Canon LEGRIA HF S10 HD Camcorder Review
Canon, with no doubt dominates the digital media industry in the field of camcorders with their quality products. It has completely dominated the year 2008. But now, the competition has become more fierce as its rivals have come up with their latest versions, such as the flawless HDC-HS300 from Panasonic. Hence, Canon had to do much more than minor updates as with the case of Canon HF11, the successor of Canon HF10.
With the increase in competition, Canon has come up with LEGRIA HF S10 which has incorporated new CMOS sensors. This new series seems to be so special to canon that they have even given them a new name called “Legria”. Here, we review the premier model of the LEGRIA series, the Canon LEGRIA HF S10 High Definition Camcorder.
Bulky but a robust design:
Most of the AVCHD camcorders from canon look robust and well-designed. Once you have a look at its features, you will be really amazed by the fact all these are squeezed into such a small device. It weighs about 451 grams, and anybody who knows well about camcorders will say that this bulkiness is not a disadvantage, but an advantage. It is of a great help to you when you are working especially with a tripod.
Canon has included whole lot of features in this high definition camcorder and these features can be accessed with the help of a joystick that is present on the edge of the LCD and also using the function button below. Canon has no at all compromised on user-friendliness and accessibility.
The display:
The 2.7 inch Multi-Angle Vivid Colour LCD has a plastic protecting layer over the whole face of the frame, with record or playback controls occupying the bottom together with a media record or playback switch. Unlike its competitors, Canon Camcorders has not employed the touch screen technology and instead, it relies on the on physical buttons and controls.
Start-up and controls:
The LEGRIA HF S10 Digital camcorder powers up very quickly and instantly you will be looking at a new, well designed, user friendly graphical menu display with a musical background.
With a single press on the joystick, it displays all the frequently used settings such as, basic exposure control, face detection, pre REC and backlight compensation. The pre REC function, constantly buffers the footage, so when you hit record, this is tacked on the front, in case your reactions were too slow.
The Lithium Ion rechargeable battery sits in the back of the camcorder’s body. The stereo microphone pickups are located on the left and right of the main lens barrel respectively. The Mini Advanced Shoe resides under a slide-away door on the roof of the black body, with the Zoom Toggle, Photo and Power On/Off button all situated at the rear of the upper body. The separate On/Off switch is a good decision as now, you can leave the settings as it is and return latter.
You can access the manual control modes using through the function button. The shutter and aperture priority options are also available which provides quasi-independent control of both parameters. You can also use the “Cine Mode” or one of the eight Scene presets that are provided. The Image Effects give you a great deal of control over how your video is being recorded, offering Vivid and Neutral colour, along with Low Sharpening, Soft Skin, or fully customisable options.
Lens ring – absent AGAIN!
Again, canon has refused to include a lens ring. There is a little wheel besides the lens which, by default operates as the manual focus, which can also be configured to control assist functions, AGC limit, Mic level and also to control exposure.
Odd built-in lens cover:
Looking at the camcorder head-on, one of the first things you notice is the odd built-in lens cover that uses a closing-eye-type design, rather than the aperture-blade type we usually see. It would not be notable except that, when closed, the two plastic pieces tend to rattle against each other.
The mini advanced shoe:
Canon LEGRIA HF S10 camcorder lacks a standard accessory shoe too, instead it has a mini advanced shoe present under a solid sliding cover. The tripod mount is not satisfactory too, it still seems to remain in the front, not coinciding with the devices centre of gravity.
Audio:
The AV minijack also acts as a headphone connector. This can be selected with the help of the options available in the menu. There’s a minijack for an external microphone near the front of the lens too.
The audio input level, whether coming from the built-in or external mic, can be manually adjusted using the Custom dial, with a level indication appearing in the LCD screen which again is a menu-selectable option.
Memory:
Being well-versed with the naming technology of canon, at the first look at its model name, we were able to guess correctly that HF S10 is a flash memory based hi-def model, as is the case of the other “HF“ models. The media which is more future proof than any other medias. You also get a complimentary 32GB and Canon’s Dual Flash Memory which means you can add same amount in SDHC on top of the existing memory, that makes the total usable memory to 64GB, which is currently the highest.
If you are shooting and your recording is being saved in one medium, if that medium gets filled up, you will have to manually switch in to the other medium in order to continue recording.
Connectivity:
Talking about connectivity, the options are really wide. One of the ways is that, you can connect it via mini-HDMI or a component cable. The component cable and a USB cable are supplied and for the mini-HDMI connectivity, the cable is not supplied.
The recording modes:
The five recording modes available are, MXP (High Quality, 24 Mbps), FXP (High Quality, 17 Mbps), XP+ (High Quaility, 12 Mbps), SP (Standard Play, 7 Mbps) and LP (Long Play, 5 Mbps). Using the maximum amount of memory (64GB) on the lowest quality setting (LP, 5Mbps) it’s possible to store 24 hours of video with this camcorder without needing to swap the SDHC card.
CMOS Sensors- the highlight:
As mentioned in the intro, the Sensors used is the highlight of this camcorder. 1/3.2in CMOS used in the previous models were excellent, in fact the best of any other camcorders that were released in the year 2008. Now Canon has gone still better and improved the sensor with a trio of 1/4in CMOS sensors. The legria hf s10 has a bigger 1/2.6in CMOS, having two times the resolution than the previous models. The handy-cam has a resolution of 6.01 while shooting videos and a resolution of 8.02 mega pixels while capturing still images. The lens filter diameter is 58mm and can accept Canon’s optional WD-H58 wide-angle lens attachment.
Video quality and its aiding features:
Canon LEGRIA HF S10 Vs Panasonic HDC-HS300:
When it comes to the image quality, there exists a direct competition between Canon LEGRIA HF S10 and Panasonic HDC-HS300. In good lighting, it is really difficult to conclude which is better as S10 produces more saturated images by default whereas, HDC-HS300 produces more naturalistic images. But, when tested in the low light areas, Canon wins by maintaining brighter images. The grains are still visible, yet it does not ruin the quality of the image.
Quality settings:
There are five quality settings that are available, out of which 2 is using full HD and 3 functioning at the same 1440 x 1080 pixel resolution as HDV.The Canon LEGRIA HF S10 Digital Video Camcorder sports a top data rate of 24Mbits/sec, as seen in Canon’s HG20 and HG21 models. This data rate conforms to the H.264 High-Profile Level 4.1 standard which means you can shoot best quality video for about three hours using only the internal storage provided.
Having such good sensors and data rate, you might think that canon must have compromised in some other areas. But Canon has not disappointed you in that sense. Instead, it has included anything and everything that is possible to make the camcorder enhanced and ooze with features.
1.7x digital telephoto:
Canon has also included the 1.7x digital telephoto, which with the help of the extra CMOS pixels, provides a digital zoom that does not involve any interpolation. This function is also used in order to access the built-in video light that pops on top of the lens where the pop-up flash resides.
Optional peaking display:
An optional peaking display has also been provided by Canon which puts coloured fringes around the objects that are in focus plus, you will also be able to swap LCD to monochromatic view, which would make things much more obvious. Still, the usual method of magnification during focusing is available and so, you van choose your method.
Video snapshot:
The HF S10 has another new feature that many will enjoy, the Video Snapshot. This is a system by which you can shoot a collection of scenes as a 4-second burst in each case. Simply hit the Record button and the camcorder will record 4 seconds of a scene.
Pixela Imagemixer 3SE:
Movies recorded onto one medium, whether internal memory or SDHC card, can be transferred to the other to assist file management and backup, and Canon provides the Pixela Imagemixer 3SE software to enable simple backup and archiving to a Windows or Vista computer for simple editing and onward sharing via disc, online or hard disc. No software is provided for Mac users, but Intel Mac users will have iMovie 7 at the very least so there’s no real problem.
Some final words:
It is a fabulous camcorder to pick up and use and even a relative beginner will not have trouble switching it on for the first time and making superb quality HD video recordings. However, the overall impression of the Legria HF S10 is overwhelmingly positive. It is great to handle, has a fabulous new menu system of very high visual quality in addition to usability and is a creditable addition to an already excellent line of AVCHD products.
Canon LEGRIA HF S10 High Definition Camcorder has nothing much as cons except for the absence of a standard accessory shoe and lens ring. It is a great camcorder. But the major bolt lies in its cost. The cost of camcorders have already increased by twenty percent as a result of the weakness of pound, still the HF S10 seems to be too expensive. In this recession period, it is just going to be a “dream camcorder” for most of the consumers. We did like it a lot.
Canon LEGRIA HF S10 Camcorder – Technical Specifications, Features
| Manufacturer | Canon |
| Model Name | Canon LEGRIA HF S10 |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) | 71×69x137 mm |
| Weight | 451 g |
| Sensor type | CMOS |
| Max shutter speed | 1/2000 s |
| Shooting modes | Digital photo mode |
| Shooting programs | Snow, beach, sunset, fireworks, spotlight, night mode, sports mode, portrait mode |
| White balance | Custom, presets, automatic |
| White balance presets | Shade, cloudy, daylight, tungsten light, fluorescent light (cool white), fluorescent light (warm white) |
| Exposure modes | Manual, program, automatic, shutter-priority, aperture-priority |
| Min illumination | 0.3 lux |
| Analogue video format | NTSC |
| Focal length | 6.4-64mm |
| Aperture | F/1.8 |
| Focus | Manual, Automatic |
| Optical zoom | 10 x |
| Digital zoom | 200 x |
| Image stabiliser | Optical (Super Range) |
| Display type | LCD display — TFT active matrix |
| Display size | 69 mm |
| Display resolution | 211 pixels |
| Sensor resolution | 8.59 megapixels |
| Accessory shoe | Yes |
| Included cables | 1x component video 1x AV 1x USB |
| Included accessories | Battery pack compact power adaptor wireless controller component cable stereo video cable USB cable wrist strap |
| Battery type | Lithium ion |
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