Screen and viewfinder are distorted - Canon ZR85 Mini DV Digital Camcorder

Video heads need cleaning

If the pics are fine when you download them, then the sensor is fine. The distortion is more likely a screen problem. Sometimes a small crack in a corner will cause such a problem.

It's possible it got bent out of shape. The viewfinders in pocket cameras are secondary to the rear screen, and some more recent models lack them entirely.

The reason why the screen is better in these cameras is because the main lens, and the viewfinder are separate by a few inches, so what you see in the view finder, and what the camera takes a picture of can vary by quite a bit.

Hi and welcome to FixYa,

A blue screen is 'video muting', the player is not getting a decent video signal and rather than display distorted / noisy video, it is muted.  Initially, has a video head cleaner been tried on the camcorder?

Good luck and thank you for asking FixYa.

This could be lens distortion. You didn't say what lens you were using, but when you tilt down or up and use a wide-angle lens, you're going to introduce distortion into the image. This will be particularly apparent for anything that linear. Fixes are as follows:

You can go into Photoshop or other photo editing software and correct the distortion. There are MANY free tutorials online that will give you a step-by-step how-to on doing this.

You can also use a more telephoto lens when shooting, which will cut down on the distortion when you tilt your lens.

It's very difficult to see distortion through the viewfinder. Even after many years of shooting daily, I still have trouble with it. My work around if distortion is an issue, is to shoot with a more telephoto lens.

If the image is blurred on both clean the lens, if it does not fix it then it is probably a faulty lens problem.

if it records the distortion then i suspect the guides are out of adjustment or your capstand roller is pushing the tape to high on the guides. need to have a profession serviced.

Failing CCD- if less than a year old return to vendor. If more than a year old contact Canon This may be eligible for free replacement- due to a faulty batch of chips that were in circulation used my many makers,

Yes, You are correct, it does not seem to be problem with the CCD. Insted it seems to be with shutter control or apparture control mechanism of the camera. Normaly there is one single cable carring signal to the shutter blade mechanism and the diaphram control. If this cable is damaged it shows the same symptoms as you have described in your mail. Get in touch with an expert camera repairer.

the ony way is to get the CCD replaced with a new one. Contact NIKON for free replacement as this comes under manufacturing defect.