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MillimeterShoot Expertise: First Look: Canon Vixia HF S10
Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By D. W. Leitner
Lightning in a little bottle.
Entirely file-based, they record solely to high-capacity SD (SDHC) cards. Their flip-out LCD screens serve as graphical interfaces for joystick or touchscreen camera controls. There is as yet no name for this bantam breed of viewfinder-less camcorders, but the tubular shape is growing ubiquitous, with similar-looking models available from all major consumer camcorder manufacturers.
In the professional realm, Panasonic staked the first claim, announcing at NAB 2007 the 1.1lb. AG-HSC1U, “the world's smallest professional 3CCD high-definition camcorder,” based on a prior consumer model. Its three 1/4in. 16:9 CCDs yielded 520,000 usable pixels and required horizontal and vertical pixel shifting to create 1080×1440. (The CCDs ran warm, necessitating a tiny cooling fan. See my review here.)
From a distance, it's hard to tell any of these dinky camcorders apart, which is why, as with fine watches, what's inside the envelope is what truly counts. This is where Canon's new HF S10 raises that bar to the sky. With the HF S10, Canon is essentially making the argument that the largest market for camcorders is consumer, so why not apply the latest in high technology to create a superior product without peer? (An argument Apple is not unfamiliar with.)
In a nutshell — a nutshell the same size as its immediate predecessor, last year's HF 11 model — the HF S10 boasts a new, larger 1/2.6in., 8-megapixel CMOS sensor; a new, larger-diameter zoom featuring greater use of aspheric elements; a new DIGIC DV III (Digital Imaging Core) image processor with 3X the processing speed of the HF 11's DIGIC DV II; a host of professional features such as colored peaking, adjustable zebras, an assignable button, SMPTE color bars, automatic gain control (audio), and a 1kHz, -12dB test tone; and to top it off, 900 TV lines of horizontal resolution, per Canon. (Remember when top-shelf Digital Betacams boasted 450 TV lines a decade ago?)
From the previous HF 11, the HF S10 inherits full HD 1920×1080 capture and recording at 24p, 30p, or 60i; a built-in 32GB of flash memory with an SDHC slot for an additional 32GB (Canon calls this arrangement “Dual Flash Memory”); a hybrid active/passive Instant Auto Focus system that refocuses in less than a half-second, even at night; and a hybrid SuperRange Optical Image Stabilizer combining vector and gyro detection to compensate for both unsteady handholding (.1Hz) and car jitters (20Hz) and everything in between. (Canon invented optical image stabilization.)
There's also an active histogram; focus assist to enlarge the image during manual focusing; a Quick Start function that places the camcorder in momentary standby when the LCD is closed; lossless Dolby Digital AC-3 audio (part of the AVCHD standard) with manual audio-level control, a mic jack, and a headphone jack; uncompressed HDMI output; and the same intelligent lithium-ion batteries as the HF 11.
Lastly, the HF S10 inherits the Vixia HF 11's AVCHD recording bit rates of 24Mbps (full HD, highest quality), 17Mbps, 12Mbps, 7Mbps, and 5Mbps (subsampled, lowest quality). At 24Mbps, 32GB of built-in internal flash can record an impressive 2:55 (hours:minutes), or a combined total of nearly 6 hours when an external 32GB SDHC card is added. In a pinch, the combined 64GB can also capture 24 hours at 5Mbps — far from best quality, but nonetheless an impressive recording time as well.
Note that Canon's AVCHD recording can't span the built-in memory and external SDHC. In other words, when the internal 32GB fills up, recording stops and must be restarted using the external memory card. Canon recommends any Class 4 SDHC card or higher (SDHC goes up to Class 6).
Incidentally, Canon's consumer HF 11 pushed AVCHD to its 24Mbps ceiling (AVC/H.264 High Profile Level 4.1) at about the same time as Panasonic's professional AVCCAM AG-HMC150. Sony's new HXR-MC1 remote-head camera/recorder, by comparison, averages 16Mbps in its highest-bit-rate mode (AVC/H.264 Main Profile Level 4.0). (See my review of the HXR-MC1 in the next issue.)
Continue the discussion on Crosstalk the Millimeter Forum.