Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Do Not Buy HD JVC Picsio gcfm1bus!

Dec 25, 2010 5:34AM PST

for outdoors when it's bright out, it's not too bad, but indoors with normal, even somewhat bright lighting, it's almost a useless camera! The pictures/video come out soo dark. There's no flash of course for stills. (i don't understand how a 30$ cell phone has flash and these $200 camcorders don't. I don't understand how a cam with such good specs (full HD, 8MP stills, image stabilizer, etc) would take such dark photos. I googled this and found other had the same problem-could be a defective batch? I got it 'cause it was a good deal ($45 like new from eBay). Right now there are tons being sold for even less and it sounds like a great deal, so just giving the heads up.

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
nevermind
Dec 27, 2010 4:38AM PST

just learned that it's not this particular camera that is dark, it's the size of the mini camcorders' lenses and the imaging chip array systems that make most of them take dark video. not enough light comes through the lens and the chips are expensive parts. though, reviews say the creative labs vado mini camcorder takes bright video.

- Collapse -
oop
Dec 30, 2010 10:09AM PST

stupid human error on my part. I've had my monitor brightness and contrast to all the way down to zero for years-because it's easier on the eyes,kinda saves energy, and that's all one really needs it to be for internet browsing, unless video games and google earth for me but haven't played games in years and just forgot when looking at pictures that were so dark that the monitor was max minimum. Although peolpe are saying the small pocket sized camcorders all give dark quality because the lenses are so small. Just don't want to give the wrong info and discourage anyone from buying a pocket sized cams. Youtube reviews show they aren't all that dark unless it's night time of course.