Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Before I sing praises of the Canon Vixia HF R800, lemme give some perspective on this review: I work as a professional videographer, typically for local bands and music events, fundraiser charities, musician EPKs, etc. I have been using a Canon Vixia G30 for almost 4 years now, and it's literally the best prosumer camera anyone can buy. While it only goes up to 1080/60p, the image quality is superior to anything else I've seen thanks to the CMO sensor (which does VERY well in the low-light bar settings I often encounter). And it has the superior optics that typifies Canon products. The setup options allow videographers the ability to get a near-perfect set up for each gig I video, and even the internal microphone sound quality is top-notch, considering it's only a video camera. The only drawback with the Vixia line (so far) is that they don't offer 4K quality video...but frankly, the 4K videos I get filming in low-light settings with other cameras end up looking NO BETTER than 1080/60p...and when the file sizes explode to 5-6 times what I get with 1080/60p, you effectively max out computer memory after just one gig!! So for now, the Canon Vixia G30/G40 is the benchmark for what I do. So, I had a gig come up where I really needed a 3rd camera (or really 7th camera, if you include GoPros), and I was torn between getting this Vixia HF R800, or the Vixia G20, which I call the poor-man's G40. There's a $500 price difference, so given my budget constraints, I opted for this R800. And boy, that was easily the best $250-or-less camera investment I've ever made. It's setup and user options interface is basically a simplified version of the G30 I already have, it records in the SAME 1080/60p format (and has most of the same video quality-level options). It uses the CMO sensor (or a version of it), so low-light quality was fairly crisp...except with dreaded red/pink lighting, then the fuzziness starts to come through...but again, we are talking very dark bars/stages here. Autofocus works well too, it doesn't spend a lot of time wandering around trying to focus. And damn, the sound quality was also extremely good, comparable to the G30 I have, but requiring a lot less work to get it setup for this kind of audio recording. For this gig, it was a static tripod camera, and it work exactly how I needed it to. It's so light and affordable, I might just buy another one, rather than get a GoPro for almost $100-$200 more. Again, you CANNOT go wrong with the Canon Vixia line, it's pretty good, yawl!!