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Click to EnlargeCanon AVCHD Camcorder Review: HF S10
One of the big standouts at CES this year was Canon's new AVCHD camcorder, the HF S10. One of the most impressive cameras to hit the market in some time, the S10 is without a doubt a beautiful camera. And with 900 lines of resolution packed into every shot, the video is quite breathtaking. The new standard in prosumer technology, the Canon HF S10 is finally here.
The S10 is a very compact, sharp-looking shooter. Fitting in the center of the palm, at 1.1 pounds, it packs in just enough weight to make zooming feel sturdy (sometimes with a lighter camera, zooming is hard to control and doesn't feel secure). The 10x optical lens barrel has the flash for the 8.0 megapixel still camera embedded just under the screen. Inside the LCD panel, we have the SD/SDHC card slot along with the record/playback buttons. A mini-joystick toggle sits next to the 2.7" Multi-Angle Vivid Color LCD, as well as the FUNC menu access button. A mini accessory shoe sits on top of the camera. The DC and A/V plug-ins make their home on the back of the camera, while the HDMI, USB and component video output ports sit under the hand strap on the right side of the body, just behind the mic input. In this way, all the jacks stay clean and protected.
Canon has decided to make a bold statement by claiming that the S10 can capture video with up to 900 lines of resolution behind it. We tested the claim and - believe it or not - yes, the S10 can capture 900 lines of resolution. That means the S10 is on par with a professional broadcast camera. What does that mean for cinemaniacs out there? That video shot with an S10 will look incredible. We were amazed at how much detail was captured in our shots when we took some video out in our nearby park with lots of trees and grass around. Even off in the distance, the S10 could still retain the detail, and we noticed that there was still quite a bit of color separation.
Canon has also added a new 8.59-megapixel CMOS image sensor, as well as adding its DIGIC DV III image processor. The lens filter diameter is 58mm, the same as Canon's prosumer model, the GL2. Using a 1/2.6" CMOS imaging device makes capturing true high definition at 1920x1080 pixels a breeze. It also writes data at the highest possible data rate for the AVCHD specification at 24Mbps.
Powering up the S10 was rather quick and led us to the new innovative menu design. We found that navigating with the joystick across the menu felt very intuitive. Here we found most of our presets and settings, including the standard Auto Exposure options, Digital & Image effects and bitrate options. We liked that we could change our Zoom Speeds and use the peaking option as well as zebra strips to assist us on our various shoots.
One of the more impressive features is the on-board 32GB of Flash memory. When combined with a 32GB SDHC memory card, this adds up to an impressive 64GB of memory. In the LP setting, that means that we could store up to 24 hours of video! The one downside, if there is one, would be that, if one of the cards runs out during a shoot, users have to manually switch to the other to continue recording. This can cause a loss of potential video footage of the moment.
