Canon Vixia HF S11

Handling (7.45)

The Canon HF S11 has the same design elements of the HF S10 and HF S100 released earlier this year. Compared to last year’s models, there’s just a couple of new features. The most significant of these upgrades is Canon’s new custom control dial, which gives users a smooth and more exact method for making focus, exposure, and audio level adjustments. We’re big fans of the new dial, especially compared to Canon’s tiny joystick controls of yore.

The control dial really streamlines the image adjustment process, giving you easier access to your most commonly used option. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as simple to use as we would like. In order to switch the dial’s function, you have to delve into the admin menu. That means you can’t just switch controls on the fly, as you could with the lens ring on last year’s Panasonics or the dial on 2008 and 2009 Sony models.

This year’s Canons have more than just the dial to set them apart from the 2008 lineup. The form factor has also changed significantly, with a new, larger lens that completely dominates the body. This makes the HF S11 a very comfortable camcorder to hold: the absence of a bulky hard drive means that it fits nicely in your palm, while the large lens barrel give you something substantial to grip. The contours aren’t as pleasant or comfortable as those on the Panasonic HDC-TM300, but it’s an enjoyable handling experience nonetheless.

This design makes the HF S11 easy to hold, but like the HF S10 and HF S100 before it, the resulting location of the accessory shoe is inconvenient. The front of the camcorder may be a common location now for accessory shoes, but we prefer the position that was on last year’s Canon models: pushed further back, your accessories won’t be quite such an obstruction to proper grip and won’t weight down the front of your camcorder.

Rounding out the excellent grip on the HF S11 is Canon’s nicely padded hand strap. The soft suede lining on the interior and a decent amount of cushioning should make long shoots easy on the hand.

We have few complaints with the button layout of the HF S11. Most of the switches and buttons respond well and are conveniently located. The joystick, however, is one area that could use improvement. It may be better than some joysticks we’ve seen, but it is still small and finicky. With a menu structure that’s already a bit more complex than it should be, this tiny joystick doesn’t help matters.

Portability (6.15)

In practice, the Canon HF S11 is as portable as any other consumer camcorder: it’s too big to fit in your pocket and small enough to slip into a camera bag or purse. If you’re the sort of person that carries your camcorder around on a regular basis, however, you will notice that the HF S11 is larger than many of its competitors. This is thanks, in large part, to the sizable lens barrel dominating the body of the camcorder. It’s a larger lens than anything you’ll find on the top-of-the-line models from Sony, Panasonic, or JVC.

As a result, the Canon is slightly larger than the Panasonic HDC-TM300 or the JVC GZ-HD300. The result is a camcorder that’s not quite as comfortable to hold as the TM300, but fits better in your hand than the slim HD300. It is certainly more comfortable to hold than most hard drive camcorders this year, especially the Sony HDR-XR520V. On the other hand, the 64GB of internal flash memory can’t quite compete with the 240GB of hard drive space on the XR520. The difference really shouldn’t impact portability, since we would recommend you backup your footage at least every 64GB anyway.

Battery Life (5.00)

The Canon HF S11 didn’t have a very impressive battery life with its provided battery, but its performance was average for a camcorder of its class. It lasted for 99 minutes and 43 seconds in our test (1 hour, 39 minutes, 43 seconds), which is slightly worse than the Panasonic HDC-TM300 and a bit better than the Sony HDR-XR520V. The JVC GZ-HM400 trounced the competition in this test, lasting for 163 minutes with its supplied battery pack. More on how we test battery life.

This is also nearly identical to the battery life on the card-only Canon HF S100, which went for 98 minutes in our test. All these camcorders do have the benefit of open battery compartments. This means you can purchase and use larger battery packs that should give you increased battery life when recording. Canon specifically sells the larger BP-819 and BP-827 battery packs, both of which are compatible with the HF S11.

LCD (7.88)

The Canon HF S100 has a 2.7-inch LCD screen with a 211,000-pixel resolution. The camcorder has no electronic viewfinder, so you’ll likely run into trouble framing your image on a bright, sunny day. The LCD’s design is rather interesting. It is completely flat and glossy, which means the entire LCD panel is a single, even pane. Most camcorders, including Canon’s mid-range models (like the HF20), feature an LCD screen that is recessed by a few millimeters. We feel this indentation helps to protect the screen from aggressive glare, whereas the glossy surface of the HF S11 attracts more glare.

Still, the LCD panel on the HF S11 looks very sleek, and, in most lighting conditions, it doesn’t pose a problem with glare reflection. There are a few buttons at the bottom of the panel that serve dual purposes. In playback mode, the first three buttons represent VCR controls. In shooting mode, the first button will start/stop record, while the next two can be used to zoom. The button farthest to the right switches between shooting mode and playback mode. We like the design of these buttons very much and they are some of the best LCD panel buttons we’ve seen on a consumer camcorder.

One more button and a joystick are located to the far left of the LCD panel. The Function button brings up—unsurprisingly—the Function menu, and the joystick is used to navigate through menus and access the joystick guide.

Feature	Canon Vixia HF S11	JVC GZ-HM400	Panasonic HDC-TM300	Sony HDR-XR520V
Display Size	2.7 in.	2.8 in.	2.7 in.	3.2 in.
Display Resolution	211000 pixels	207000 pixels	230400 pixels	921000 pixels
Touch Screen	✗	✗	✓	✓
Viewfinder	✗	✗	✓	✓

Stabilization (4.43)

The HF S11 didn’t perform tremendously well in our stabilization testing, even with its new stabilization setting. The camcorder is equipped with an optical image stabilization system (OIS). The two settings are Standard (the same stabilization that was featured on the HF S10 and HF S100) and Dynamic (new to the HF S11). The Dynamic setting is said to accommodate for more intense camcorder shake and, according to Canon, should work better across the zoom range.

In our low shake test the camcorder managed to reduce 23% of the shake using Standard OIS and 30% using Dynamic OIS. When we cranked things up to high shake, the Standard OIS reduced 21% of the shake and the Dynamic OIS reduced 27%. These aren’t horrid numbers, but we expected better from such a wide, bulky camcorder that is equipped with two levels of optical image stabilization. More on how we test stabilization.

The charts above show how much the HF S11 shook during our stabilization testing. The blue lines represent the movement of the image without stabilization, while the orange lines show the movement with image stabilization turned on (in Standard mode). As you can see, the OIS didn’t do a very good job in correcting the shake.

The video above is an example of the Canon’s stabilization capability at low shake levels. When watching this video you can notice a slight improvement with Dynamic OIS engaged as opposed to Standard, but the difference is very minimal. Overall, the stabilization system on the HF S11 didn’t perform as well as the JVC GZ-HM400, Panasonic HDC-TM300, or the Sony HDR-XR520V.