Canon VIXIA HF100 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
by Canon
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon VIXIA HF100 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Customer Review: Now's the time to let that budding filmmaker loose...
Summary: 5 Stars
Are you a film student? An aspiring filmmaker/videographer/etc? Did you ever want to pick up an HD camera but couldn't because of prices that were just out of reach? The kind of prices that make you want to hack a limb off, wrap it up and hope they'd take it and give you a break without having to resort to giving up a leg as well?
This is the camera for you. Nor will it cost you an arm and/or a leg.
While this camera isn't as feature rich as something 10x the price might be, it has just about everything you're going to need: 1080i HD picture shot in 24p (or 30p if you so choose).
The picture you get from this is astounding, especially when shooting in Cine Mode, which gives the end result exactly what you think it would, video footage that looks surprisingly filmlike. We're not quite there on indistinguishable film/video comparisons but the footage you get from this camera is close enough for the average joe and even someone leaning towards being a videophile but not quite. The image stabilizer works very well and so does the auto focus. The zoom is a 12x optical and can be set up to zoom in and out at varying speed levels which I found very useful. The camera also has a photo mode that shoots stills at up to 1920 x 1080 resolution. In fact, this camera reminds me a lot of Canon's dedicated still cameras in the way the menus are set up, with an easy to use interface and menu options all accessible through the cameras fold out LCD panel. It's very simple to operate at this level but if you're not tech savvy at all, there's an "easy" mode button that turns the camera into a point and shoot affair with one touch. The camera itself is a tiny thing, roughly the size of a 12oz can of soda. Very light, very discreet and perfect for travel.
Minor nitpicks would include the manual focus, which is basically useless. There's no ring so its done through the joystick on the LCD interface and its sadly a limited affair. The battery you get with the camera doesnt last too long, giving you about an hour, give or take a few. You can prepare to plunk a couple down on an extra battery and possibly the DM-100 directional mic if your needs call for much better audio than what the camera provides, which is about standard for these types of cameras. There's no storage media to start off with in the box either so you'll have to make sure you pick up the proper format flash card.
Still, I would recommend this camera with high marks across the board. It delivers an astounding picture, great functionality and ease of use that rivals just about any other prosumer HD-cam you can find at a similar price. Those nitpicks that I mentioned above are what you're likely to find on just about any camera you choose so they shouldn't make or break your choice on whether or not to pick this camera up.
If you're looking to create something that has just enough gloss to it and maybe upload some stuff to YouTube (which I've already done) or just about anything else, I'd recommend this with no reservations. I'm very happy with this purchase and I would strongly recommend this to anyone with creative aspirations as this camera fits the bill in more ways than one and should be useful in bringing your ideas to life.
Customer Review: Amazing HD Camera
Summary: 5 Stars
My husband did a great deal of research (including Amazon customer reviews) before we purchased the Canon Vixia HF100 cameraCanon VIXIA HF100 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom. We are delighted with the camera. We also purchased 8 GB and 16 GB SDHC (class 6) memory cards Transcend 8GB SDHC CARD (SD 2.0 SPD Class 6)and an extra battery. There are some things we did not understand before we purchased the camera that we now know -- and I will share with you.
(1)In order to edit your HD movies, you MUST have a powerful computer (we tried it on our "pretty good" computer and it did not work). When replacing our old desktop computer, we used the requirements called out for expensive video editing software. We got a Dell Inspiron 530 with Core 2 Quad, 3GB Ram, 256 NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT video card, 500 GB hard drive (bigger would be better), 48XCDRW/DVD drive, 16XDVD+/-RW drive (maybe should have gotten dual drive and maybe Blu Ray?), SoundBlaster Audigy audio.
(2)The 16GB card holds about 2 hours of recording.
(3)You can make High Definition movies using your powerful computer, a REGULAR DVD burner on DVD-R discs, USING THE SOFTWARE THAT CAME WITH THE CAMERA. Most people who will use this camera have no need for the expensive video editing software that does fancy things. With the software that comes with the camera you can delete scenes, clip scenes, split scenes and add titles. Just follow the steps in the manual included on the software disc. There is a small learning curve. I had a little trouble with adding transitions, but don't care. I have not tried adding extra audio.
(4)You can also burn regular (not HD) DVDs (about 30 minutes per DVD) and export movies in the format for a website or YouTube (instructions in manual).
(5)To view your High Definition movies, you must have a Blu Ray player THAT CAN VIEW AVCHD FORMAT. (Not all Blu Ray players support AVCHD.) We purchased the Panasonic BD30 Panasonic DMP-BD30K 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player. It is a great player that pairs perfectly with this camera. You can put the SDHC memory cards directly into the player or burn your own, edited HD movies and play them in the player. This player will also play the ones you burn as regular DVDs.
(6)We burned 25 minutes of High Definition video (3.47 GB) onto a DVD. There was room left, so we believe a regular DVD will hold 1/2 hour of HD (4+ GB). (The Panasonic player can play dual layer discs, so a dual layer burner on your computer, and dual layer discs might get you a full hour.)
*Note: Regarding the Panasonic Player, you can make a CD of your JPEG photos from other cameras and play them. That is "CD", not "DVD". The important thing is to NOT include anything but JPEG (no movie clips), or the player will not read the disc.
Customer Review: Excellent Camera!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my 1st HD camcorder and it has yet to disappoint. After using the "movie" mode on our point-and-shoot Nikon, this is a breath of fresh HD air! My wife and I just had our first born and we wanted to catch everything our little man does! The HF100 is perfect...small, lightweight and easy to use. My wife is somewhat intimidated my technology(she does not touch my Canon 40D) but she has little issues with this camcorder.
I usually shoot 30P in Program mode with the image stabalizer on. Program mode will give your shot far better color contrast and 30P is much easier to convert for web uploading than 60i. 60i looks good on DVD but most videos I shoot end up in Vimeo for my family to watch, most of which live hours away.
Uploading is a breeze with the flash drive. I purchased a cheap flash drive reader off an auction site. For whatever reason you have to have the camera plugged in when uploading movies to your computer. That is a lot of cords. A memory card reader is cheap and a major life saver.
I have both a Mac and a PC so I have some experience with both platforms when viewing video. One major complaint is that AVCHD is somewhat difficult to view on a computer. You do have to convert it to another format to view your movies on a Mac and even to edit them. I use Toast 9 along with Quicktime Pro to convert my video to a format easily uploaded to Vimeo(H.264 - 1280X720 HD). The quality is astounding!
In its RAW format, AVCHD looks excellent. The bundled video software(Windows only...dang) does a great job with unconverted AVCHD playback and some editing. I wish they would make a Mac version of this software. I have even made a DVD with the software and it looks really great on my Plasma. For bare bones editing, and DVD creation...the bundled software does work, and works well. One thing I have noticed when converting AVCHD to a more friendly video editing format such as HDV with TMPGEnc 4.0 Express is some stuttering when panning video is being played. This does not happen when viewing in AVCHD format. My suggestion, unless you really have to, try not to convert the video unless necessary. SONY Vegas video software lets you edit in AVCHD, no conversion is necessary. If you are on a Mac...well as far as I know a program does not exist that allows editing in AVCHD...you have to convert the file to something else (video codecs are numerous).
Eventually AVCHD will be the format of choice as tapes will inevitably be phased out (some will argue this, but this is my personal belief). In my opinion you cannot go wrong with this camera. Hard drives fail, tape drives fall apart and RW-DVDs are a pain. Flash memory is the future.
One issue I have is the lack of a stand alone plug in for the battery. You have to plug the camera in to charge your camera's battery unless you shell out around $60 for a separate plug in charger. In my opinion this should have been included with the camera.
Customer Review: At least for someone like me, I think this is a pretty fantastic machine.
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't exactly know what people's qualms are about AVCHD. I have used miniDV hd camera's fairly extensively (a friend of mine loves them), but I really can't understand why people like them more.
There are a few really nice features about this camera. First, and I think most importantly, it has absolutely no moving parts (except the zoom lens). Anything that moves, like a motor to power a little spinning tape, for example, is pretty likely to break. I don't buy new cameras very often, so this is a pretty major concern for me.
The complaints that most people have with this camera, from what I've read in these reviews seem to stem from buying cheapy, crappy memory cards. It even says in the comprehensive manual that it is a bad idea to use anything lower than a class 4 memory card, because it might not be able to write all the information fast enough. I bought a 16gb Kingston SDHC for about $40, and have had superb quality.
The microphone that is built in is pretty good too. It offers some nice, stereo sound that is good for amateur film makers (though nothing will replace my nice little condenser mic).
The built in filters do a fairly nice job when working with different lighting, though I sort of wish this task was automatic.
The still camera offers some pretty good quality, but there are some problems. For example, if I want to take a picture, I have to switch to photo mode, press the record button, have the onscreen error that says I cannot record in photo mode, then press the picture button. I'm surprised that made it past product testing. I never much liked still photography, so I don't really care, and I don't usually use a video camera for stills anyway. This might just be my cam, though.
The included software is useless. I have not successfully been able to import anything with it. Actually, though, there really is no point. I have used this with Windows XP and Windows Vista, and I could simply plug it in and view my video files.
Another nice feature is that it seems to integrate pretty well into Sony Vegas 9.0b, and I am assuming Vegas 8 as well. This may not matter to some people, but I know in my Panasonic DVD Ram camera, it was a pain to comvert everything to mpg before I could edit it.
The only real complaint I have about this cam is the battery life. It doesn't seem fair that this gets the same battery as my DVD Ram camera, but it doesnt have to power any moving parts. I get about 79 minutes of power, then it shuts off. If I am not using any power to spin a disk or a hard drive, why don't I have more to use?
In the end, this is a very good camera, that I feel really does the job, especially for home movies or amateur film making. I really like it, and have found myself playing with it more than any of my other cameras.
Customer Review: HF100 Excellent and AVCHD works and plays with new iMac
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this camera about two weeks ago from Amazon. I also got the wide angle adapter and the Transcend 16gb card with reader. My intent is to capture video of family events.
I think the many reviews on this site have done a good job of describing the camera's video quality, etc. In short it is a great little camera. I would like to comment what I have learned about working with AVCHD files so far.
First of all, IF YOU HAVE AN OLD COMPUTER, YOU SHOULD NOT PURCHASE A AVCHD CAMCORDER. At least that is my experience with my 4 yr old Dell. No amount of fiddling with the included software or shareware would yield a working preview of my clips.
However my new iMac works very well with AVCHD. It would also be fair to say that Mac AVCHD file handling has plenty of room for improvement, primarily in two areas.
First, you cannot directly edit AVCHD in iMovie or Final Cut Express 4; the files are first rendered by these apps into .mov files, a process which takes at least 1 minute for each 1 minute of video and results in a file 10X the size of the raw AVCHD. This is largely automated in both programs so its not a terrible inconvenience.
Second iMovie is not, practically speaking, compatible with FCE. For example, if you decide to download your video files into iMovie at the highest resolution (1920 x 1080), any such file used in FCE would need to be rendered a second time in FCE, because FCE is limited to 1440 x 1080 resolution (not a choice in iMovie). This second rendering also takes 1 minute for each minute of video.
With these limitations in mind I have developed the following workflow, taking advantage of iMovie's low end capabilities while keeping my original (and small!) AVCHD files intact for FCE or archiving.
- Since FCE is in my workflow, I set the HF100 to XP+ mode (1440 x 1080). FXP mode in the HF100 is 1920x1080 and thus will require a second slow rendering to be used in FCE. And the truth is you don't gain much, if any, image quality at this highest setting
- Placing the SDHC card into the card reader activates iPhoto and iMovie prompts to import the photo and video files. Since I separately archive the original AVCHD files, I import iMovie video at the oddly named "Large" setting which is actually a down-res 960x540 file. This smaller file still looks great, saves space, and since I just use iMovie for viewing clips, uploading to .mac, and making DVDs of clips, any loss of resolution here is irrelevant.
- Lastly I make a copy of the SDHC using Finder->Duplicate for archiving and for FCE to use later. Note that FCE can only import AVCHD video from the specific folder and file hierarchy that the camera made so make no changes or rename any of the original files or folders (but its ok to rename the outer folder).