Canon Vixia HF R10 review – A Low-Priced Camcorder With Headphone And Mic Jacks

Thumbs Up:

The Canon Vixia HF R10 comes with headphone jacks and Mic, which are rare in this price class; the camera has a simple and practical design.

Thumbs Down:

The Canon Vixia HF R10 suffers from poor color precision and low-light video; the lens of the camera doesn’t focus pretty closely and suffers from average battery life.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Manufacturer: Canon USA

Part Number: 4389B001

Price: $353.00 – $549.99

Product Type: Camcorder – 1080p

Weight: 9.5 oz

Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 2.4 x 4.9 x 2.5 inches

Optical Sensor Type: CMOS

Shooting Modes: Digital photo mode

White balance: Automatic, Custom & Presets

Exposure Modes: Manual,   Program & Automatic

Peripheral Devices: CD-ROM drive and USB port

Software: Pixela ImageMixer 3SE and Drivers & Utilities

Cables Included: 1, 1 x USB cable, 1 x A/V cable, Component video cable

Connector Type: 1 x Composite audio/video output, 1 x Component video output, 1 x Microphone, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Headphones and 1 x USB

Additional Features: Face detection ,   Direct print ,   PictBridge support ,   24p Cinema Mode ,   RGB primary color filter ,   USB 2.0 compatibility ,   Dolby Digital AC-3 (2 channel) recording  and Takes photos while movie recording

Shooting Programs: Snow, Cine, Sunset, Beach, Low light, Fireworks, Night scene, Spotlight, Portrait mode and Sports mode

Focus Adjustment: Automatic

Included Accessories: USB interface cable, Stereo video cable, Battery pack, Compact power adapter and Component cable

Supported Battery: Canon BP-2L5

Battery Type: Canon BP-2L5 Li-ion rechargeable battery

Razzle Dazzle:

The overall design of Canon Vixia HF R10 is dead simple, which makes the operation of the camera easy. The camera measures 2.4 x 4.9 x 2.5 inches (W x D x H) and weighs around 9.5 oz. there is a lot to be liked about the camcorders strong, basic design which in many ways is superior to its slightly more pricey Vixia siblings. The covering buttons inside the LCD recess lets you to toggle in between the playback and capture modes; take 2, 4 or 8 second video “snapshots;” lets you down convert the video quality from HD to standard definition and for wireless uploading through an Eye-Fi card (Web); and for controlling the playback and display options. We also liked the connector layout of the camera, having the USB, Mini-HDMI, mic, headphone jacks and component. All these connector ports are positioned at the rear end of the camcorder. The headphone and mic of the camcorder is rare for its price range and this is what makes this model appealing for the education market.

Inside Dope:

There are a lot of things to be liked about the entry-level Canon Vixia HF R10 or its HF R10 series of “high-definition” camcorders, like its user interface, which clearly is a lot better than most of its expensive sibling. One another impressive thing about this camcorder is the headphone and mic jacks, which are hardly seen in the camera of this class. But the camera gives us flashbacks of the early HD days when most if the camcorders where most of the camcorders where using comparatively low-resolution sensors and for up converting the video from 1440 x 1080 pixel resolution, either in hardware or software, to authentic HD 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution.

Also, its worth noticing that the Vixia HF R10 is not all that cheap and for its modest price the camcorder lets you capture the video at 1664 x 936 pixels and up converts it into 1920 x 1080 pixels before it saves the video using the AVCHD codec. The camcorder models having internal memory are well capable of down converting the video and then saving it to standard definition MPEG-2 files, which you can easily upload wirelessly if you have the necessary Eye-Fi card. Interestingly, the manual for the camcorder states that “the product is not certain to hold up Eye-Fi card functions (counting wireless transfer).” This is somewhat annoying considering the fact that Canon advertises it as a feature. One good thing here is that the Camcorder also supports the relay recording, which means in case you run out of memory it will transfer memory from one medium to another.

The performance of the camcorder was decent, if not great. The video shot from the camcorder was respectable, but surely wasn’t exceptional. The video shot is a bit grainy just as the pictures and hence it’s always better to use the camera in bright light and avoid using the camera for shooting darker objects. We used tripod for shooting and hence the camera was pretty still.

The Microphone of the camcorder is pretty decent and we didn’t have to shout to be heard, we even wasn’t close to the mic all the time. The audio is also pretty decent in general.

Nitty Gritty:

The Canon HF R10 is a decent option for anyone who is looking for a low-priced camcorder with headphone and mic jacks. But if what you are looking includes great HD video at comparatively cheap price then keep your hunt on.