Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer
by Canon
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Our Price: $1,799.00 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $350.00 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer
Customer Review: I love this Camera!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not an expert by any means but for a consumer grade camcorder the HG10 is outstanding. I have had mine for about three weeks now and here are my observations.
Video quality is absolutly beautiful, even in the LP mode.
Batery life is pretty good.
Plenty of record time on the 40GB HD.
It takes great still pics in picture mode.
It takes great pics while simultainiously taking video footage.
The size of the camera is pretty good for my large hands.
Transfering the files to my PC is very easy using the Canon Backup Utility.
The rest of the supplied software is useless. It wont run on my PC.
As for editing the AVCHD files I've found two programs that handle it very well. Sony Vegas Platinum 8.0 ($69.99 on Amazon) and Ulead Video Studio 11.5 Plus ($69.99 on Amazon). Depending on you PC configuration you may get some jerky playback while editing. But the finished video will be fine. If you set the preview quality in Vegas to "Preview Auto" it will do away with most if not all of it.
The Sony program is envolved and very powerful but will take some time to learn. The Ulead program is much more user friendly for the novice. You can download a trial version of each one www.sonycreativesoftware.com and www.ulead.com.
I've also found that having a nice big external drive, I use a 1TB My Book, will speed up processing or compression times when reading from one drive and writing the finished video to another drive.
Useful additions to you HG10:
Canon BP-2L24H extended run battery
Canon CB-2LW battery charger
Canon hot shoe video light
A good fluid head tripod
A large external hard drive to store the raw files.
UPDATE: 7/14/08
Still love the my HG10. My comment is on saftware. I recently have to upgrade my computer and purchase an HP quad core, 1TB HD, 4gb of ram running Vista Home Premium 64bit. Sony Vegas does not support 64bit Vista yet but Ulead 11.5 does and it is utilizes the quad core processor as well. Ulead is not as advanced as Sony but until Sony gets it together Ulead is it for me. I converted a 4.5 minute HD video to a hd 1280x720 wmv in about 8-9 minutes. On my old dual core machine that would have taken at least a good hour.
Customer Review: Canon HG10 una excelente filmadora...
Summary: 5 Stars
Excelente, la calidad de filmación es realmente impresionante, muy recomendable sobre todo para un entusiasta del video que desea dar sus primeros pasos (como yo) en este apasiónate mundo o para el usuario promedio que desea grabar sus próximas vacaciones o momentos inolvidables en su vida.
Posee un modo cine que te hará sentir el próximo Steven Spielberg, sin lugar a dudas esta cámara hará las delicias de cualquier usuario promedio y llegara a complacer a un semi-profesional.
Otro punto a favor es su disco duro, que según la calidad de la filmación que escojamos podremos guardar horas de video.
Las fotografías de esta cámara son muy aceptables, vamos es una filmadora, no una cámara digital, pero cumple con su cometido y de manera muy honrosa, puedes antes de encender la cámara seleccionar si la usaras en modo cámara digital o como filmadora, algo que me ha parecido interesante, eso sí a la hora de usarla como cámara será necesario una tarjeta de memoria miniSD para poder almacenar las fotografías en ella, algo sin problemas debido al bajo precio en el que puedes encontrar estas tarjetas en este momento en el mercado.
Como nada es perfecto lo único a lo que realmente se le debe prestar atención es al formato de grabación que es AVCHD un formato no muy extendido y que te puede dar dolores de cabeza a la hora de editar.
Si piensas reproducir los videos en la computadora puedes hacerlo con los programas que incluye pero si tu idea es hacerlo en windows media player no te reconocerá el formato de video, inconveniente que se soluciona instalando un codec.
Sin más que agregar, muy recomendable, fue mi elección luego de un pequeño pero exhaustivo estudio de las filmadoras disponibles al momento, en cuanto a relación calidad y precio para el público al que va dirigida.
Customer Review: Great HD camcorder, very simple to use.
Summary: 5 Stars
My last camcorder was circa 2002 -- tape based, and looks similar to SDTV. A very simple setup, but the videos were showing their age between the multiple upscales when watching on HDTV.
This camcorder looks amazing when connected to my HDTV. When plugging this in the first time, it looks so similar to HDTV broadcasts (or HD-DVD), that you'll be blown away with the quality. Let's look at the pros/cons...
Pros:
- HD based. No rewinding, no waiting for tape to spin up, easy edits on the camcorder to quickly remove sections, etc.
- Length of recording. At the highest resolution (~15MB/sec), this camcorder can do >5 hours of HDTV. Medium is about >10 hours (~10MB/sec) and low is >15 hours (~5MB/sec). Much better than my previous tape setup
- Good low light pickup. My home isn't the brightest of all homes, but it did pickup my indoor shots at night better than my previous.
Cons:
- Editing is much longer than before. Since the video is in AVCHD, my iMac has to decode to something it can use, then re-encode to be used in other apps and encoded once more in order to fit onto DVDs. While the product is amazing, it's easily 4+ hours of wait time in order to get a DVD burned. A tape system would be better for immediate import, but I knew this going in and could bother some people buying this to convert to DVDs.
- Handle was a bit large to grip. My hands are a bit big and this camcorder seemed to fit fine in my hand. Some of my relatives felt the handle was a bit too big for them.
- HD based. Yes, I listed that in the "pros" section as well, but it belongs here due to the additional time and effort it takes to edit the video. There are flash based devices like this, but their capacity is much shorter (if you import often, this can be an advantage)
Now that I've got my feet wet with this baby, I've recommended it to a few people that are looking at similar.
Customer Review: Good so far
Summary: 5 Stars
I am still in the learning stage with this camcorder. Last year I bought a Sony DCR-SR80 (non-HD, 60 gig HDD). I was generally happy with that camcorder, using it mostly for my sons' sporting events. Then I read where HD video, converted to mpeg, is a higher quality than a SD camcorder mpeg. I did a side-by-side comparison of both camcorders. The result: the Canon converted video was sharper and had truer color than the Sony SD. Also, the HD video (not converted) played through the camcorder into an HD TV is phenomenal. The disadvantage to converting to SD is that the downconverting (is that a real term?)takes time, and unless I'm missing something, is a multi-step process with the included software.
Issues: There is limited software that is available to do decent editing for the HD mode. This isn't a huge problem for me at the moment, because currently Bluray burners and media are a little too $$$ for my tastes, so hopefully, when the prices go down (hopefully by football season), more software will be available. I downloaded a 30 day free trial of ULEAD 11, but it is a bit awkward to work with. I also have Vegas Studio 8, which I am very happy with for SD video, but Sony hasn't released a version to work with Canon HD video. It does work with Sony HD Camcorders, but they (the HDD versions)cost around $400 more than this one. Also, I agree with those who are unhappy with the microphone. The wind noise on a breezy day is horrible.
Overall, it seems like a nice camcorder at a great price.
7 months later.......After taping several pee-wee football games, I can't get over how great the picture is. I always use a monopod, because despite the image stabilization, extra stability is needed for zoom action shots. I can watch the video at 1/4 speed and break down the plays because the picture shows zero blur. It really is an incredible camera.
Customer Review: Absolutely outstanding!
Summary: 5 Stars
As your average camcorder user, I've found this very easy to use right out of the box. While there are plenty of options to enhance your shots, this does a great job in a very basic shooting mode.
With multiple formats for shooting, the storage is excellent for most 3-7 day vacations. The first time I used this was on a 4 day trip to Walt Disney World, where I go frequently. My first shots were from the monorail, while moving. Stabilization was not perfect, but came out nice once I steadied myself.
Half of my shots were with low light, either at the fireworks shows in the Magic Kingdom & Epcot, or on rides. Almost all of them came out perfect, with the exception of a couple that were out of focus. I found that if low-light focusing was a problem, manually zooming in & out would quickly correct the situation. I was able to zoom in on a full screen shot of Tinkerbell, launching off the castle at the start of the fireworks, with amazing clarity.
While the movie software it comes with takes some understanding, it does work well. It allows you to convert all movies to Mpegs manually, or will do it automatically when creating a DVD. It works fastest when burning straight to AVCHD DVD, and can take a very long time if converting first.
The clarity of the pictures on SP format (2nd only to XP) was true HD quality, and used less space than I thought after 4 days. On SP, over an hour of footage only used about 10% of the storage. When hooked up straight to my TV, or viewing from the AVCHD DVD created, footage came out like I was still there. The next time I go, I will be using the XP format, now that I know I have plenty of storage space.
All in all, was an excellent choice, well worth the money for such fantastic footage.