Canon HF10 First Impressions Camcorder Review

Still Features
Unlike Sony, with its new 10-megapixel still capture, Canon has not seen fit to significantly upgrade the image size available in the Canon Vixia HF10, with a maximum of 3.3 megapixels. Of course megapixels aren’t everything and the Canon Vixia HF10 offers an excellent array of still features that offer better access than some of Sony’s camcorders.

You enter photo capture mode by moving the dial located on the back right of the camcorder to photo captured mode. We didn’t find this dial particularly easy to use, as we will discuss in the handling section. Stills can be captured to either the internal memory or an SDHC card. You can capture images in 1920 x 1080, 2048 x 1436, 1440 x 1080, and 640 x 480. To capture a photo simply press the dedicated Photo button right behind the Zoom toggle. A flash is located to the right of the right of the lens, which makes us worry a little about even lighting when it’s in use. We also worry that it may be obscured when you use a wide angle lens. The Canon representative told us this shouldn’t be an issue but we aren’t convinced. We’ll check this out when we have it in the lab. You can set the flash to Auto, Red-Eye-Reduction, Forced-On or Forced Off.

Images can be captured in Single, Continuous (3fps), Hi-Speed Continuous (5fps) and AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing) modes. The last option takes three images with one in auto exposure, another at +0.25 EV and another at -0.25 EV. Metering options include Evaluative, Center Weight Average, and Spot Meter.