Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I have been using the Canon HG10 for a month now and couldn't be happier with the quality of the recordings. This camcorder has many useful features and no fatal flaws. I'm basing the five stars on the price/performance ratio. I'm not basing the rating on the supplied software and editing capabilities because there are too many variables with computer configurations and I just want to focus on the camera's performance. I have owned an 8mm and two Mini DV camcorders over the last twenty years and have never seen results that are anything close to what I get with this camcorder. Most of my shooting has been done with full automatic mode. Here are the features and characteristics I really like: First and foremost, color saturation and accuracy. Even if this wasn't high definition, I'd be pleased with it for the realistic color rendition alone. It has very good low light shooting capability. Don't expect the crisp, smooth, colorful images you get under bright lighting, but this will pick up viewable images (albeit very grainy and low contrast) under candlelight and outside images at night under a bright moon. It works well under normal indoor lighting at night which is where I shoot a lot of video. The auto focus is lightning fast. You won't see a lot of "hunting" to focus. The image stabilization works amazingly well. My videos haven't looked this steady since I was using my big, heavy 8mm camcorder years ago. The automatic white balance is very fast and accurate too. The hard drive is quick, quiet, and a real convenience after dealing with tapes for years. All of the important data is embedded in the video. No more writing time and date information on tiny cassette labels. Finding a particular clip by viewing thumbnails is a huge improvement over winding a tape back and forth. The controls are well placed and easy to use. The variable speed zoom is excellent and I really like having the option of using a viewfinder or LCD screen when shooting. There are many more manual options than I'm used to seeing in a compact camcorder. You can control focus, aperture, frame rate, shutter speed, and more. If you've ever used a Canon digital still camera, you'll be in familiar territory with the menus, manual settings and effects. Check out cinema mode. It looks great but it does reduce the contrast and brightness slightly. The still photo mode produces very good pictures. At about 2.7 megapixels, it won't compete with current dedicated digital still cameras for resolution, but the results are fine if you don't blow the pictures up too big. The excellent optics and image sensor really help here. A few things I don't like: Having to plug in the AC adapter to transfer video files to a computer. I know this is to protect the hard drive, but it is a nuisance. Still images can be transfered under battery power. Mini SD card for storing still images. Storing still images on the hard drive would be convenient but would probably complicate playback. My gripe is that you have to use a mini and not a regular SD card. Regular SD cards are generally cheaper and easier to find. The memory card was not included. Including a small capacity card wouldn't add much to the cost of the camera and would mean the still photo mode will work right out of the box. I had to order a card and wait an extra week before I could use the still photo mode. Not a big deal, but I think everything should be ready to go right away. Specialized connections for HDMI and component video. For HDMI, it uses a Mini to standard HDMI cable which is not included. Mini to standard HDMI cables are more expensive and harder to find than standard to standard HDMI cables. Component video is accessed by a special type of mini plug for the camera. The cable is included, but if it's lost or damaged, it could be difficult to find a replacement. Using the composite video output downconverts the resolution from 1080i to 480p. Even at 480p, the video still looks very good. The composite A/V cable is also included. I consider these minor drawbacks; not quite enough for me to dock the rating by a star. A couple of things I'm neutral on are the flash and the built in microphone. The built in microphone I would consider good, but average. The flash works well for still images but seems to have a somewhat shorter useful range than the built in flash on a lot of dedicated digital still cameras. It won't help much beyond eight to ten feet. You can attach a stronger flash to the hot shoe. To sum everything up; Stunning video quality. Good still images are a bonus (see customer images). Good sound. Can be improved by using an external microphone. Easy to use. Good control layout. You can hold and operate it with one hand. Image stabilization really helps with one handed operation. Automatic mode works really well and there are lots of manual control options if you want to tweak them. For the first time, I'm getting video that looks as good or better than anything I see on broadcast television!

This is apparently one of the most popular models currently on the market, and from my experience there is good reason for this.First is ease of use. While it took me a while to browse through the instruction manual, when I actually started trying out the various functions, I found it surprisingly easy to set up modes/lighting conditions/resolutions/switch between still and movie/etc. The function button/+ key navigation took only a few minutes to get used to, and the on screen descriptions of what you're selecting have enough detail that you don't have to be a veteran user familiar with all the acronyms associated with picture taking to figure out what each item is. The camera is quite light and easy to hold, even for extended time periods, and the LCD display was quite visible even in bright sunlight. The zoom control is conveniently available to your fingers while holding it, and the zoom control itself is neither too sensitive nor too slow to react, and the zoom speed mode adjust is great for certain special situations.I note that many have complained about shooting in low-light conditions causing excessive graininess in the results, but I have not observed this yet, shooting indoors with what I consider quite low light. The camera also seems to handle large light differentials quite easily: I had my wife take some shots of me while bowling (a feat in itself, as she is definitely not a camera person, so being able to do this is testimony to its ease of use). Bowling alleys have quite bright lighting on the alley itself, while the area behind the alleys is usually very dimly lit. The resulting videos that swing between both the dark/light areas and those taken from dark to light and vice versa show no flaring/glare marks or loss of focus. And the videos had more than enough resolution for me to be able to discern some mistakes I was making in my approach and ball delivery, which is very good as the critical items in bowling happen very quickly and in a very small area (wrist and fingers).I was very pleased with the camera's close in focusing capability, finding it possible to film a beetle crawling on my rose bushes from just a couple of inches away. The 10x telephoto not only works well, it remains quite steady with the auto stabilizer on. Still picture resolution is more than adequate for anything except high-detail professional portraits, and compares well with shots taken with my 5 megapixel still camera.I was a little unhappy with the audio quality using the built in microphone, as it seemed a little muffled and indistinct for any sounds more than about 5 feet away, while close sounds (i.e., me talking while filming) could be overly loud.Battery life is a definite problem. The advertised approximate 1 hour on the provided battery is perhaps a little optimistic, and for any extended day trip where you expect to use the camera throughout the day I'd recommend carrying at least one and preferably two spare batteries.Transferring videos from the camera to my computer was quite easy, and did not seem to take an excessively long time for the given file sizes, but I was not happy with the provided Corel software requiring an online registration to use it at all. Are they really so concerned about piracy that this step is necessary? The functionality of this software is ok, though it probably won't win prizes, but it does provide enough features to do most of commonly required editing and archiving tasks.For a camera costing this much, I wish that they had included three very vital accessories: a miniSD card for still photos, a miniHDMI-HDMI cable, and a carrying strap. The cable is almost unfindable in stores, you'll need to order it on-line, but once you have it and hook up the camera to an HD TV, the results are truly amazing, looking like the demo shots you often see on the HDTV's in-store displays.Overall, this is an excellent camcorder, with great ease-of-use and video results that are outstanding. It makes earlier technology camcorders seem positively ancient.---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

I like this camera and it works very well. I got it used and there was no damage. The only issues are I was hoping the videos would record in mpeg4 format but they don't so I guess I should have checked before buying. Also the battery dies very fast.