Canon ZR850 Camcorder Review by John Neely Published on Mar 6, 2007 3:42 PM

- DC power adapter
- BP-2L5 Battery Pack
- Lithium Button Battery
- Stereo Video Cable
- WL-D85 Wireless Controller
- Lithium Button Battery for Wireless Controller
- USB Cable
- Digital Video Solution Disk Software CD-ROM
- MiniDV tape

This is a decent palette of goods for a camcorder within the entry-level class. A USB cable and MiniDV tape? You shouldn’t have! Canon gives you everything you need right out of the box. However, you’ll have to pick up an SD, SDHC, or MMC card in order capture stills. Also, they neglected the DV cable (a.k.a. FireWire, i.LINK, and IEEE1394), which you’ll need to edit.

Other Features (3.0)
Like the ZR830 (Review, Specs, $240), the ZR850 doesn’t have much to offer here. You’ve got your hokey digital effects including wave and cube, auto white balance, and 8 different Program AEs to choose from, as mentioned earlier. However, the ZR850 offers a few additional features that will provide you with some kicks if you are fond of cheap thrills.

Video Light - The ZR850 is the only model in the ZR series to include an LED video light. Built-in video lights are pretty useless unless of absolute emergency. At best, you'll have a poorly lit scene with your subject squinting against the blaring, cold light.

Card Mix – This feature is found in the digital effects portion of the Function menu. With card mix, you are able to overlay digital stills saved to a memory card on top of video. A gamma layer is created in which one particularly strong color is accentuated while the remainder of the image is rendered transparent. A slider adjusts the transparency of the still image, and you can scroll through every still stored on the card to ensure a quick selection. We’d have to guess that this is the most confusing the least used feature widely available on Canon camcorders, but here it is in 2007 and they’ve included it again.

Faders – If you don’t plan on editing your footage using software, Canon provides you the option of in-camera editing with nine different video transitions: Fade-T (Fade in), Wipe, Corner, Jump, Flip, Puzzle, Zigzag, Beam, and Tide. They’re fun to play with and provide an ample amount of unnecessary madcap wackiness to your video.