Canon Vixia HF100 – useless manual focus
Thumbs Up:
Fast focus; comfortable and attractive design; excellent video quality
Thumbs Down:
Ineffective wind filter; useless manual focus
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
The Canon Vixia HF100 is a high-definition 1080p camcorder that has 1/3.2” 3.3-megapixel CMOS optical sensor. It features SuperRange Optical image stabilization, Digital photo shooting mode, and 1/2000sec of maximum shutter speed. The still resolution is 2.76-megapixel and video resolution is 2.07-megapixel. Its memory card slot accepts Multimedia card and SD Memory card.
The still image format is JPEG and video format is AVCHD. The image storage resolution option is JPEG 1920×1440. The recording speed options are XP+, XP, SP, and LP.
The exposure modes are Aperture-priority, Shutter-priority, Automatic, and Program. The shooting programs are Portrait mode, Sports mode, Night mode, Spotlight, Fireworks, Sunset, Beach, and Sunset. The Canon Vixia HF100 has three types of white-balance: Presets, Custom, and Automatic. Its presets include Fluorescent light (warm white), Fluorescent light (cool white), Tungsten light, Daylight, Cloudy, and Shade.
The Canon Vixia HF100 has 2.7 inches LCD color display and inbuilt stereo microphone that features wind-filter. Zoom lens has 4.8-57mm focal length and F/1.8-3.0 aperture that features 12x optical zoom. The Canon Vixia HF100 has TTL contrast detection with nine zones, 37mm filter and inbuilt lens shield. The minimum focus range is 0.4 inch. The zoom adjustment is motorized drive, while the focus adjustment is automatic and manual.
The connector set includes 1×Microphone, 1×Composite video/audio output, 1×Headphones, 1×USB, 1×HDMI, and 1×Component video output. The additional features are Dolby Digital AC-3 (2-channel) recording, Takes photos while movie recording, RGB primary color filter, USB 2.0 compatibility, PictBridge support, Histogram display, and 24p cinema mode.
Accessories supplied inside the package are component video cable, USB cable, A/V cable, battery, power adapter, drivers & software disc, and user manual. Canon is providing one year warranty with its Vixia HF100 camcorder.
Razzle Dazzle:
The Canon Vixia HF100 is 2.5 inches tall, 2.9 inches wide and 5.1 inches deep. It weighs 13.4 ounces and 15.1 ounces with media card and battery. Its body is made up of plastic and feels solid.
Inside Dope:
The Canon Vixia HF100 is a high-definition camcorder. It features excellent performance, great video quality, and good feature set. The HF100 does not have inbuilt memory unlike its sibling – the HF10. Apart from that, both the models look identical. The Vixia HF100 is a bit smaller than the Sony Handycam HDR-CX7. However, it remains more compact than its siblings the Vixia HG10 (hard-disk based) and the Vixia HV30 (tape-based). However, the manual focus for the Vixia HF100 is useless.
The Canon Vixia HF100 has easy-to-use and large controls. The joystick and function button are inconveniently located on the LCD bezel. It is a bit difficult to use them simultaneously and you have to hold the camera steady while trying to operate them. The manual focus through joystick on a small 2.7-inch screen is very annoying.
You can record the AVCHD video maximum at 17MBps for 2 hours 5 minutes. The Canon Vixia HF100 can hold 6 hours 5 minutes video at lowest 5MBps. The higher bit rate supports full 1920×1080 video capture resolution as compared to 1440×1080 pixels for older AVCHD model that requires only 12MBps.
The optical stabilized 12x zoom lens can reach longer than normal 10x lens, which are generally available in its class. For video, the Canon Vixia HF100 has shutter- and aperture-priority exposure modes, wind-screen filter, instant AF, a video light, one variable and three fixed zoom options. It also allows recording in progressive 24 or 30fps and 60i. The still capture options are exposure bracketing, burst, flash, and metering. The HF100 has complete set of connectors and ports including USB port, mini mic and headphone jacks, and mini-HDMI out for direct TV playback.
The lens of the Canon Vixia HF100 performs well to focus instantly and hold the lock in both bright and dim lighting. In addition, the SuperRange optical image stabilization works fine up to the end. The overall images appear sharp, but the high-contrast corners exhibit more fringing. There stereo microphone provides good audio quality. In contrast, the automatic wind-filter does not work well.
The video looks good, nicely saturated, sharp, and properly exposed despite of having small CMOS sensor. The low light video exhibits more noise and a bit of compressed tonal range. However, it is expected to show some tonal range in the camcorders of its class.
The Canon Vixia HF100 has 890mAH lithium ion battery that has a life of 55 minutes recording time.
Nitty Gritty:
The Canon Vixia HF100 is a good flash-based high-definition camcorder and gives tough competition to the Sony Handycam HDR-CX7. On the other hand, the Vixia HF10 provides similar quality with internal 16GB memory but has more cost. So what to buy? If you need a touch-screen camcorder then select the HDR-CX7.
If you can buy additional cards for storage, then the Vixia HF100 is a good choice. However, we will recommend you to purchase the HF11 as it comes with internal memory.
