Canon VIXIA HF10 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 16 GB Internal Flash Memory and 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
by Canon
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List Price: Our Price: $299.00 You Save: $800.99 (73%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon VIXIA HF10 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 16 GB Internal Flash Memory and 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Customer Review: Great HD performance, be prepared to shell out money for editting software
Summary: 5 Stars
This camcorder really is quite fantastic. I previously had the HG10 and was disappointed by it mainly due to it's low light performance and it's tendency to produce smeared / ghosted images - fast moving objects seemed to leave a trail behind them, particularly in low light. Fast forward to the HF10 and I am a much happier person.
The HF10 has quite good low light performance and I have not noticed a problem with smearing or ghosting like the HG 10. The camera is very small and lightweight. Small enough to almost be completely unobtrusive, so much so that I've now got into the habit of just taking it along and putting it in the pocket of my cargo pants or cargo shorts. I could go on and on...
The only downfall of this camera is also a primary reason to get the camera - AVCHD. Put simply, AVCHD enables you to take full resolution HD video with a tiny camera using removable memory in a relatively small file size. However, support for editing AVCHD is spotty right now at the CONSUMER level:
- Canon does include a viewer app that can also export standard MPEG at 1280 * 720, but not 1920 * 1080. In other words, the software is good enough to create a version that most video editing programs can work with, but it can't do any editing with the AVCHD itself.
- Windows Movie Maker does not support it.
- iMovie on the Mac pseudo supports it. It can transcode the AVCHD to quicktime HD and work from there. This means a much, much larger file size and doing the transcoding is pretty painful on everything but a multiprocessor Mac Pro Workstation. I have a dual core 2GB macbook pro purchased in early 2008 and it works like a dream with everything BUT AVCHD... Then it turns to molasses.
- The major vendors - Pinnacle, Ulead, Sony (Vegas), etc all have offerings claiming support for AVCHD, but you'll need a super fast computer or a lot of patience. Besides that, they still seem to crash at times when working on HD projects. You can tell that their AVCHD support is still a serious work in progress. Adobe premiere elements doesn't support it at all as of this writing and when they do I would expect that it'll take a few patches to work through issues.
So, my final take at this moment in time is that the camera itself does a very good job capturing in AVCHD, but you will have to suffer the poor AVCHD support by video editing software vendors. However, if you want HD and don't want huge files or tapes, then this camera is definitely the camera for you.
Customer Review: Great product!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was instantly amazed at the quality of the video this camera takes. It even looks amazing on the viewfinder. I bought the camera for our business because we needed to make professional quality videos but we couldn't afford the $3000+ cost of a professional camera. So far, this little guy is keeping up with the big boys.
I just finished filming and editing an instructional video for a local school district and the quality is top notch. I was a little embarrassed walking into a professional shoot with this very tiny little camera, but the final product is nothing to be embarrassed about.
The quality of the stereo sound from the camera's microphones is also amazing. I set up secondary equipment for recording the sound for our video but used the camera's audio in most cases because it sounded better. My only complaint here would have to be that there is such great stereo separation from the mics that you lose the center channel where primary dialogue is usually played back.
Still photos are equally amazing quality even allowing still snapshots while recording video. My favorite is the high speed continuous shooting, though you have to be prepared to wait a few minutes for the camera to process the data at high quality before you can take another picture.
Battery life is about 90 minutes in top quality mode. The 16GB onboard flash memory gives you nearly 3 hours of recording in the same mode. I picked up an addition 16GB SDHC card online for about $75 to double my capacity. High capacity batteries and accessories have been hard to find or too expensive but I expect that to change as the popularity of the camera grows, which I am sure it will.
One final note on editing the video. I already owned a copy of Adobe Premiere and was disappointed that it wouldn't read the AVCHD format of this camera. In fact, there is very little software support for this format due to it being new. I'm sure that will change over time. The only software I found to edit AVCHD is Cyberlink's Power Director which is pretty inexpensive, easy to learn and does a nice job.
Summary:
Pros - Great quality video and sound, small and light, no moving recording parts to wear out.
Cons - Current scarcity of accessories and editing software. Manual focus using the joystick on the viewfinder is awkward and jumpy.
Customer Review: Amazing camera...and some love for the software
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had this camera for almost a year now and love it. I can echo all of the other great things said about his unit by others, but the bottom line is that it takes incredible hi-def video, it's easy to use, and it's small enough to fit in a closed hand.
I use this camera primarily to record my two teenage children's rock concerts. Most of this is done in low light, and the sound quality (I did invest in their external microphone which sits nicely in the shoe on top) and video are stunning in hi-def. I copy the videos to a 1TB drive on my home network and access them through the PS3 player and show them on a 60 inch plasma. It is truly amazing and people who see it can't believe I took the videos myself.
The software provided by PIXELA, ImageMixer 3SE, gets a very bad rap in all the reviews I have seen on Amazon. However, if you are like me and want to a) export video to .mov files for posting on YouTube, b) want to do minor edits/splicing of files together, and c) burn DVDs to give to family, friends, etc, this software works fine. Of course the raw video AVCHD is difficult to work with and it takes a couple of hours to burn a DVD for the first time (which is true of any software you use), but I find this software highly intuitive and not difficult to use for the above tasks. If you take the time to run through the software manual, which is as good as any I've seen for such software, you can be doing the three functions above in no time. Now if you want to get fancy around menus, effects, etc, then of course you need to invest in some other high powered application, but frankly I think there are diminishing returns on that investment. Most people who are not professionals want DVDs that can play in any DVD player or computer, with a simple main menu and no fuss or complications. This software delivers that. Another thing is does very well and easily is allow you to capture frames into .jpg files. I don't think these are "print worthy" photos, but they are more than adequate for posting on-line, and the software allows you to move frame by frame to capture exact seconds in your video.
Full disclosure--I have no affiliation or allegiance to PIXELA, in fact I have never heard of them before I bought this camera.
All in all, this is camera is huge winner.
Customer Review: Market offerings => price/specifications/criteria/vendor => Best Choice
Summary: 5 Stars
I did my share of research on camcorders. This is the best bang for the buck as of early 2009.
The camera met my criteria,
- it needed to be a true HD
- have supperior picture quality within competition of the same type of camera
- have solid state memory storage internal and removable
Sony came close in a lot of ways, but the huge price difference was a big turn off. Canon makes great products, no one is perfect, but when you need/want an HD camera, this one provides a good meeting point.
Things to consider, the flash memory is fairly slow, so when you are taking still images, unless you are in a sports mode of snapping large number of shots, do not expect to have an image preview immediately (like most still shot cameras do). In addition, there is significant delay when switching modes, for example from camera record to picture play, or from picture record to camera play. These can take up to 10 seconds to complete (mostly due to writing data on to flash), during this time the camera appears to frozen and does not do much and may confuse the user from time to time. I see this as a small price to pay for a solid state storage. Do not confuse this with normal operation, these delays only occur during mode switching when you have a lot of data to write. During 'in mode' operation, it is very peppy and does great.
Number 1 complaint from purchasers online about the HF10 is the battery life. If you are using stock battery that it came with and are recording at the highest video quality - the battery life is shorter than the length you can record. The expanded version of the battery with greater charge capacity is available out there, and I might purchase one along with a charger. Charger is desired if you have more than one battery, since you can only charge them on the camera. Not a big deal for now, you can always operate with the power cord plugged in.
Amazon.com had the best price with consideration of vendor ratings. You can find it cheaper by about $25, but then you are running in to hassle of weird or crazy return policies and "special item" disclosures. The $25 is not worth the headache, Amazon is a very good, trustworthy source.
Customer Review: Get Adobe PremierElements 7 or Pinnacle StudioPlus 12 to edit your AVCHD!
Summary: 5 Stars
While Adobe Premier Elements 7 is a big joke for the MP4 AVC/H.264 formats...it is a superstar with the AVCHD / .mts files this Canon HF10 generates.
Before I bought my own HF10 I was asked by a buddy to edit and burn some youth football footage from his newly acquired Canon HF10 with SDHC card. I was excited. Although I had no clue what an .mts file was Adobe PE 7 not only recognized it and imported it quickly...but I proceeded to edit both video and audio (together and separately)as well as burn to a regular DVD (not BluRay). My jaw just dropped and I said WOW!
I will add that while I am not a big fan of the GUI of Pinnacle Studio Plus 12 it also handles the AVCHD / .mts from the Canon HF10 just fine...and also handles those other MP4's just fine too.
The really important part is that while I have a nice amount of ram (4GB) my computer is nothing special at all. I am running Vista Basic on a Celeron 1.60Ghz processor (Dell Inspiron 530 desktop) with the 4GB of ram.
Now that I have purchased my OWN Canon HF10 AVCHD camcorder Adobe PE7 is my go-to program for this type of footage. Again, it handles the AVCHD / .mts file format flawlessly. Check out my other reviews for some other programs I have tried like Corel VideoStudio X2 and Magix - Movie Edit pro 14. If you are going to be working only with AVCHD, specifically from any of the Canon HF series camcorders that put .mts on sdhc flash cards...then I believe Adobe Premier Elements 7 is the best option.
Warning: If you are going to rely on ONE software solution for multiple formats other than AVCHD, Adobe PE7 is not the way to go! I use several little camera/camcorders other than the HF10. They all use the MP4 AVC/H.264 format...while the previous version of PE handled them fine, Adobe PE 7 HATES the MP4 format! You can't even add them to the time-line without it crashing! If you are looking for a single editing program to handle not only the AVCHD from the Canon HF10, HF11 or HF100 but other formats as well...specifically the MP4 AVC/H.264 format then I would go with Pinnacle Studio Plus 12. Like I said before, the interface and work flow is nothing like Adobe's but it works fin with the multiple formats.