DC22 is an excellent value, great video, good stills, DVD is a plus
Pros:
Excellent bright light image quality, good still camera, very compact, nice eyepiece, bright pop-out monitor
Cons:
MiniSD card, low light image quality, shallow tripod screw,
built-in light w/video, low battery capacity
The Bottom Line:
DC22 is an excellent value in a mini camcorder for keeping family memories and for posting on web sites. Can pop DVD into DVD player to show immediately.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
We got a DC22 after almost getting one of the newer memory card based camcorders. Mainly got it to replace an aging SVHS-C camcorder that no longer focussed well in low light.
The Canon DC22 works very well and is an excellent value in a format that may have peaked in its popularity. Real plus is being able to just pop the DVD into the grandparent's DVD player (when using mini DVD-R). After reviewing many different camcorder reviews, settled on this Canon product introduced in late 2006 as an excellent value, we got it for $399 including shipping/handling in March 2007.
The DC22 includes both a MiniSD as well as the primary media, the 8cm (3.1") mini DVD drive. The imager is larger than the competition in this category, leading to excellent quality images in modest to bright light. Good navigation of controls with a very well placed little "joystick". Expect at the "Good" quality to get 31min video on each miniDVD.
The still photo camera function works well, very good quality for a 2mp imager. The miniSD card, which is really dedicated to the still camera function, isn't as readily available as regular SD or even microSD cards. If not installed, still photos are mixed on the mini DVD. This leads to relatively short battery life. If you are going to use this a lot as a still camera, worth getting a good sized miniSD card.
The one downside is the poor low-light image quality. The built-in LED light is useful for still photos in close proximity to the subject, but pretty useless for videos. The external connector is USB2 only, not Firewire. SVHS and standard NTSC video and stereo audio output is also included. The TFT display is very bright and convenient, nice wide format default.
One thing I really like about this small palmcorder format is that the very convenient eyepiece is great for those with glasses and very easy to adjust to your vision. You really do need to get an aftermarket battery right away for this camera! The Canon branded batteries are absurdly expensive with very modest 850maH capacity.
It seems that batteries are cash cows for photo stores, both brick-and-mortar and online charge a lot. Many sites offer higher capacity Li-ion batteries for around $15 (well, around $21 with shipping). Same for the DVD-RW or DVD-R 8cm media, get it in spindles of 10 or more and the cost drops to about $1 for RW, $0.35 for write once media. Several good online resources exist for each.
Get a monopod for the DC22 and you have a very portable camcorder you can use anywhere! Watch out for the shallow tripod screw, a 1/8" thick $0.10 rubber washer from a hardware store will prevent possible damage to the screw or the camera itself.
Adorama
