bring in your original Canon video file (renamed in .mpg) and the video file will look great.
   
   If missing you may want also to download and install an updated AC3 Codec.
   
   Note: these are not my original instructions, to view them directly along with more information about .MOD files, platform specific instructions (including Mac iMovie instructions!) please visit
   
   http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2008/06/12/how_to_convert_mod_video.htm
   
   and give credit to the guy for helping us all out!
   
   I gave it a 4 star review to keep it at its current rating, when I actually buy the camera, I will update the rating with what I feel it deserves along with more info about .MOD files and how to convert!



2. This camera is amazing. You can simply move the card to your computer and voila, instant movies. The light weight is awesome. It can be held in one hand and operated te same. The controls are well placed at your fingertips. It has a quick on time and an easy mode. With the two 16 gig cards I bought, I can film all day. The battery gives you a long record time as well. I love my new camera. Now I'm planning a vacation.



3. This is a pretty neat product. Easy to use , easy to upload very cheap for a flash based product. In good light the videos are excellent. The trouble is when shooting indoors in tungsten or fluorescent light, there are many artifacts and that is a real problem. It seem to be well documented by other reviewers. Overall buy if you are a first time camcorder user with little time for learning the ropes on HD ortherwise go HF100.



4. I bought this from amazon recently. It's simply as good as the other folks have said it is.
   
   Battery life :awesome, above 2 hours of charge (have not charged it again in a week). Taken 1 hr or so of XP, SP quality videos. Windows vista simply rocks....plug the SD card in my HP entertainment PC and it takes care of everything. No file modification/renaming etc required.
   
   Size/Ergonomics: Perfect, just like holding a 200ml can of red bull. sideways,that's all :)
   
   Very easy1 handed operation, I am not worried about arthritis since the thing is soooo light even with the batery included. just handhold one of them sony dvd camcorders and you shall appreciate the small footprint of this thing.
   
   NOW, the ONLY reason I am giving a review here is cos of reading the other folks consistently talk about the "night" "indoor" quality of the camcorder. Ok, I do agree to a certain extent that the indoors/lowlight videos are grainy. But I ask you folks, in what MODE ? P, Night,Sunset ? I am prettysure that that would be your answer.
   Being an avid photographer, I never use any of the preset "Scene" modes ever even on my slr or this camcorder. So,my solution to *reduce* the grainy quality for you would be to try the "Shutter priority mode" , Tv, turn the shutter down to 1/30, 1/15(indoors), or even 1/8(handholding will be tough at the slowest shutter speed). BUT, if you use this mode and increase the exposure to say +2 or 3 , I am very certain that your low light videos will turn out pretty pretty usable and less grainy. Please try it out guys and let me know.
   
   Anyway, I just wanted to rescue the camcorder from the night video quality complaints.
   
   What else....it's a bang for the buck camcorder. Amazon is awesome. They have refunded me all the price differences within 30 days of shipping. I have saved $15 already. Buy it folks, this should be a great camcorder. I am a hardcore canon user (cameras, camcorder). Battery life of canons is one big draw for me. Let me know how the "Tv" mode works out for you guys.



5. The reviews I read on this are a little too generous. It's all right, but not spectacular. Mine is a replacement for a high-definition HV-20 that I share with my in-laws. I can never get my hands on it, so was hoping for something inexpensive, all-digital with good qualilty.
   
   The video is good in BRIGHT light, so-so indoors, and very grainy in lower light, but it does a good enough job if you're just trying to preserve something right away. I don't think any of the video shot is usable as professional quality; not even semi-professional. Perhaps it could be used a secondary camera -- like if you were looking for a 2nd simultaneous shot to do a cut-away. But I would definitely suggest spending more on a hi-def camera instead of this if you care a lot about quality. The EASY button is nifty, though, for when you get tired of pushing buttons and sorting through menus for the perfect setting.
   
   As a camera that shoots still, give up. I was totally not impressed with that. You can turn the LED light on once you figure out where it's hidden among the menus, but it is no substitute for a flash. Don't think you're going to get a satisfactory 2-in-1 video/still experience with this device. Nor can you use this as a webcam or import video directly from the camera to your PC, unless you have a capture card that will accept the RCA video out.
   
   It does zoom in pretty good, but the image stabilization is a bit weird. And the focus can have a hard time finding it's mark. I've used a camera before where you could shake it like an earthquake and it hardly shows at all on the recording. Unfortunately, the FS100 kind of floats around the image when it's zoomed in. You'll be able to see what you're recording later, but wonder why the images sways around so much. Fully zoomed out, it does a good job. THERE'S NO VIEWFINDER, only the flip-out screen.
   
   I play with a lot of ideas in low light and the reviews I read were mixed for low-light quality, but they really should have been on the bad side. Yes, you can tell what you're looking at, but it's extremely grainy to me. I'm disappointed in that aspect the most. There's different white-balancing options. I don't get the point of widescreen on a standard definition camera. The video just looked squished when played back in Windows Media Player.
   
   The A/V out jack is not designed for regular headphones -- you'll get a loud buzzing in your ear if you try it. I suppose I'll have to find some kind of wire with stereo female RCA jacks on one end and a stereo female mini-jack on the other or splice something together.
   
   The Built-In Microphone does a pretty good job, I think. If you're taping yourself and flip the screen around to see, the handy input meter disappears for no good reason. The External Microphone jack requires a battery powered microphone. So, you'll get dead air if you try to use a headset or unpowered mic to record sound. I should have seen that coming, I suppose.
   
   The battery life is pretty good -- takes longer than expected to charge. The SD card is much more convenient than using tapes. After hooking up the USB cable and the power cable simultaneously, I can download the videos.
   
   The software included is pretty dumb -- Pixela ImageMixer is for video, while the Video Solutions disk is for still images only. Kind of confusing and backwards, fellas! If you've got Vista, then Windows Movie Maker will do a pretty good job of editing your videos.
   
   I don't know.... Overall, this camera is all right, I guess. But I had higher expectations for the price I paid. I got this camera from a BigBox store, but should have waited and gone with Amazon's better offer. It's definitely small and handy, but not going to get you any awards for artistic quality productions. I recommend it for anyone whose looking for something simple and consumer quality only.

No comments about GoPro GHHW30 Helmet HERO 3 Quick Release 3MP Camcorder.

2 comments about Panasonic VDR-D50 DVD Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom.

1. Panasonic VDR-D50 DVD Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom The Panasonic VDR-D50 DVD Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom is easy to use, light weight, and decent video quality. I recommend it to anyone who wants a relatively inexpensive camcorder without sacrificing much.



2. Panasonic Camcorder, Model VDR-D50P/PC
   I have had no experience operating a camcorder until I purchased this one. Detailed instructions come with the unit and once I became acquainted with some of its many functions, I found it very enjoyable to use. The clarity of the movies recorded on DVD and photos stored on the SD card is of superior quality. Both, the movies stored on the DVD and pictures stored on the SD card can be viewed on TV by connecting the camcorder to the TV via the USB cable that comes with the unit. (I found that the DVD might have to be finalized first)
   
   The software that comes with the camcorder which is advertised to allow editing of movies (particularly designed for "VISTA") does not seem to want to download into my computer. I have contacted Panasonic on the problem twice already, but the technicians were unable to help me install the software. I suggested that the software might be faulty, and asked for another disk, but have had no further response from Panasonic since the latter part of May 2008. Hopefully I can get the software to work on my "Windows VISTA". As that was one of the features I desired when I purchased the camcorder.

5 comments about Panasonic SDR-S10P1 Flash Memory Weathproof Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom.

1. This camera while the quality is good is not campatible with Macs. The file format is actually .MOD which quicktime cannot read. You can force it by changing the extention to mpg or mp2 and buy a $20 MPEG2 plugin for quicktime but I find it's more trouble than it's worth. Even after succesfully converting the files they are still testy when it comes to editing in I-Movie. If you have a Mac I would suggest finding something Else



2. I have a great little mini-DV camera. However, I get so tired of having to play the video to get it into my Mac. After hearing Andy Ihnatko rave about this camera on MacBreak Weekly, I decided to give it a try.
   
   It does create .mod files which are a special form of mpeg-2. However, iMovie '08 has no problem sucking them onto the Mac. It does what I wanted -- almost no wait time to get the movie onto the Mac. And instead of importing everything I have shot, I can just import whatever cuts that I want. This is a great advantage.
   
   There have been some other reviews rapping the video quality. You have to compare it to other cameras in its class such as the popular iFlip. I think that this camera is about the highest in it's class, and it is certainly convenient to use. I do think that my Canon mini-DV may be higher quality. But then it is a much bigger camera and I have that horrible wait that causes me to not edit a lot of my video. I like this camera, and I carry it in my laptop bag. It is the camera that I have with me most of the time.
   
   Now for what I don't like: mainly battery time. It charges in only 40 minutes: good. It has let me down on several times because the battery ran out. Get a 2nd battery. Convenience is the main reason for getting this camera, and having to carry a 2nd battery and charge it is inconvenient.
   
   One other smaller problem: it uses a high speed SD card. These SD cards are necessary for video, but they are more expensive, and not every card reader can read them. Some of the gripes in the other reviews about the format being unreadable just might have to do with having an incompatible card reader. I have never touched the Panasonic software; I've used iMovie '08 with it exclusively.



3. CAMCORDER
   What I like best is the user interface. It's menu is so simple my first wife and I both can use it. If you want a easy-to-use camcorder this is one. It powers up quick. It's very portable.
   
   CAMERA
   It takes good still photos if you want capture the moment. Of course, you probably already have a good still camera with a higher pixel rating than this camera.
   
   OVERALL
   It would be better if used standard AA batteries instead of the square battery. The SD cards give unlimited capacity. Transferring the movies and pictures to my PC is quick and easy.



4. I bought this camera last week and have been using it indoors and outdoors with my family. I've found it to be very easy to use and the video quality is great. You have the option of low quality video (more recording time, up to 3 1/2 hours on a 4 gig card), Normal quality (about 1 hr and 1/2 on a 4 gig card), and High Definition (about 40 minutes on a 4 gig card). The high definition works great. I've been using it for my sons' lacrosse and baseball games, and the picture is very sharp and the camera is so easy to use. The audio isn't high definition, but suitable.
   
   The .mod format shouldn't hinder ANYBODY with this product. If you copy the .mod files to your computer and rename them .mpg files, they will play. There's absolutely no conversion needed, just rename the files.



5. This camera is good at what it does. It is not a $400.00 camcorder that takes flawless movies. It is a great little camcorder that is small enough that you will take it with you and actually use it. I have had other camcorders and they got left home a lot. This one goes with me everywhere. The sound on this one is very good. I use it at music events and am very happy with it. The 10x optical zoom is more than enough for most uses. The one drawback is the software that comes with it. I don't really like it. Just change the file from a .mod to a .mpg and you can use movie maker. Or you can learn the software that comes with it. If you don,t know how to change a file from mod to mpg ask your kid, that's what I did.

5 comments about Panasonic SDR-S7 Flash Memory Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom (Black).

1. I purchased a new Panasonic SDR-S7K video camera at the Best Buy in Castleton, IN. I performed hours of research before I bought the camera, and felt confident in making a purchase. This is a new model so there wasn't much about it on the Internet outside of the standard promotional material by the manufacturer. I got the camera home and opened the box. Before I used the camera I read through the owner's manual. I learned the battery supplied with the camera only has a recordable life of 40 minutes! That is way too short for my purposes. No problem, I thought, I'll just buy a battery with a longer life. Wrong! There is only one battery that fits that camera and the life is 40 recordable minutes. The batteries are rather expensive too at $60 each. Three days after I bought the camera I went to Best Buy for a refund. They informed me there would be a restocking fee of 15% because I (GASP!) opened the box. The restocking fee was $42. I'm just glad I didn't buy a more expensive camera. Even though I didn't buy the camera from Amazon, I wish I had. Amazon has always treated me well.



2. I bought this camera as an impulse buy at Best Buy, and I really like it. There are some pros and cons just like anything but so fat the experience is good, and the price was right.
   
   Lets go over the cons first, as for some people the cons will break this camera. First the video quality, no way around it this camera is made for YouTube. You are not going to get great video quality out of this camera, very bad in low light but ok in sunlight. Second the battery life. To be honest it kinda sucks, 40 mins on a charge is a little lower than I wanted considering the size. I want to take this every where and use this all day, but that is not going to happen. The buttons on the camera are also a point of contention, as they have almost no tactile feedback. I would like it if they clicked a little or something, but that is a very small problem.
   
   Now the Pros. The selling point of this camera was the size. It is really small! It fits in my pocket no problem, and I literally take it everywhere. I have even tied it to a kite , and the top of my car just to see if I could, and it was great. Then comes the price, for $299 you can barley beat it, There are some cameras like the Flip but they do not have the flip out LCD (very handy) or replaceable batteries and memory.
   
   Bottom line is this camera is pushed to the YouTube crowd, short videos that you make at parties and stuff like that. Perfect for a Teen with limited cash to spend on their first camera, but wants a little more versatility than the Flip. Or the person like me who has a better camera, but needs something to take everywhere. The sound and video quality are just right for compressing way down and converting to flash, and to be honest if you want to get great video quality spend more money, nothing in this price range is going to be good enough for an HDTV or even many SDTVs.
   
   The battery life issue can also be solved for around 25 bucks by searching the model number(vw-vbj10) of the battery on Google. I have two 3rd party batteries and they work great.
   
   I am happy with my purchase and would recommend it to someone looking for something small and versatile to have fun with.



3. We're days away from the birth of our first child, and we wanted something to be able to capture some quick video... it's (of course) not an HD camera, but the quality is fine for viewing on the computer screen or a standard def TV. The size is great, the price is right.
   
   As has been said, the battery life is listed at 40 minutes, though I haven't tested that, that's real world use (through starting and stopping, etc.), it should last longer than an hour of continuous shooting. I also bought an off brand replacement battery along with it for $12.
   
   The 3 main requirements I had were small size, low price, and records to flash (Because I knew I'd never use the camera if I had to keep up with tapes, and I didn't trust the performance of DVDs or the longevity of hard drive). If you're willing to accept a slightly lower quality for those things, then this should fit the bill perfectly.



4. I was looking for a camcorder to capture memories of our kids. I'm pretty cheap and not a video snob. That being said, I wanted a camcorder that wouldn't break the bank and one that I wouldn't be afraid to take out of the house. I purchased it from Best Buy only because I needed it right away, it was on sale for the same price as here. I brought the camcorder home and charged the battery and started shooting. Played it back on 42' DLP HD TV and the picture quality, while certainly not HD, was just a good if not slightly better than our old Sony HI8 camcorder, and this was SP video setting (medium). I tried some recording using XP setting (highest quality) and didn't notice enough of a difference to sacrifice half of the recording time. Dark settings do not record well, I think there is a night setting but haven't explored that yet. The 40 minute life of the battery isn't anything for Panosonic to brag about but for my needs, multiple 1 to 2 minute clips and occasional longer ones, its longer than you think. I found many websites that sell the battery for as little as $11.00 and ac/dc chargers for $20.00, a very affordable solution in my opinion. Now the ultimate test, will it work with my macbook? Yes. Sold. I just pluged it in and iphoto grabbed the still pics and imovie grabbed the vids. I have a new macbook w/ intel processor and iMovie '08, I understand older versions will not work. To sum it up, Affordable price, good video quality, compact and lightweight, and not afraid to take it anywhere. It is just what I was looking for.



5. I recently purchased this product from best buy (yesterday) and will be returning it today. The picture quality is just too bad to justify the $300 dollar price tag. It does have positive attributes such as size, portability and ease of use. The problem is my digital camera (still) takes the same if not better quality video as the SDR-S7. It's too bad because the positives would have made this a great camera if not for the YouTube like video quality.

5 comments about Sony DCR-HC28 MiniDV Handycam Camcorder with 20x Optical Zoom.

1. most of the playback and adjustment controls are soft touch via the flip out panel. that is very awkward and undesirable. it would be fine if that was a backup/parallel method, but forcing these fat fingers of mine to try and hit the little pixels, and driving down through all those levels of controls makes me crazy. i will be paying for the cheap price of this half baked item for many frustrating months to come, until i can justify getting a more well designed product.



2. Love it got it a week ago and have great fun with it .
   I love that you can record in widescreen and full screen.
   Pros:
   Size
   Sound
   Battery Life
   Playback Clearness
   Easy to use
   Nightshot Plus
   Touch screen
   And being able to flip the screen so that you can see your self while taping
   
   Cons:
   I only have one. it doesn't come with a firewire cable though.



3. I LOVE MY NEW CAMCODER. I USE IT TO RECORD MY KIDS AND IT'S VERY LIGHT AND VERY SMALL. I HAVE NO COMPLANTS.



4. I love this little booger! Seriously, for the price I paid, I'm very pleased. I did my homework. I would have liked a microphone jack, an accessory shoe and AV Input but didn't want to spend over $300. Perhaps after a few months, I may upgrade to the DCR-HC96 but for now, I'm happy as a clam. I have a Toshiba laptop with a built-in 4-pin firewire port and I purchased a generic firewire cord for all of $5 including shipping. I took some short videos of my boyfriend eating breakfast and within minutes I had them uploaded to Windows Movie Maker and had a ball editing them. Fun!



5. This is a great little camera for the money. I would highly suggest it to anyone on a budget.

3 comments about JVC GR-D850 MiniDV Camcorder with 35x Optical Zoom.

1. The sound and video quality is amazing! I am very impressed by the quality of the image and sound even at night. There is no blurring when panning around either, but at night its performance slightly suffers. Sometimes it takes a few seconds to focus correctly at night from switching from close to distant objects, but it is crystal clear. The sound is GREAT. Its easy to use, easy to hold.
   
   In order to place taped videos to the PC, you need a Fire Wire port on your computer, a 6pin to 4pin fire wire cable, and a lot of hard drive space. One hour is about 14 gigs when transfered 100% uncompressed. After editing and compression though the file size is very manageable.
   
   **For every minute you record it takes one minute to transfer to the PC**
   
   If I had payed 350 dollars for this, I would still be amazed. Its the steal of the year, so cheap yet so good...! I bought the camera, firewire cable, three Fuji Film MiniDV's with tax didnt break 300 dollars!
   
   This is the first camera I've ever owned.



2. I bought this one for my mom and dad. It seems just as easy to use as the one I purchased a few years back. It's lightweight and mom seems to understand how to use it after about ten minutes of showing her how to do things.
   
   The only thing I would not like is that it lacks a viewfinder (like on a film camera) -- all it has is the large LCD display. If you prefer a viewfinder, you may want to look at other camcorders.



3. The JVC GR-D850 MiniDV Camcorder is our 3rd JVC camcorder. It was purchased primarily for quick capture of family events and we didn't expect the final video to be as high a quality as our previous JVC GR-DV800U which cost almost 3 times as much. So, when we powered up the camcorder and took our first video we weren't too disappointed. That being said, this camcorder is small enough to tote around just about anywhere and comes in handy when hiking in the woods or around family gatherings. The final video produced isn't too bad although the color balance is just OK.
   
   For the price this is a good buy.

5 comments about Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 30-Minutes (Black).

1. The gadget itself is cool. But the conversion of the video takes forever and then it goes through an AOL server to email. So overall it's decent for the price. But you could just use the video feature on your camera.



2. Bought this item for myself but gave it to my grandson when he visited. It is brilliant. Easy to use, very good reproduction on my computer screen. I am going to buy another to replace the one I gave my grandson.
   It was cheaper from Amazon than from our local Walmart too.



3. great product. easy to use. good video. compact for vacation. would highly recommend.



4. i bought one for my wife,on our aniversary after useing it i liked it so much i bought myself one.it comes in handy for estimating jobs,or just playing with.
   joe



5. I love this camcorder, the size is perfect, ease of use, quality of the videos is great, the sound is great too. The one problem I have been experiencing is with the connection to the USB port and the camcorder being recognized by the computer. The "arm" seems to be really touchy and a slight movement one way or the other can make or lose the connection. It's not the computer because, I eventually, after using 3 different USB ports, front and back of tower, was able to upload my videos. This happens each time I try to upload the videos. Once I get them uploaded to my computer, there is no problem. It works great uploading them to AOL's video site, making it easy to share videos with others. If I could just get the "touchy" part of the arm resolved, I would give this a 5 star rating. I did contact the company and they offered to have me mail in my camcorder so they can try to see if a repair needs to be made, but since I need the camcorder right now, I am holding off on that offer. If the problem persists, I will see if they can repair it and update my review.

5 comments about GoPro Digital HERO 3 Sports Wrist Camera.

1. This camera does exactly what it's supposed to do. It doesn't take photos with the same quality as an SLR, but its small, light, straps to your arm so you can surf with it, and takes decent pictures and videos. I recommend some rechargeable AAA batteries because they will last much longer than the disposable kind, and gigabyte SD card for some serious storage space. I've taken some good surf photos with this camera, and I have taken some underwater video in the swimming pool. As long as you're not expecting a pro quality camera, you'll really enjoy this.
   
   Before I got my GoPro, I was worried that it would be annoying to paddle out with this thing strapped to my wrist, but it turns out you don't even notice it when you're surfing with it!



2. I'm giving this 5 stars as it works as advertised. For basically a $100 camera it's excellent. It's small, it's portable, and with accessories available from the manufacturer you can attach this camera to bicycles, cars, motorcycles, helmets, kayaks, or just about anything.
   I've tested mine on my mountain bike and the video quality is excellent for a camera in this price range. Look at the Gopro site or youtube for many examples of the video quality.
   The cons for this product would be the short battery life (I get 30 minutes of reliable service using alkaline AAA's, GoPro recommends using Lithium Ions) and the not totally reliable button actions. But again, you're operating an affordable camera through a waferproof case, and once you're used to how it operates you can get very good results out of it.
   If you want a camera to strap to your helmet, and don't want to break your budget, this is the camera for you.



3. When I bought this camera, I kept in mind the low price tag and obviously the size and mobility of this thing. I ski, skateboard and surf, and this camera seemed ideal for catching footage that wouldn't be possible any other way (without spending a lot of money on a nicer camera and waterproof/shock proof casing). While the ski season is over, and I haven't gotten a chance to surf or ski with it yet, I have tested the waterproof casing and have taking lots of skating footage. The pictures come out alright, but don't expect anything to great. The colors can be off given the lighting, and the detail somehow doesn't quite look like 3 gigapixels. The case is waterproof as long as you clean the o-ring that helps seal the housing. The video mode is indeed the best quality of the
   Go-Pro 3, as it gives relatively clean footage and the mic catches voices and loud noises. It records in AVI, and 55 minutes fits on a 2GB SD. The footage is nice looking, although I get a lot of frames where there are black squares that appear when I move the camera too violently or switch from dark to light quickly, or vice versa.
   One of the biggest concerns I had before buying it, is that people had complained about the battery life. With NiMH rechargeable batteries full charged, the battery lasted more than an hour shooting regular shots. The longest video I'm gotten to record is 40 minutes. I'm sure it can record longer, I just haven't yet exhausted the batteries by recording videos. Lots of reviews online claim the camera only takes up to 5 minutes of footage before it kills the batteries. THIS IS A LIE. If you use the recommended batteries, and charge them before you use them, it has GREAT battery life!
   Given the price tag and convenience of the Digital Hero 3, I would consider it a great buy! It does not by any means replace my real camera which I use for sightseeing, portraits, etc., but is very useful for water/extreme sports!



4. This little camera is a great deal. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to capture underwater fun on their vacation. If you want a serious still or video underwater camera you should look elsewhere (and it will cost you).
   
   I bought it with the plan for using while snorkeling, scuba diving and swimming and have been pleased with the quality of all three. I didn't have high expectations on the quality but was pretty impressed when I got the video and stills onto my computer. They were large and crisp. I was able to capture some elusive barracuda off in the distance. The still pictures of the ocean floor (down 10-15' while snorkeling) were clear and bright.
   
   They put a lot of thought into features that you might need (auto picture taking, triple shot, hold settings from previous sessions, easy to delete if needed) so I appreciate their anticipation of user needs. They can't cover every want, but they did well enough.
   
   I do notice how consistently darker the video quality is than the photos and if you're doing low-light or deep diving in scuba, or snorkel on a very overcast day your videos may be hard to view. Pictures are much more forgiving.
   
   It is very challenging to get your videos or pictures in frame properly so have a lot of cut off heads but with some editing you can work around this, usually. The viewfinder is tiny and hard to look through while the camera is strapped on your wrist.
   
   I still would say that the quality of the overall product is impressive and I don't think there is anything close to it in terms of value.
   
   Pros:
   1. Inexpensive but well designed & constructed.
   2. Good quality pictures and video (if the light conditions are decent)
   3. Wrist mount makes it convenient to use and keep track of doing task-loading sports.
   4. Seems durable though I've not maxed out the depth.
   
   Cons:
   1. Must remove camera from housing to get video out of it. Recommend getting a memory stick reader rather than dragging around yet another USB cord.
   2. Video: Low light drags down quality. Indoors needs a lot of light!
   3. Eats batteries pretty quickly. Recommend NiMH rechargables or you'll go through lots of alkalines.
   4. Hard to get consistent video in-frame when strapped to wrist. Viewfinder is not all that helpful. But I'm not sure how they could fix this issue.



5. I love my GoPro Hero; but I sympathize with those who are unhappy with it- I think they just don't "get it". It is not a great point & shoot still camera since it is primarily a tiny video camera and recorder, and an indestructable one at that. It is best at videos of activities that would smash your camcorder to bits! My favorite feature is the time-lapse function for long bike rides, with the handlebar mount. Fun! Usually color & brightness is very good. Anyone having trouble should call GoPro since the camera takes fine pictures.