Canon VIXIA HFS10 HD Dual Flash Memory w/32GB Internal Memory & 10x Optical Zoom - 2009 MODEL
by Canon
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Category: Digital Camera
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Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: CanonAudio: English (Original Language)
Model: 3568B001AA
Color: Silver
Product features:
- Capture up to 12 hours of HD video to a 32GB internal Flash drive as well as directly to removable SDHC memory cards
- Genuine Canon 10x HD video lens; DIGIC DV III image processor
- 1920 x 1080 Full HD recording; SuperRange Optical Image Stabilizer
- Built-in 8.0-megapixel digital camera delivers stunning quality photos
- 2.7-inch Multi-Angle Vivid Widescreen LCD; HDMI terminal for easy, one-cable connectivity to your HDTV
- Pinnacle Studio HD V14 [OLD VERSION]
- Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 [OLD VERSION]
- Pinnacle Studio Ultimate Collection V14 [OLD VERSION]
- Nero 9 [OLD VERSION]
- Final Cut Express 4 - Old Version
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon VIXIA HFS10 HD Dual Flash Memory w/32GB Internal Memory & 10x Optical Zoom - 2009 MODEL
Customer Review: Highly Recommended, but first consider the TOTAL PACKAGE cost
Summary: 5 Stars
MY BACKGROUND: techno-geek engineer, camera and camcorder enthusiast, not a pro videographer or pro photographer. I purchased this product from Amazon (great price!) and have explored its capabilities VERY thoroughly for nine months. I use this camcorder to capture magic moments in the life of our 15 month-old daughter.
REVIEW IN A PARAGRAPH:
Highly recommended for being one of the best full HD (60i/30p @ 1920x1080) "prosumer" camcorders - at this price level. Yes, the convenient SD flash memory is so much better than messy digital tape. The Auto Focus often works even after you attach the recommended accessory lenses or filters. We love this video camera! However you only see the exceptionally vibrant and very-close-to-broadcast-quality video IF you shoot under very bright indoor light lighting conditions (or outdoor on sunny day, or a cloudy day that still manages to be bright) ; otherwise, in less intense indoor lighting the video looks good but nothing that your eyes will perceive as close-to-broadcast-HD quality. (NOTE: this drawback of lower performance in less light is typical to ALL camcorders at this price point, and this one is the least affected by it.) Qualifier: no "video professional" with trained eyes would ever mistake the best video from this camcorder for being close to true broadcast-quality HD, but I do claim that the typical non-professional WILL perceive it as being stunningly close.
An example will help explain what is meant by "very bright indoor lighting": if we shoot video at our kitchen table (under direct overhead lighting of five unshaded 75-watt incandescent bulbs) even that much light is NOT enough light to get the best video this camcorder can produce. However, if I put two separate inexpensive flood lights (each using two standard 150-watt incandescent bulbs, so in total 600 Watts!) directly on the subject from about five feet away, then the resulting HD video is so close to broadcast-quality on brightness, crispness, and color intensity that friends and family are stunned when seeing it on a big-screen LCD. For great indoor video, you'll need something like two easily movable floor lamps / floods that you can position to put at least 600 watts of incandescent light (or equiv.) onto your subject. If your home decor doesn't suffer to much for it, you can check out the inexpensive 72" Tochiere brushed metal Floor Lamps available from low-cost department store starting with "T" named after something you aim at. Get about three or four of those to move quickly around the house; you'll have plenty of light for shooting video.
YOU MAY NOT KNOW THIS ABOUT THE S10/S100:
1) Shoots astoundingly great photos and can even do continuous-mode 8-megapixel snapshots at 5 frames/second. You will not miss your baby's momentary smile when you can shoot continuous stills at 5 f/sec, but if you do that for several minutes you will have A LOT of still images to parse!
2) The AF sensor is located INSIDE the lens ring, meaning the AF usually keeps working even with a variety (but not all) lens attachments.
3) It has the weird proprietary Canon Mini Advanced Accessory Shoe, so your previously existing Universal Hot Shoe accessories (such as camera external flash) will not fit this camcorder. You can buy a small adapter, but that can only convert to a universal COLD shoe.
4) It may have a 8.6Mp CMOS sensor, but it only utilizes 6Mp of that sensor when shooting movies. However, the video still looks great.
5) This camcorder records to its memory in 60i; when you set its recording mode to say "24PF" or "30PF" it merely changes its post shooting CONVERSION method. If your goal is something like 24p, you will get better results to simply shoot in its native format, and do your own conversion in post using a higher-end 3rd party utility such as Cineform Neo Scene. NOTE: many report better video end result by using Cineform Neo Scene (or similar) to convert ALL of the S10/S100 AVCHD files for editing as visually lossless (but much larger) CineForm AVI or MOV files.
6) Get a Blu-ray burner (~$200) for your PC, and you can directly burn this camcorder's video onto Blu-ray disks, yielding permanent media containing stunning video when seen on a big screen HD LCD.
KNOW THIS BEFORE YOU BUY:
This is NOT a sub $1000 investment; it is more like $1600+ (because you'll need to buy multiple must-have accessories). Plus, you'll likely discover your PC isn't fast enough to edit the very CPU-intensive AVCHD video, so you'll need to buy a very fast PC (which will cost you another $1500, or more). My total outlay is now over four grand, when I also include the cost of the faster PC we had to buy.
This will better explain how the "total package" must include the critically-needed accessories: imagine you shoot video of your child's soccer game in the park, only to discover your video is garbage because of wind noise. You see, to get acceptable sound when shooting under even slight wind conditions, ANY camcorder must use an external video mic equipped with a "dead cat" wind screen. Next, imagine you are sitting w/friends at dinner and you point the camera to capture mom holding baby on the opposite side of the table, but can't get them into the frame - because you need to buy a wide-angle lens. And there are a half-dozen other critically-needed video accessories you'll find you must buy to cover different shooting conditions; otherwise, you are gonna get embarrassingly mediocre video. This holds true for any camcorder, not just this one.
CONCLUSION: if this camcorder AND the minimally-required accessories (and new PC!) is outside your budget, then you're better offer buying a less-expensive camcorder so you can then also buy its critically needed accessories - because that lower cost (but more complete system) will yield better final video product, even if the video happens to be slightly lower resolution and not as crisp as you get from this Canon camcorder.
OK, let's say you're not worried about your budget. You've got money to burn. That's why I posted this review, to offer tips on the best "minimal set of accessories" for this Canon camcorder. I spent many hours reading online reviews specific to the S100, then I bought a variety of recommended accessories and tested them, figured out which are critically-needed for good video, parsing them down to this list of MUST-HAVE accessories to get great video from the S100:
-> PC w/Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz (or similar), at least 4GB (or more) SDRAM, ATI Radeon HD 4850 (or better) video card, Blu-ray Disc Burner, plus a good 1080x1920 LCD monitor OR matching dual-LCD-monitors (1080x1920) highly recommended for video editing. OR: (expensive choice) Mac Pro Quad-Core (or 8 Core), with 3GB SDRAM (or more). Plus in either case you need at least a 1TB (2TB is better) in a RAID0 (or RAID10) array for needed read/write speeds; alternatively, you could go without the RAID and instead temporarily edit your video off a super-fast SSD (Intel X25-M, or similar), but you'll still need a large conventional hard drive (min 2TB) for archiving your video.
-> Video editing software. Limit your choices to software built to handle AVCHD format, such as: Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 (PC Windows, lowest cost but powerful), OR: Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 (expensive but considered very good, well-reviewed). NOTES: the Canon Pixela video editing software included w/this camcorder is horrible. WARNING: before you buy ANY version 9 of Sony Vegas Movie Studio, be sure you read the reviews explaining the "crashes during render" which the only known fix can be a bit too "complex" for non-geek types and involves downloading CFF explorer from ntcore, installing it, then running CFFExplorer as Administrator and MANUALLY re-setting the 2GB limit flag in about FIVE different Sony Vegas run files so they can handle > than 2gig address space. This complex solution is found in the site sonycreativesoftware, go to Support > Forums.
-> Canon DM-100 Directional Stereo Microphone (I strongly recommend this Canon mic, as it does both mono shotgun mode, and also 90-degree and 120-degree stereo modes, and the S100 interacts w/this mic through the Mini Advanced Accessory Shoe), However, some pro's seem to prefer the Rode mics, such as Rode Stereo VideoMic + Dead Kitten wind screen, OR the Rode (shotgun) VideoMic. NOTES: for Rode camcorder mics to mount on S10/S100, you should google something like "Mini Advanced Accessory Shoe to Universal Shoe Adapter" to find the adapter you'll need.
-> Canon BP-819 Lithium Ion Battery Pack for HF10, HF100 HF S & HF M Camcorders (expensive!). It doubles the std battery capacity (1780mAh vs. 890 mAh), giving you about two hours or typical recording time, compared w/one hr for the standard battery. The Canon BP-827 Lithium Ion Battery Pack for Vixia HG, HF S & HF M Camcorders(very expensive!) triples the capacity to 2670mAh, OR consider a great MONEY SAVER: for only $40 to $60 for 2700mAh non-OEM (non-Canon) battery, including the non-OEM battery charger (Note: the S100 will NOT charge these non-intelligent batteries or show battery time remaining, so that extra non-OEM charger is req'd, and consider the non-OEM battery available with LED power level indicator). Try a Google search string such as "BP-827 Canon Compatible Battery LED+Charger Kit"
-> Canon 2590B002 CG-800 Lithium Ion Battery Charger for 800 Series Batteries. OR: find the $20 non-OEM charger, see search string above.
-> SanDisk 32GB Ultra 15MB/s SDHC SD Card (SDSDH-032G-P36, Retail Packaging). Since the price is now so close, you might as well get the 15MB/sec instead of the Class 4 version. Canon explicitly states the Canon S10 / S100 is compatible with the SanDisk DHC SD Cards of at least Class 4.
-> Canon SC2000 Soft Carrying Case. Alternative: (less expensive) Lowepro Edit 120 Bag (or similar)
-> Tiffen P/N 58UVP 58mm UV Glass Filter, OR: Tiffen 58CLR 58mm Glass (protection) Filter, OR: Tiffen W58DIGULTCLR 58mm Ultra Clear Glass (protection) Filter
-> Moderate Wide-angle lenses: S10/S100 user community prefers the HD6600PRO58 or SRW-6600-58LE over the Raynox HD-7000PRO 0.7x Wideangle Lens. While Raynox claims slightly better optical performance of HD-7000PRO on S10/S100 vs HD6600PRO58 or SRW-6600-58LE (yet the pro users disagree claiming the HD6600PRO58 or SRW-6600-58LE have great optics). Be aware big drawbacks of the HD-7000PRO are high price, and it is a VERY heavy lens. The HD6600PRO58 or SRW-6600-58LE are said to avoid vignetting ONLY up to 5X zoom, (HD-7000PRO to 10X) but who uses a wide-angle lens beyond 5X zoom level anyway? (As for the Canon WD-H58 Wide Converter, plenty of pro's are saying that is a POS lens which is also far more expensive than the - superior - Raynox lenses mentioned above.) Many also note that the "expensive looking" profile and Industrial Design of those Raynox lenses somehow gives the Canon S10 / S100 a much "sexier" looking profile in a high-end camcorder kind of way, and yet the Canon WD-H58 just doesn't give your camcorder the same *bling*
-> HoodMan HD-300 LCD hood to shade the display from the sun. Tip: do a google search for Canon HV forum to find some good threads on accessories.
-> Tiffen 58CP, 58mm Circular Polarizer Filter, OR: Hoya B58CRPL, OR Tiffen 58WIDCP. Helps "pop" the clouds out against blue sky, and greatly reduces reflections on sunny days.
Nice-to-have Accessories:
-> Tiffen 58mm 812 Warming Filter
-> Tiffen 82mm Digital Ultra Clear Protective Filter (use if you buy the Raynox HD-7000, buy different size for the HD6600PRO58 or SRW-6600-58LE)
-> 0.45x or 0.50x Wideangle Lens.
-> Steadicam or similar. This is a VERY light camera, so easly shakes in hand when used without Steadicam.
WARNINGS: Do not buy the cheap Tripp Lite Mini-HDMI to HDMI Cable. They are worthless. I recommend the Sony Mini-HDMI to HDMI cables.
More Canon VIXIA HFS10 HD Dual Flash Memory w/32GB Internal Memory & 10x Optical Zoom - 2009 MODEL reviews:
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Description of Canon VIXIA HFS10 HD Dual Flash Memory w/32GB Internal Memory & 10x Optical Zoom - 2009 MODEL
Canon's top-of-the-line, new VIXIA HF S10 Dual Flash Memory camcorder gives you everything you expect from Canon! It has a powerful, new 8.59-megapixel Full HD CMOS Image Sensor plus Canon's latest DIGIC DV III Image Processor. Add a Genuine Canon 10x HD Video Lens and the highest bit rate in AVCHD, and you've got a camcorder that delivers spectacularly realistic HD video and photos. The VIXIA HF S10 features 32GB of built-in Flash memory that records up to 12 hours of HD video.You can also record to removable SDHC memory cards for quick and easy sharing. The Canon VIXIA HF S10 camcorder lets you shoot like a pro with assist functions including new zebra patterns, color peaking, a Custom Key and Dial, and shooting modes including 24p Cinema Mode for video that looks like a holiday blockbuster. The VIXIA HF S10 incorporates some of Canon's most exciting new functions, including Genuine Canon Face Detection for perfect focus and exposure even with faces looking down or sideways, Pre- Record that captures video 3 seconds before you press the record button, and the new Video Snapshot Mode for saving your memories as a series of 4-second video clips set to music. Shoot extraordinary video and photos with the VIXIA HF S10. Canon USA 1-year limited warranty included.Camcorders
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