Canon GL 2 Camcorder - Black/Silver

I purchased my GL-2 used and in great shape from eBay. The camera is a lower cost but high end DV tape camera, with super quality and a 20X zoom, which allows me ample footage time on a single Mini-DV tape for outdoor hunting footage. This camera is TV quality and has been industry standard for many years!

I researched the newer HD cameras and dollar for dollar, the Canon GL2 gives me much more for my money, because most HD cameras in the $800 price range that I paid for this GL2 are only 10X with smaller hard drive capacity for highest quality recording. If a HD camera gets wet and dies, so does your footage on that hard drive, but a GL 2 Mini DV tape, can be removed and transferred to your editing software on any tape playing device and be saved for ever! In my book the Mini DV tape still out shines the HD hard drive cams any day for the outdoor sport filming!

I say forget HD and stay with Mini-DV, buy a Canon GL2, for the same money as a an equal 20X HD camera of over 5K you can own three to five Canon GL 2's!

I was shooting the Ms Senior Nye county, Nevada Pageants and their other performances with a nice but home quality video camera that was Ok under perfect conditions but lacking under other. Needed something better. I reasearched many of the Panasonic, Sony and Canon series, on ebay, including the X, V, L and G and settled on the GL2, for most 'Bang for the Buck', including performance and ease of use.

I particularly like the max lux of .37 and the color quality. Many of the shoots are indoors with poor lighting conditions and the GL2 does very well. I had an opportunity to use the XL1 indoors and the GL2 out performed it for low light picture quality.

I then monitored the sales and bidding on the Gl2 for 2 months to help determine what I should pay for quality and quanity... Complements and thank you to ebay for making this easy. It takes more homework but it's all available on your site.

The Gl2 is great for it's size, weight, simplicity and picture quality for a prosumer camera. Most features are easy to use.

The only thing I don't like about it is the manual, It is difficult to find some of the menu items like finding the spotlite/snow/florescent settings and it suggests little about the best settings, filters for conditions or why to use them. Software did not come with the camera, possibly it is there.

Also, I purchased the DM50 mic on ebay and so far (only one test) do not see the value in it.

I plaln to buy another GL2 to use as back up.

I purchased this camera to use as a project cam for our church. The versatility and good fame the GL2 is what made me decide this was the one to buy.

I like the extreme portability and the all the features the camera packs. 3CCD was a big check on my list when shopping for cameras. It delivers about 480p quality with it's Mini DV format, plus the DV (IEEE 134) in/out is prime for digital editing purposes. Perhaps is not Full HD definition quality (1080p) but if you know how to work your camera and your editing, you get great professional broadcasting results.

The GL2's price tag in comparison with other models makes it an almost flawless contender. If found in good used conditions on eBay, then the price is just unbeatable. Plus it has so much accessories and attachments that can go with it, your options are endless.

goood camera... exelent image quality, exelent image staviliser
exelent colors.... very good zoom, good auto focus, and exelent minimum lux ....

This product has been around for years, and Canon still insists on selling it for up to $2000+ brand new from the factory. It is a low price for a camera that is basically a compact high-end camera. Mini DV is frowned upon now that HD is around, but this image quality is brilliant compared to most mini-dv cassette video cameras. Having the focus control ring around the lens alone makes this camera awesome.
Right now I just created my own portable studio for under $2000. I bought this camera under "like new" conditions which came with this camera, camera bag, extra batteries and a ton of tapes. I also bought a wheel dolly with no tracks needed, a heavy duty crane stand & 4 ft crane that I rigged to manually pivot by buying a few extra parts from Lowes and a boom microphone. I have been extremely into filming theatre lately, and this rig was perfect for what I needed. I first started using this rig for "The Sound of Music". Everything previous to that was using an average home mini dv camera.
Check out the quality of what I've been capturing at my channel "go2997" on you tube.