The Elura 85, a midrange model in Canon's Elura line of camcorders, is essentially an updated version of the older Elura 65. Like other models in the series, the Elura 85 is a sturdy MiniDV camcorder that is lightweight and comfortable to handle.

It offers the same image sensor setup as the Elura 80 and 90, delivering 690,000 effective pixels in 4:3 mode and 920,000 in 16:9 widescreen mode. This high-resolution widescreen recording mode is a welcome addition to the Elura line, enabling the capture of home movies in a true Hollywood-style widescreen format. The optical zoom lens on this model tops out at 18X magnification, a little less than the Elura 90's 20X. The optical zoom is augmented by a 360X digital zoom capability.

Canon's DigicDV processor controls focus, exposure, shutter speed, and white balance in automatic or easy mode. Alternatively, these can be controlled manually by selecting program mode. The Elura 85 offers 22 different exposure steps and six different shutter speeds, as well as a manual focus control and an adjustment for white balance.

In normal to favorable lighting situations, the Elura 85 delivers clear, vibrant images with good contrast and color saturation. Like the other Elura models, the quality of images recorded in low-light conditions is less impressive. Canon's Night Mode boosts exposure by reducing the shutter speed to brighten the images, but the picture quality inevitably suffers from deterioration.

The Elura 85 doubles as a solid digital stills camera. The unit captures 1.23-megapixel stills to SD card at a maximum resolution of 1,280X960. It can also be used to record short MPEG video to memory card. Rather than the usual 8MB SD card, Canon includes a 16MB card with this model.

Additional features include a built-in flash, Canon's Skin Detail function for softening skin tones on portrait shots, and an accessory shoe. This all helps make the Elura 85 another good Canon MiniDV camcorder for the point-and-shoot enthusiast.

Warranty
1 year parts and labor