Good – I loved this camera so much I bought two. I made a couple of documentaries with these cameras and have done plenty of professional work. You can add an external mike easily enough, and various adapters and even a focus ring that will take away the problem of the fiddly little focus button. Although the MiniDV tapes provide a great resultant footage, I had to carry a couple of dozen of them for the projects I worked on, so it took up space. Nothing a hard case couldn't fix. I've never bothered taking still photos with for the same reason I don't take video footage with my still camera. The image stabilizer is okay, but I would recommend using a hand held stabilizer. The on board mike worked well for me a lot of the time. I was impressed really, but I have used external mikes and DVR as a backup in certain situations. One must take care not to let your own voice boom over the people you're filming though due to the proximity of your mouth to the mike, but if you just turn your head when you speak you'll solve that easily enough. This camera does suffer from rolling shutter effect, but it's not a problem for most people. Great picture quality. On board light. Plenty available accessories. Good online forum available. Quick start up. Low light ability. Carrying spare MiniDV tapes around. Picks up mechanism sound. PAL version costly compared to NTSC version. On board light too yellow and narrow.