Canon HG10 Camcorder Reviewby David KenderPublished on Aug 9, 2007 8:40 AM
|
Advertisement
|
|||||||||||
Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (6.5)
The auto controls on the Canon HG10 are quite good. The exposure, focus, and white balance are, as far as we can see, identical to the Canon HV20. There’s no doubt why the company is comfortable outfitting its entire HD line with the same lens and imaging system. Collectively, they work better than anything else on the market. Yes, Sony’s comparative camcorders, including the HDR-SR1 and HDR-SR7, have a more gradual white balance that emulates pro camcorder responses, but the image never looked this good.
Topping the list of auto controls is the focus. The Canon HG10 is outfitted with the Instant AF system. This entails a sensor on the front of the camcorder that performs the gross focus operations, leaving the internal AF system to only deal with fine focusing. This process reduces overall focus time. In practice, the Instant AF system has a habit of “snapping” into focus after a moment of hunting. This may not be the aesthetic choice everyone wants. Fortunately, the Instant AF can be turned off in favor of a wholly internal AF. In decent light, the Instant AF system does not do anything to improve accuracy, merely speed.
In addition to the numerous manual controls detailed below, the Canon HG10 offers a selection of Program AE modes. These one-touch controls, located in the Function menu, offer image improvement for specific lighting conditions when Auto mode might not suffice. Options include: Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks.
Overall Manual Control (6.75)
A simple side-by-side comparison of features would indicate that the Canon HG10 is identical to the HV20 in manual controls, and that would be true to an extent. But the practical application of the controls has changed with the addition of a new interface: the control dial. This free-spinning wheel (which bears no resemblance to an iPod control, despite what Canon PR wants you to think), is located on the edge of the LCD panel. The control dial feels cheap. It has a raised, bumpy profile that allows for a little grip, but not as much as we would like. And there’s little traction to the spinning motion, so it’s hard to stop on the item you want when traversing the menu.
While the actual implementation needs honing, the concept is very good. A free-spinning wheel means less tap-tap-tapping on a touchpad, joystick, or touch screen to get the setting you want. The HG10 design has the four-way touchpad placed in the middle of the wheel, centralizing the interface to a single region rather than spreading it out all over the body. That’s smart thinking – now tighten it up, boys.
While most of the manual control interaction has improved slightly with the new interface, the focus has actually suffered. The dedicated focus scroll wheel on the HV20 worked well, and we’re sorry to see it go (more detail below in the Focus). Other manual controls include white balance, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and the Canon series of Image Effects for tonal control. These effects are convenient to access, but rather limited in their scope. They are, however, more than you get from most manufacturers in the consumer realm (more details below in Other Manual Controls).
Zoom (7.0)
The zoom control on the Canon HG10 is different from your average consumer camcorder. Rather than a traditional toggle switch or slider, the HG10 comes equipped with an honest-to-goodness rocker. Granted, it’s a little smaller than what you’ll find on the XH A1, but the handling is great. The zoom rocker is a two-fingered operation. Even the thick-fingered among us didn’t have much trouble.
The camcorder was able to achieve about three zoom speeds depending on finger pressure. The slowest gave us a good crawl. However, the body is small, so you will notice shaking during a crawl. Use a tripod or flat surface to prevent the wobblies.
If you don’t trust yourself to keep a steady finger pressure, you can switch the zoom speed from variable to a fixed speed in the menu. Choose from 1 (slow), 2 (faster), and 3 (fastest).
 |
 |
|
Two angles of the zoom rocker on the Canon HG10 |
|
Zoom Power Ratio (10.0)
The Canon HG10 has a 10x optical zoom and a 200x digital zoom. The digital zoom can be capped at a more sensible 40x in the menu. A 10x zoom is exactly what you should expect from a camcorder with a large imager like this. Don’t get caught up in a numbers game with zoom ratios. Only the cheaper models offer very high zoom.
Focus (6.0)
The manual focus controls on the Canon HG10 have improved in some ways and fallen in other ways. The HV20 featured a scroll wheel on the left side of the body. We found it to be too small, and the control dial on the HG10 is an improvement. However, the HV20 allowed you to turn the Focus Assist on and off by means of a button on the LCD cavity. (Focus Assist is a 2x – 3x magnification of the image to help you see what you’re focusing on. This magnification does not appear on the final footage, only on the LCD and EVF.) The HG10 engages Focus Assist automatically whenever you shift focus. This means you can’t double check your focus without actually changing it.
In order to engage the manual focus, push in on the Set button so a small menu appears. Push down on the four-way touch pad to toggle through the three pages of the menu: exposure, focus, and instant playback and LED light. When you’re on the Focus page, push up to engage manual focus. A small “MF” icon appears on the top of the LCD screen.
To shift focus, you can use the four-way touchpad’s left and right controls, or you can spin the control dial. Either way you choose will result in automatically activating the Focus Assist. As soon as you touch either control, the image onscreen will magnify.
Controlling focus is the area in which the control dial proves itself most useful. The soft spinning action of the dial means you’re not shaking the camcorder’s body back and forth and upsetting the shot the way you do with a touchpad or touch screen. The scroll wheel found on the HV20 was smaller and positioned less conveniently than the dial on the HG10.
The focus and exposure compensation controls appear
like so when you push in on the Set Button during shooting
Exposure & Aperture (7.6)
The Canon HG10 has controls for both exposure compensation and, in Aperture Priority mode, direct f-stop controls. Exposure compensation, the simpler of the two, is accessed by pushing the set button on the LCD panel. A small window pops up in the lower right screen. Keep pushing down on the touchpad until “EXP” appears. Then push up. A blue scale appears at the top of the LCD panel. Pushing left and right makes the image darker or brighter – the simplicity of the control makes it appealing to beginners. The scale ranges from +/-11 in whole number increments.
For a little more precision with your depth of field, put the camcorder into Aperture Priority mode. To do this, go to the Function menu and switch the setting from “P” mode to “Av.” In Aperture Priority, the shutter speed is automatically adjusted for proper exposure. You cannot adjust aperture and shutter speed independently. Aperture settings include f/1.8, f/2.0, f/2.4, f/2.8, f/3.4, f/4.0, f/4.8, f/5.6, f/6.7, and f/8.0.
Shutter Speed (7.7)
Adjusting shutter speed is very similar to adjusting aperture. First, put the camcorder in Shutter Priority mode via the Function menu. In this mode, the aperture will be adjusted automatically to correct for exposure. The aperture and shutter speed cannot be adjusted independently. When the HG10 is in 1080/60i mode, shutter speeds include: 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000.
In 1080/24p, shutters speeds include: 1/6, 1/12, 1/24, 1/48, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000.
White Balance (7.5)
Canon packs in a lot more white balance settings than the competition, perhaps assuming a) the auto white balance doesn’t always cut it, and b) you have no interest or idea how to set the manual white balance.
White balance options are listed in the Function menu. Presets include: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Fluorescent H (fluorescents that emulate daylight). This is a wide abundance of options, and should cover most of your basic shooting situations. The final item on the list of options is Set, which is a manual white balance. Performing a white balance is easy. Just point the camcorder at a grey or white reference card, which can be purchased cheaply at a camera shop. In a pinch, people have also used a piece of paper or a white t-shirt, provided they are a neutral white.
Gain (0.0)
The Canon HG10 has no control over gain.
Other Manual Controls (2.0)
Cine Mode – Cine mode is a setting that shifts the gamma curve, affecting exposure and color rendering. It corresponds to the Cine 1 setting on the much more expensive Canon XH A1. This graph illustrates the difference between the Cine mode and the normal gamma curve. In a nutshell, the setting is supposed to emulate film colors. The mid-tones are given preference, and detail is lost in the shadows. If your subject is well-lit, the picture can look very, very good. For even moderately low-light shooting, you’ll want to take it out of Cine mode. For whatever reason, the HG10 cannot be in Cine mode and Aperture or Shutter Priority mode at the same time. However, you are free to select between 60i and 24P.
Image Effects – This is the standard set of color controls found on higher-end consumer Canons. Similar to the My Color settings on their line of still cameras, these offer a limited amount of control over color performance. There are four settings to choose from: Vivid, Neutral, Low Sharpening, and Soft Skin Detail. See the results below. A fifth setting, Custom, allows you to create composite settings based on the following parameters: Color Depth, Brightness, Contrast, and Sharpness. Each parameter can be set to a value of -1, 0, or +1.
Markers – Screen markers are lines that appear on the camcorder’s screen to help you frame a shot. They do not appear on the final video. The HG10 gives you several options for markers. A simple horizontal line across the center of the screen can appear in white or gray. The screen can also be cut into nine sectors for that “rule of thirds” look. These two can be set to white or gray. Markers options are located in the Display Setup section of the Admin menu.
|
Advertisement
|