digital minidv

2 1/2 stars.. Good feel and Features saves it from a 2 star rating. With minimal low light performance, this camera would have been 5 stars.

I tried both this camera and the Elura 65/70 side by side. While I prefered the feel and overall features of the Optura, the low light is so bad on the Optura, that I ended up selecting the Elura 70. Overall, the Elura has better video performance for less money. And isn't video performance the top reason to buy a camcorder?

Low light is relative.. I'm talking regular indoor lighting, not near dark stuff. I tested it with 300 watts of artificial light ins a 25x15 room and the colors were dull/drab and noticably darker and less colorful than the elura. What's worse, as you lower the light, movement/pans of the camera leave echos of objects! Below 60 lux, the camera is pretty much useless without an accesory light. I find this unacceptable in a $899 camera. I will say that nantural sunlight does wonders for performance, but this only helps when filming near windows or in a sunroom and does nothing at night.

Don't even consider the night modes, they slow down the frame rate and look worse anything you would film in standard mode. And to those that may ask, yes, auto slow shutter is off(which i recommend for any Canon camcorder).

I think the cultrip is the RGB filter... which produces more accurate colors but decreases luminance levels. This is why single CCD cameras genreally use Complementary filters... and why if you want RGB, yuo should get a 3 CCD Camera. I suppose that Canon thought that the 2mp CCD would make up for this weakness. It doesn't. I would have loved this camera with a Complentary filter. I'll sacrifice a negligable amount of color accuracy in bright light for tolerable indoor performance anything. The truth it's hard to tell the difference in the colors, but it's easy to tell the difference indoors.. and indoors, it's brightness and Color that are so bad! The Elura 65/70 performs MUCH better indoors producing reasonably well at normal lighing conditions.. and even as low as 15 lux.

Still Performance is OK, but the overall quality isn't much better than the 1mp elura.. except that the pictures are 1623x1224 rather than 1280x960... While good for a camcorder, they are still no substitute for a digital camera. Don't buy either for stills! The Elura takes suprisingly good photos without a flash, but an external flash is available.

After trying both cameras, I loved the 30.. and it was difficult to part with it. I ran the same tests over and over, and even tried a different Optura, thinking that mine may have been defective.
The bottom line is: If these cameras were the same price, I would have taken the Elura... with the Elura being cheaper, it's a no brainer.

Good Luck

Optura Likes: Excellent auto focus, focus ring, overall feel of Camera is the best that I've felt. Integrated flash, 2mp CCD, Top Loader, Exposure setting.

Dislikes: INDOOR PERFORMANCE IS VERY POOR. Menu Dial is in awkward position. Price.

NOTE: Canon was SO close with this camera. I'm not saying it's not a good camera.. it's feel and performance are great.. it just performs at the bottom of the bell curve on indoor performance... even when compared to cameras half the price.

I recently purchased the Optura 30 at a local retailer after months of research. I must say that I am happy with all of the camera's features except the night mode, which was suppose to be improved. The Optura 40 has Super Night mode, but I haven't been able to find the camera in retail stores to test it out.

Aside from the poor low light feature, the Optura 30 is a great camera. It takes great digital stills (2.0 megapixel) and pretty good Motion JPEGs.

I recommend this camera!