Canon Vixia HF S11

Video Sharpness (11.32)

The Canon HF S11 had the same video sharpness scores as the previous Canon ‘S’ series camcorders we’ve tested (the HF S100 and the HF S10). The camcorder measured a horizontal sharpness of 800 lw/ph and a vertical sharpness of 650 lw/ph. These are very good scores, but as we said in our bright light color and noise sections, most high-end camcorders do extremely well with this test. The fact is, if you spend $1000+ on a high definition camcorder, you expect, deserve, and usually get very good video sharpness.

With that in mind, there were some noticeable differences between the Canons and high-end models from other manufacturers. The JVC GZ-HM400 had the best sharpness, capturing a horizontal sharpness of roughly 1000 lw/ph. The Sony and Panasonic models both produced a slightly less sharp image than that of the HF S11. More on how we test video sharpness.

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.