Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer by Canon
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Digital camera reviews of Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer
Digital camera Review: Absolutely outstanding!
Summary: 5 Stars
As your average camcorder user, I've found this very easy to use right out of the box. While there are plenty of options to enhance your shots, this does a great job in a very basic shooting mode.
With multiple formats for shooting, the storage is excellent for most 3-7 day vacations. The first time I used this was on a 4 day trip to Walt Disney World, where I go frequently. My first shots were from the monorail, while moving. Stabilization was not perfect, but came out nice once I steadied myself.
Half of my shots were with low light, either at the fireworks shows in the Magic Kingdom & Epcot, or on rides. Almost all of them came out perfect, with the exception of a couple that were out of focus. I found that if low-light focusing was a problem, manually zooming in & out would quickly correct the situation. I was able to zoom in on a full screen shot of Tinkerbell, launching off the castle at the start of the fireworks, with amazing clarity.
While the movie software it comes with takes some understanding, it does work well. It allows you to convert all movies to Mpegs manually, or will do it automatically when creating a DVD. It works fastest when burning straight to AVCHD DVD, and can take a very long time if converting first.
The clarity of the pictures on SP format (2nd only to XP) was true HD quality, and used less space than I thought after 4 days. On SP, over an hour of footage only used about 10% of the storage. When hooked up straight to my TV, or viewing from the AVCHD DVD created, footage came out like I was still there. The next time I go, I will be using the XP format, now that I know I have plenty of storage space.
All in all, was an excellent choice, well worth the money for such fantastic footage.
Digital camera Review: Amazing Video Quality
Summary: 5 Stars
Pros:
Much smaller than my old Canon Optura Xi
Fantastic 1080i HD @ 60 frames per second
Can convert to 1080p @ 30 frames per second (with help...)
Image stabilization works well at maximum zoom
Uncompressed AVCHD has much better quality than flash based MPEG4 cameras
Good low-light performance
Cons:
Stills are useless (just frame-grab from video - same quality)
Much bigger than my friends new Panasonic (it is only SD though)
Wish the camera did 1080p natively :(
24p mode is useless.
Notes:
I also bought a Sanyo Xacti 720p - the Canon is *way* better. The Sanyo has pretty bad compression artifacts including jaggies and macroblocking. On the other hand, the Sanyo takes much better still pictures.
Also, I tried using Apple iMovie '08 to edit - would not de-interlace at 1080p, only 720p. So if you want to convert to 1080p, you will need another video editor (I bought Final Cut Express 4, but have not tried it yet...)
Digital camera Review: Amazing camcorder but one simple flaw
Summary: 4 Stars
Believe everything you read about this camcorder - the video quality is amazing, 40Gb is more than enough to store a few trip's worth of HD video, the image stabilization works well, etc. etc. I've used it a lot and am very happy with it.
I'm dinging this camcorder a point because in order to transfer files to your PC it needs to be plugged into the AC adapter. I've no idea why. I dread the thought of mislaying the AC adapter, or being at some newsworthy event and not being able to share the footage. It's one more thing that can go wrong. Canon needs to issue a firmware patch for this - it's just plain silly.
If this is a deal-killer, consider the flash based Canon Vixias. While I haven't tried them much, they are much lighter than the hard drive versions, and with 16Gb flash cards costing $30-40 these days, there's no reason to go with a hard drive anymore. Plus, if the camera packs up, at least you can pull out the SDHC card and stick it in your PC/Mac. My $0.02.
Digital camera Review: Amazing quality in a small package
Summary: 5 Stars
I was unsure of the quality of the video and sound I would get after using much bigger and more expensive units. (Sony) I was also used to tapes rather than a hard drive.
Everything about the camcorder has been more than I expected. It has outstanding video and audio quality. The design and ease of operation was well thought out. The interfaces from the cam to a TV, computer, or burner are simple and maintain the quality of the original scenes. I especially like the 5.1 audio being a musician.
Bad experience...I ordered the accessory kit for the camera that included lenses, memory card, etc. (not Canon) through the Amazon site. Neither the lenses nor the memory card fit the cam, so be especially careful when ordering accessories. This was by no means a fault of the camera.
I continue to enjoy the cam and I'm finding more uses and features that put this cam a step above the others.
Digital camera Review: Another quality product by canon!
Summary: 5 Stars
I always say: Dell computers, and Canon video/photo products and computer peripherals, CANNOT be beat for the price of the product!
This is a high quality product that is insanely good for the price.
I have had a Samsung Mini DV camcorder for a while now. And while the video was ok, I was sick and tired of dealing with the tapes: Which ones did I use? Am i going to overwrite something I haven't put on VHS/DVD? Which tape is spoiled, which is new? Etc...
Hence, I was ready for an upgrade to hard disk!
The camera is absolutely light as a feather, even with a battery that lasts a long time and charges very quickly. The video quality is absolutely like that on Discovery channel, minus the video editing and quality sound. Which brings me to the point of sound quality: After about 30 feet away from the camera, everything becomes quite hard to hear, and I'd reccomend getting an accessory microphone if you really need it.
The menu options are very easy to use and set up, and reviewing and deleting a video is a snap. No more worries about overwriting precious memories!!! You can record about 8 hours full HD video on 40GB, and way more than that in lower quality. And putting everything on your computer is as easy as plugging into your USB drive, it's very fast and convenient. And the video quality on my 4 year old and low-quality laptop is still amazing!
Now, for some cons, although not many. Would've been great if there was a night video capability. If you put this camera on auto mode, during the low light hours it will automatically adjust the setting to allow more light in and really make it look like it's lighter outside than it really is. however, the darker it gets, the granier the picture, and the more "drag" there is as you move the camera side to side. There's no true night-video capability like some other cameras have, quite unfortunate. There is an accessory light you can buy, but it's really quite useless.
Finally, I really am sad to say, that my old Samsung camcorder beat this camera in just one category, and an important one at that: zoom. When I got the samsung about a decade ago, it had 22x optical zoom and way more digital. 22x otpical zoom back then was practically unheard of for a handheld, personal, and realtively cheap camcorder. Nowadays, it's standard. And this camera falls flat. 10x zoom is really nothing, and I'm dissapointed as I do video of beautiful scenery that limits my shots of nature (you can only come so close to an animal before frightening it away).
Besides these two issues, for a normal user this camera is very good nonetheless.