review: electronic, component , cellphone, laptop, camera, laptop, New Product....: Canon Vixia HF S10 First Impressions Camcorder Review

Intro	Audio
Compression & Media	Manual Controls
Still Features	Handling and Use
Playback & Connectivity	Other Features
Conclusion	Photo Gallery
Specs and Ratings

The Canon HF S10 is perhaps the most exciting camcorder to appear here at the Consumer Electronics Show, at least on the upper-end of the market. Building on the popularity of the HF10 and HF11, Canon has created this new HF S-series, packed with enough features to make it a viable draw for entry-level professionals or as a pro back-up cam. Video is recorded to a 32GB internal flash, expandable with SD/SDHC cards. The huge 8.5-megapixel CMOS only sweetens the deal. With most of the jacks and ports, manual controls and (hopefully) performance to satisfy even the most discerning shooter, the HF S10 is definitely worth a look. It's not the easiest camcorder to use, and the pretty new redesign of the menus did nothing to simplify operation. Overall, though, the HF S10 is one to watch. There's also the step-down Canon HF S100, with all the same features but a card-only memory, which will likely drop a hundred dollars or more off the price.

Readers: Camcorderinfo.com will be the first to receive a working review unit of the Canon HF S10. Look for the full review very soon. Until then, please post your questions in the thread below and we'll try to cover them in the review.

Lens & Sensor
The lens barrel on the front of the Canon HF S10 is absolutely mammoth, and definitely the first thing you'll notice about the camcorder. Once the lens cover opens, it starts looking more normal-sized, but the lens itself is large. In fact, the filter diameter is the same size as Canon's aging professional model, the GL2.

The sensor is new, and larger than the sensor in the previous generation of flagship camcorders like the HF11, which capped at 1/3.2 inches. The pixel density is much, much higher: a little better than 8.5 megapixels on the new camcorder versus approximately 3.3 megapixels on last year's models.

Lens		Sensor
Filter Diameter	58mm	Type	CMOS
Focal Range	6.4 - 64mm	Size	1/2.6"
Focal Range (35mm equiv.)	43.5 - 435mm	Pixel Count (gross)	8,590,000
Aperture	f/1.8 - 3.0	Pixel Count (Effective)	6,010,000

Front
As mentioned above, the lens barrel on the front is overwhelming large, which is probably a clever trick from Canon's designers. "Anything that big must be a good camcorder," is probably the response they're trying to solicit. Along the bottom of the lens barrel is the sensor for the Instant AF (auto focus) system. There are no other features on the front, other than some text.

The front of the Canon HF S10 is large and in charge

Right
The right side of the Canon HF S10 has an thick, padded hand strap that should make for comfortable handling even after a long day of shooting. Under the hand strap is a large, concealed port door which holds the component-out, USB, and HDMI. The access to these ports is pretty bad, considering how large the hand strap is, but because connection types are all based around post-production file and image transfer, you'll never need them while you're shooting.

Towards the front, alongside of the lens barrel, is the mini microphone jack. Above that is one-half of the built-in microphones. The matching mic is on the other side of the lens barrel.

The left of the Canon HF S10

Back
The back of the Canon HF S10 is fairly clean. At the top is a mode dial to switch between Dual Shot mode, video mode, and still mode. Below that are two neatly concealed port covers. One has the DC power jack and one has the headphone/AV jack. Below and to the right is the record on/off button, as well as a handy place to rest your thumb.

The battery takes up most of the space. It slides into the back and the bottom, and has a completely open cavity, making it possible to accommodate expanded battery packs in the future.

The back of the Canon HF S10

Left
The left side of the Canon HF S10 houses the LCD cavity, most of the control interface, and the card slot. The LCD measures 2.7 inches and has a 211,000 pixel resolution – hardly pro material. To the left of the screen, along the edge, is a the joystick. It's certainly well-placed for the thumb, and offered a good action for browsing through the extensive menus. Playing with the HF S10 side-by-side with the much cheaper Canon FS100 (Review, Specs, $249.00), we noticed that while the HF S10's joystick is a little smaller, it's also smoother. Below the joystick is the Function button to access the menu. Along the bottom of the LCD screen are the playback controls, which double as secondary zoom controls.

In the LCD cavity you'll find buttons to activate the new Video Snap feature (discussed in Other Features), display on/off, the battery release switch, and the SD/SDHC card slot, which opens manually.

The big new feature on the Canon HF S10 and HF S100 is the dial and Custom button, located on the left side towards the lens barrel. From here, you can control Exposure, Focus, Assist Functions, Mic Level, and AGC Limiter.

The left side of the Canon HF S10 with
the LCD button (above),
and the LCD open (below)

Top
The top of the Canon HF S10 has a lot of text and more than a few features. Towards the front you'll find a large pop-up component with the flash and the video light together – a rather clever way to add on components without taking up surface area on the front. Behind that is the accessory shoe, covered by a sliding port door. Towards the back is the zoom toggle, which is built more cheaply than we'd like, but provided reasonably good action. To the right of the zoom toggle is the power button.