Canon Vixia HF S100 Camcorder Reviewby Kaitlyn Chantry and Jeremy StamasPublished on Apr 10, 2009 10:55 PM |
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 Canon has certainly made some improvements this year with the HF S100: a new lens and sensor that produce incredibly sharp videos and photos, a new processor that allows for simultaneous photo recording and less noise, and an excellent new custom control dial that offers smooth and precise focus adjustment.Other manufacturers, however, have also made some improvements to their top-of-the-line camcorders. The result is a very close performance race between the Canon HF S100, the Sony HDR-XR520V, and the Panasonic HDC-TM300—plus the sister models of each. In some cases, these camcorders are virtually indistinguishable: all three offer clear, sharp, and vivid recording. The Canon probably has the weakest low light performance of the three, requiring you to drop to a 30p or 24p frame rate to achieve equivalent sensitivity. On the other hand, the HF S100 certainly produced the sharpest image. And let's not forget the dark horse we reviewed earlier this year; the Sanyo VPC-HD2000 had impressive performance—especially in low light—and retails for several hundred dollars less than the top-of-the-line camcorders from Canon, Sony, and Panasonic. This year, JVC may be focusing more on saving the consumer money than outperforming the competition; the company's flagship camcorder, the GZ-HD300, couldn't quite keep up with the other manufacturers, but will save you a few hundred dollars and get you 60GB of internal hard drive capacity that the Sanyo does not offer. If you don't already have a preference for one of these manufacturers, the one detail that may sway you is Canon's incredibly deep offerings for manual controls. Experienced videographers will love the inclusion of auto gain control limits, two levels of zebra striping, three color varieties of peaking (in either color or black and white), color bars and a test tone, and the new custom control dial for achieving a precise manual focus. Add to that all the usual manual controls, accessory shoe, microphone/headphone jacks, and the best still photography performance, and you've got a recipe for a great camcorder. (If only Canon had included a viewfinder as well.) The HF S100 doesn't have the internal capacity of a Sony hard drive camcorder and it isn't as easy to use as the Panasonic, with its array of Intelligent Auto technologies, but it does offer a complete and robust user experience for the more advanced videographer. |
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JVC GZ-HD300 Comparison | (Page 15 of 17) | ||
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