Questions about Canon Vixia HF200

I'm trying to find a new camcorder, and I think I should get an HD one. I came across the Canon HF200, and I'm planning to buy it, but before I do so I got to ask some questions about it:

- Can you shoot 4:3 footage with the camcorder? This is a must since the previous footage for my movie has been shot in 4:3. If you can't do that, I don't think I'm gonna buy it.
- How much footage can you shoot with a 16GB SDHC card?
- How long is the battery life of the camcorder?
- Does the camcorder have any major flaws?

I'm also a bit concerned about the lack of a viewfinder in the HF200. Does anyone know if there's any decent camcorder with a price of $400-$900 that has a viewfinder (and the ability to shoot in 4:3)? It can be from any manufacturer, either HD or SD.

There are no HD camcorders that shoot in 4:3. High Definition standard allows for various pixel resolutions, but in ALL cases, aspect ratio is always 16:9. The old 4:3 format in Standard-definition ONLY.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find new standard-def (i.e. DV) camcorder in your $400-$900 price range. Consumer models are mostly below $300 mark and are really consumer and cheap. Pro models are still well above $1500, even for SD models.

Your price range will give you many HD consumer models. This won't do it for you, though, since your primary requirement is 4:3, which limits your choices to SD.

If I were in your situation (being without camera with an incomplete movie in SD, shot at 4:3), I would buy a HD camcorder, such as HF-S100 (although HF-200 will do on a shorter budget), shoot in HD, but mark 4:3 aspect on my camera display (gaffer or electrical tape will do, if all else fails) so that I can frame my shots having 4:3 in mind, then crop and down-convert footage during post. Since I shot it in HD, it will end up being at least as good (and most likely better) than the SD material I already have, and for future projects, I can finally abandon SD and shoot HD in full 16:9 aspect.

Thanks for the reply.

The 4:3 issue is now solved, since I figured out that I can change the aspect ratio of my video footage from 4:3 to 16:9 with Adobe Premiere Elements. The footage looks a bit streched on the computer, but on a widescreen TV it looks just great. That means I'm going to make the whole movie in 16:9 (it looks more professional than 4:3 anyway). So, I guess I'll be buying the HF200 nonetheless...

That's a good camcorder. However, one important word of caution about stretching 4:3.

When you do it in Premiere (or FCP, or any other NLE), it will do exactly what you noticed, i.e. stretch it, so all people look a bit fat. There should be no reason this would look any better on the large wide screen. It will be stretched exactly as it was when you saw it on the monitor. The only reason why it seems OK is because our eyes tend to quickly get used to the fact that the image is stretched and the brain tends to compensate and ignore the image distortion. However, this would mean that if you have a mix of footage shot at 4:3 and then stretched, with the footage shot at 16:9 and not stretched, you will very clearly notice the difference and be reminded of the stretched 4:3 material.

If you were to keep your movie in SD at 4:3 (as your original material was shot that way), cropping the new 16:9 HD stuff would probably be the best way. If you like wide screen and would rather have your movie in 16:9 (even if it does remain in SD), probably the least obvious correction would be to crop 4:3 SD footage from top and bottom to conform it to 16:9. Obviously, you'd be losing top and bottom parts of your image, but at least it will be proportionate and not stretched. You'd also be losing a bit of image quality, since you'd be blowing the image up a bit to fill 720x480 anamorphic frame with a 16:9 image of 720x373 pixels.

If your movie is a feature (or short), I'd probably get everybody together again and re-shoot the stuff that's in SD at 4:3. If there's too much of it and it can't be re-shot (or if it's a documentary, and the interviews can't be re-done), I'd continue the shoot with the HD device, but mask the display for 4:3 and downsample the footage into SD for edit. Combining 4:3 and 16:9 (as well as SD and HD) can be too much of a challenge in order to make consistent output results.