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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.
What most separates the HF S10 from the prior art of the HF 11, and indeed the competition itself, are its 8-megapixel CMOS, next-generation DIGIC DV III image processor, and newly designed 10X zoom.
The 8-megapixel CMOS is a product of low-noise sensors developed for Canon's EOS SLRs, designed by Canon and made at Canon's semiconductor plant in Ayase, Japan, just west of Tokyo. It features state-of-the-art dual micro-lens architecture (like that of Sony's F23) for enhanced sensitivity and dual-noise canceling at both column and output amplification.
In case you're wondering, only the still-photo function takes advantage of all eight megapixels. (The HF 11, by comparison, mustered a total of 3.3 megapixels.) Full HD, which is 1920×1080 or 2.07 megapixels, is extracted from a cropped 6-megapixel (3264×1840) section of the larger CMOS by the fast DIGIC DV III processor. The massive advantages to resolution, sensitivity, and signal-to-noise of such over-sampling can not be overstated — 900 TV lines of horizontal resolution is not chopped liver.
The HF S10 offers a Dual Shot video and photo recording mode in which, while shooting HD, a one-button push also takes a 6-megapixel (3264×1840) still photo. Another slick trick is a 1.7X Digital Tele-converter mode — which, when enabled by menu, takes the full 6-megapixel grid of 3264×1840 pixels and zooms down to the center portion of the CMOS, an area of 1920×1080 pixels, for a 1.7X enlargement. Even though this is accomplished digitally, not optically, there's no discernable image degradation because the end result is still a full native count of 1920×1080 pixels. Combined with the 10X optical zoom of the lens, this digital feature extends the effective zoom range to 17X.
The blazing speed of the DIGIC DV III image processor that makes possible the Digital Tele-converter also enables a remarkable new face-recognition technique. Face Detection involves using the joystick at the edge of the LCD to place a small box around a person's face in the LCD image while shooting. The HF S10's Instant Auto Focus tracks the face and keeps it in focus as the face moves within the frame. If there are multiple faces, the operator selects which one to place the box around, and Face Detection does the rest.
A parallel feature called Face Index Search exists for playback: While viewing pages of thumbnails in the LCD, the operator selects a single face — again, using the joystick to place a box around it — and the HF S10 then assembles for viewing all the clips that contain that face.
As mentioned above, the HF S10's 10X zoom is also in a class by itself, with aspheric glass elements — Canon molds them to a tolerance of 30 nanometers, no polishing required — along with fluorite elements that combine to eliminate color fringing. Neither is common in consumer camcorders. To eliminate softening due to diffraction, the HF S10 employs a unique hybrid aperture, part adjustable opening and part graduated neutral density filter slid over the physical aperture by a tiny actuator motor. In the process of stopping down, the “grad” takes over from the physical aperture, relieving it of the need to further contract to pinhole dimensions to achieve an f/8 or f/11.
To house these advances, the HF S10's lens has grown slightly larger, with a 58mm filter diameter compared to 37mm for the HF 11's 12X zoom. Narrow angle-of-view plagues these small camcorders — wide angle is never wide enough — and Canon addresses this with a 0.7X WD-H58 wide-angle adapter for the HF S10, with an expected street price of $400.
There's much more to say about the Vixia HF S10 and its sister camcorder, the HF S100, which lacks built-in flash memory but is otherwise identical. Canon, for one, is anxious to see whether its novel Video Snapshot feature, which automatically limits shots to 4 seconds each, will be a hit with consumers who otherwise lack any concept of appropriate shot length. It's a simple but clever idea, possibly brilliant.
That's a good way to characterize the HF S10 itself, which produces images far better than it has any right to. Although the HF S10 isn't the only HD camcorder Canon will introduce in 2009, I think it will turn out to be the most intriguing by a mile.
The Vixia HF S10 will be available in March with a list price of $1,299 (same as HF 11).
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