Canon VIXIA HFS100 Review
As far as cameras and recording devices go, Canon has made quite an impact in the industry over the past ten years. Their developments as of late are no exception as you will find only the highest caliber of cameras amongst their collection in either their online catalogue, retail stores, or third party resellers located all over the internet. As of late Canon has moved their focus to high definition products that will be compatible with the ever changing world that is rapidly switching over to all digital products, including digital signals.
It’s no surprise that the VIXIA HFS100 supports HDMI output that is able to plug directly into an HD TV with only a single cable. This cable does more than just connect; it actually does a great job of transmitting a signal in HD so that it takes advantage of the entire screen. The best part is that the camera records in HD, so it can really take advantage of that HDMI connection!
With 24Mbps recording you’ll find that your VIXIA HFS100 Camera has the ability to provide the highest quality picture. You will notice that the video you record has extremely high detail, better sound, and is able to follow moving objects without any blur whatsoever. The detail in the environments that you record will be utterly amazing, and none of the memories will be lost as you sit down either alone or with family to watch the recreation of that special day, sporting event, or whatever else you chose to record with your VIXIA HFS100 video camera.
Now a feature that is not present in many cameras is face detection. This camera’s software is so advanced that it has the ability to detect faces that are present within a scene, and it can even build a face index so that you can find other scenes in which that face is present. This is very useful for if you want to piece together a presentation surrounding a specific person but you do not want to search through the entire length of the footage just to find every scene that they happen to be in.
You can record in 24p cinema mode if you want to attain that professional look that is seen in movie theaters. This changes the look, feel, and the colors so that you can either shoot your own movie, or just add a professional look to your own home movies. This is very useful if you’re in the mood to shoot your own soap opera in the privacy of your own basement.
This device serves two purposes, the first of course is an excellent HD video camera, and the second is a digital camera. This is very convenient if you think about it; no longer would you have to tote around two devices to get all the footage and images that you need, you can simply take your pictures which will be either recorded on the camera’s internal memory device, or your SD card, which may be in any size. You’ll also be able to move data from the internal device over to the removable SD card any time you want you’ll transfer it to your computer using your PC or Mac’s card reader.
One problem that you’re going to inevitably run into is that the HD signal is too high end for some personal computers to handle. In most cases you will require a dual core just to play back the video smoothly and you will also need a decent video card. This is a high price to pay, but you will be able to have the highest quality video in the highest resolutions possible. If you need the video to be a little more viewable, then you could always run it through a converter to put it into a lower resolution.
All in all this is a great video camera and the good outweighs the bad completely. If you’re looking for something decent that will do a great job of recording sporting events, home movies, or even your own movie projects then you should definitely look into buying this camera.