Have just aquired a chinon vc1800 camcorder, with no tapes for it, but as i turn it on and look down the lense it is in black and white,, should this be happening?

owen, October 2012

Hi, I have purchased one of these, I think it might be
better if you connected it to a video recorder or pc, but you would have to purchase a usb capture device and connect this to your pc and the video camera and I think this would be a better as you you could then save your video to the pc and create dvd format video, I have the software for this

Wayne Kenzitt, July 2013

My thoughts are that search through the menu for displays showing sepia, black and white etc which change the taken picture. Sepia will make a photo look old as they used to be.

Once found you can reset to normal colour. Another way take a photo then look at the preview if that's black and white thats what the camera menu has been set to.

bob, November 2012

Hard to tell. Many early and some later camcorders had black and white display but recorded in colour. The black and white display was to reduce cost.
Do you have a cable to connect it to a TV? With several camcorders, it's possible to stream directly to a TV. If it's a colour one, the image will be colour.

Electro, October 2012