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Digital Cameras Canon VIXIA HF11 1080p High Definition Video Camera
Digital Cameras Canon VIXIA HF11 1080p High Definition Video Camera
Digital Cameras
| Canon VIXIA HF11 1080p High Definition Video Camera |
| Written by John E. Johnson, Jr. |
| Wednesday, 24 December 2008 17:00 |
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Page 5 of 5
Conclusions The Canon HF11 is a superb high definition video camera. It takes great videos, even in poor lighting, and is small enough to carry in your pocket. At $1,199 MSRP it is not the cheapest HD video camera out there, but it is certainly one of the best in terms of the price to performance ratio. Comments (19)
HF11 VS HG20
written by Greg_D , December 29, 2008 Wouldn't the HG20 qualify as a better price to performance ratio than this camera? Granted, the HG20 is slightly larger and heavier than the HF11. Looking at the specs, the HG20 has more internal memory and the same video capabilities. I don't think I'd pay the price premium just for solid state memory. Perhaps I'd pay extra for the smaller form factor however.
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written by JEJ , December 29, 2008 Do you mean the HG10 or the HV20 (we did not review anything called the HG20)? I assume from your comment about internal memory, you are referring to the HG10 with its hard drive. The MTF50 value (resolution) for the HG10 is about half the MTF50 value for the HF11, so the HF11 has a much sharper image. The HF11 really does have everything going for it: small, no moving parts to break down (no tape, no hard drive, no DVD-R), and a very sharp picture.
Please review the HG20
written by Greg_D , December 30, 2008 Don't get me wrong, the HF11 looks fantastic from your review and solid state storage has definite advantages; I'm simply looking for the best value. However, I was not referring to the HG10 or HV20 that you have already reviewed. Please review the HG20! It seems to have the same capabilities as the HF11 except it has more internal storage space thanks to its HDD. It is slightly larger and heavier but it is also cheaper than the HF11 and comes with double the storage space. I've yet to see significant power savings by using SSD over HDD. In fact, Canon's website says the HF11 uses more power than than the HG20; I understand real world performance may vary. Solid state camcorders are very appealing and undoubtedly will become commonplace in the near future. When the HF11 comes with 64GB or 128GB SSD, the debate will be over for me.
Editing AVCHD
written by Steve Hess , December 30, 2008 Is there a discussion anywhere about what is contained in each of the subdirectories in the camera, and what is required in a video editor to edit the AVCHD format. Your review is the first I've seen that even talks about the structure of the video memory. I've had mine since October and love that way it works, but I've not had much experience with editing and would like to know more about the files that are required
What exactly is the MTF50 result?
written by jose , December 31, 2008 Is the MTF50 sharpness value of 612 LW/PH on its according setting, the actual vertical resolution that it captures? Does that mean even though it has 1080 physical vertical pixels it can only capture 612 worth of actual picture information?
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written by JEJ , December 31, 2008 Canon does not explain the function of the various subdirectories, so, during the review, I copied them all to my PC to be safe. It appears that you may need only to copy the files in the STREAM directory to your PC though. They contain all the video and audio of the video clip. I moved an *.mts file to another hard drive in a miscellaneous directory, without any of the other VIXIA subdirectories nearby, and opened it with my video editor, and it played perfectly. So, perhaps the files in the other subdirectories have information for use by the camera itself in managing the data while they are still in the camera. You can also rename the numbered MTS files without harming your ability to open them. In the STREAM directory, they will be numbered 0001.mts, 0001.mts, 0002.mts, etc. You can view them in your video editor then change the file names to such things as jimmy-birthday-party-october-21-08.mts. This will make it a lot easier during the editing process.
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written by JEJ , December 31, 2008 The MTF50 is the value in horizontal lines (lines drawn left to right, and also called line widths) per picture height, with the lines being alternating white and black lines, where the contrast between the lines is 50%. In other words, as the lines get closer together, the contrast drops, the white lines start to look light gray and the black lines start to look dark gray. At the point where the contrast is 50%, that is the MTF50 value. It is the maximum resolution for a particular camera at which the video can be be viewed with acceptable quality. Even though you could distinguish some lines that are closer together, the contrast is lower and not good for viewing the video. An example would be the MTF10 value, where the contrast between lines is 10%.
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written by JEJ , December 31, 2008 Even though the HG20 may have a lot more memory, it is still likely to have the same imaging system as the HG10, and the picture quality will still only be about half as sharp as the HF11. The 32GB memory card in the HF11 will record almost 3 hours of video at the highest quality bitrate (24 Mbps). If you want 64GB of memory available, just carry an extra 32GB SD card (it has to be a high speed SD card that can record video).
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written by Bee... , December 31, 2008 From canon's spec, HG10 uses 1/2.7" CMOS sensor and 10x optical zoom. Both HG20 and HF11 have 1/3.2" CMOS and 12x optical zoom. It seems HG20 and HF11 may share the same optical and pick up system
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written by JEJ , December 31, 2008 The HG10 has a maximum bitrate of 15 Mbps, while the HF11 has a maximum bitrate of 24 Mbps. This is a huge difference. I showed in the HF11 review the effect of a lower bitrate, namely lower sharpness (resolution). The HG10 weighs two pounds and the HF11 weighs one pound. The HF11 is unquestionably the superior product. It's $200 more expensive than the HG10, and the comparison in picture quality is more than worth this price difference.
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written by steve... , January 03, 2009 There is no doubt that HF11 is superior to HG10. However, whether it is better than HG20 is still not clear. HG20 also supports 24 Mbps. I think most of us would appreciate if HG20 can be reviewed and compared to HF11 in the near future.
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written by JEJ , January 03, 2009 I only review a few video cameras. I select ones that represent different types of technology, so that our readers can get some idea of what each type of camera technology can do. I have reviewed cameras that use tape drives, DVD-R, hard drives, and lately, memory cards. I don't have time to review new versions of a particular model, and that is the case for the HG20 vs. the HG10. So, the question as to the HG20's performance will have to wait for some other publication to measure it. Since both the HG20 and HF11 use AVC-HD (MPEG-4) compression, I would imagine that the two cameras would perform very similarly in terms of resolution at 24 Mbps. So, your choice would boil down to whether you want to deal with a camera that has high speed moving parts that are subjected to gyroscopic torque when you are shooting video, but has more than 5 hours recording time at 24 Mbps vs. a camera without those moving parts, but has just about 3 hours of recording time. That's why there are so many camera models. It gives you lots of choices. I am now in the process of selecting the next camera, but because I don't see any new technologies in the latest batch of cameras, it may be awhile before I can decide.
Canon's new camcorder lineup
written by Greg_D , January 05, 2009 Sorry John, didn't mean to overwhelm you. Please see Canon's new batch of HD flash-based camcorders when you select a new one to review (Vixia HF S10)! They look like they were just added to the website this week! They seem to have a new sensor. I'm interested to see how they compare to the HF11's image quality. Thanks.
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written by JEJ , January 05, 2009 Yes, it looks like the new VIXIA models use 6 megapixels to generate the video image, whereas the HF11 uses 2.
View Finder
written by Brian Ming , January 09, 2009 Unless the camera has a standard video camera view finder it is of no use to me. There are too many conditions where the LCD screen would be unusable.
Still shots while video recording
written by Sri , January 12, 2009 Does anyone know if the HF11 or the newer Vixia HF S10 can take still shots while recording video? If so what is the maga pixels and where does it store it (build in flash drive or sd card)?
HG20 and the HF series
written by John_W , January 12, 2009 I have the HG20 and I believe other review sites have said that the HG20, HG21 & the HF series would be identical performers, with the exception of the HG series having the HDD. With my HG20, I can chose to shoot video onto the HDD or an (not included)SD card. I see this as "insurance" against an HDD failure. I can also shoot still onto a SD card while I'm taking video. Other review sites have said that the stills it takes are average at best, but I've been very pleased how they've turn out.
White balance presets
written by Jens Erik bech , May 05, 2009 You test different white balance presets. Why not set the white balance individually? If you bring a white A4 paper to the environment and place it in the open, you just point the camera to the paper and press the "Joy stick button" it blinks, and the white balance is optimized for the lighting. Another thing for a cheaper buy you could select the Canon HF10. The only difference is the bitrate which is 17 Mpix XFP mode. Other revievers cannot tell the quality difference. Can You? Write comment
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