Canon VIXIA HF10 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 16 GB Internal Flash Memory and 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

Review by Mark for Canon VIXIA HF10 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 16 GB Internal Flash Memory and 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Rating:
This is a fantastic camera but people need to have more realistic expectations of what to expect from AVCHD. It is a highly compressed format so using this camera in low-light conditions is going to produce pretty “grainy” results. In good lighting AVCHD output from this camera can produce some really great looking results in HD but don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re going to get professional HDTV quality. This is a point-and-shoot.

I love the camera, especially how fast it focuses in good light, so I’m going to concentrate on what some of the other reviewers said to correct some misconceptions.

I use both Macs and PC and I have to tell you that you that PCs suck for AVCHD – you will waste a lot of time and pull your hair out. I’m sure PC video software vendors will address this eventually, but seriously folks if you want to do this the easy way get an Intel-based Mac (caveat: only Intel based machines using Leopard support AVCHD) and use either iMovie or Final Cut Express 4. Both of these programs (iMovie 08 and FCE4) just LOVE this camera (and two other Sony AVCHD cameras I’ve tried as well) and they work like a charm. Video making has never been this easy. FCE4 lets you mix AVHCD, HDV and SD video on the same timeline and save in whatever format you want so it’s worth the $200 if you want to do that or have more exacting control over your videos. It is basically a (lightly) stripped-down version of Apple’s excellent professional video software (Final Cut Pro) and it is very good. For most home videos iMovie 08 (which comes in iLife 08) will be just fine.

I’ve had no problem transferring the movies directly from the camera but, as mentioned earlier, you do need to have the camera plugged into the AC to do it. You can avoid plugging the camera into your Mac to transfer the files if you’re only recording on SDHC cards, rather than internal memory on the HF10, but it works just fine. For this reason I would recommend buying the HF100 (over the HF10) and getting an extra 16Gb memory card or two. You will save money that way and have more flexibility. I bought the HF10 because I had to have it the next day and, at the time, the HF100s were delayed a bit. Transcend’s excellent 16Gb SDHC Class 6 card comes with a nifty little card reader for only $78.98 here on Amazon, you can get two of them for less than the $200 difference in price between the HF10 and HF100 so you’ll have 32gb to work with instead of 16gb for less money. I don’t mind having the internal memory as a backup but you pay more than it is worth for it.

The video camera is just acting like a USB reader when you connect it to your Mac anyway – it is the file layouts that the software recognizes. When read in and converted to Apple Intermediate Codec at 1920×1080 they will balloon in size. If you want to store the raw video in a more compressed way you can simply copy the root directory of the card to another directory and copy it back again later. If you’re working with AVCHD you need to buy the biggest hard drives you can afford. 60 minutes of video will use up something like 50Gb of storage on your Mac when converted to 1920×1080. If you just want great looking home video to show on your HDTV, but don’t want to go broke on hard drives, Apple offers to import the movies at a slightly lower resolution (960×540) which takes up a LOT less space with very little drop in quality. I have been making home videos and showing them on an Apple TV at that resolution and they look stunning. The quality difference between that resolution and full HD isn’t that big of a deal.

If want to try to get truly professional-quality video you should avoid AVCHD cameras and stick to the HDV format concentrating on cameras with larger sensors. But this is great camera for HD home videos at a great price.

The user interface on this camera is slow and clunky. Sony’s AVCHD cameras have a better interface (using a touch screen) but you can still watch back the videos (which is the main thing you’ll do) and it beats the heck out of a tape camera. I wish they had added a dial or button set for adjust exposure and/or backlighting control on the camera. The joystick works surprisingly well for this however in bright light the screen gets washed out enough that it is hard to tell if your exposure is really that great or not. This is where a viewfinder would really help. But these are minor nits because the camera does a good job at exposure control on its own.

As I said earlier this is a very compact point-and-shoot camera that shoots HD video and for that it’s excellent.