| Customer Reviews Collected from usa.canon.com |
Canon - VIXIA 3.0MP High-Definition Digital Camcorder - Black
Average Customer Rating:
3.9
Rating breakdown 31 reviews
5 Stars
13
4 Stars
10
3 Stars
3
2 Stars
3
1 Star
2
68%of customers recommend this product.
(
21 out of
31)
Customer Reviews for Canon - VIXIA 3.0MP High-Definition Digital Camcorder - Black
Customer Rating
4
Excellent video and camrea
on June 11, 2010
Posted by: Jb
from California
Just got back with some great images and video from Yosemite. Most of the time this was the only camera I carried in my pack. As a result I got some great video and some very decent still images. Found I really had to pay attention to the settings as when in cinema mode, switching to camera put me in program mode and when shooting in aperture priority in camera it stayed in that mode in video too.
Pros: Easy Computer Connectivity, Accurate, Vivid Colors, Compact Design, excellent image quality, Ergonomic/comfortable to hold, Easy TV Connectivity, easy to use
Cons: Short battery life
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Vixia HF200 is an Excellent Choice
on May 5, 2009
Posted by: Tim
from Indiana
This camera is a great balance of several feature trade-offs for the price.
Benefits and caveats as I see them:
1) MEMORY - Only external SD card, so no need to send the camera anywhere to recover your files due to a hard drive crash or internal memory error. Memory type and memory capacity is not clearly spelled out anywhere, but it appears that up to 32 GB class 4 card or above is ok. I purchased an 8 GB class 6 card, and have been VERY happy. Just a word of caution for people running older machines - not every machine can read High Capacity SD cards using the universal card readers. I had no trouble on my Vista installation, but did have trouble on my XP box. It is not an issue if you use the direct connection through the device. This was equally true for all of my digital cameras.
2) POWER - Camera operates on household power supply and the battery can be charged without purchasing additional equipment. Note that the user's manual states that non-Canon batteries will not charge on Canon equipment due to safety considerations. Who needs the hassle of questionable batteries anyway?
3) SOUND AND PICTURE QUALITY - Excellent! Several recording modes allow you to balance final picture quality versus battery life and available memory.
4) Included remote control - No issues at all. The user's manual states that it might have trouble in bright light conditions, but I have not experienced any issues.
5) Camera shake correction - Excellent. Avoid purchasing add-on lenses unless you intend to use a tri-pod as this really can affect the effectiveness of this feature.
6) Included sound files for movie backgrounds - 400 MB of sound files are included, ranging from classical to corny. Given the amount of time I have spent searching for stock sound files for movies, It is a nice touch.
7) The camcorder allows the capture of 3.1 MegaPixel images as well, and these can be captured during movie recording - a useful feature indeed. The on-board lighting for both the camera and the camcorder is sufficient. I have not had the need to add external lighting sources yet.
I had one really annoying issue that is worth mentioning, which is more of a documentation issue than a product quality issue. (It could a PICNIC - problem is in the chair not in computer - but whatever - it took me an hour to resolve.)
I hooked up the USB cable after installing the software and nothing happened. I read the manual, and found no clue. I went online and looked a the existing FAQs, where this was listed as an issue, but still no clue. I fiddled with the equipment for a while, and finally found that I had to 1) plug in the USB cable, 2) turn on the device, 3) press the select button, which gave me the final hint to 4) plug in the power supply. The USB connection requires that the camera be hooked to the power supply. After I figured this out, it turns out it was in the ImageMixer 3 instructions.
Overall, this is a great buy and I am very pleased with my purchase. I recommend this camcorder.
Pros: Compact Design, excellent image quality, Easy TV Connectivity, Accurate, Vivid Colors, good battery life, Great sound/audio, Ergonomic/comfortable to hold, durable, easy to use, Good Software Compatibility
Cons: Difficult Computer Connectivity
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
4
HF200
on August 29, 2009
Posted by: hyperman
from new york
Overall a great camcorder. Super picture quality in all resolutions. Great battery life w/ the standard and optional 819 batterys. I'll keep this quick w/ pro/cons.
For someone who has the time and slow moving patients to carefully use this camera its great. For quick handling the cons are a few. 1. The power button is difficult to access. The record button is so sensitive its can be turned on/off w/ out even knowing it. I've lost many scenes thinking it was recording when it wasn't and vise versa. I went to review a scene only to find out it wasn't recorded. I actually turned it off - not on! This button should have some sort of 'click' or a light on top of the camera to let you know it recording. The only light on the camera that tells you its recording is a tiny pin head size led at the rear of the camera that is impossible to see during daylight conditions.
Capture & Editing software that came w/ the camera is worthless and kept locking up my system. I purchased Adobe Premiere 7 that worked Super w/ no problems.
Capture & Editing software that came w/ the camera is worthless and kept locking up my system. I purchased Adobe Premiere 7 that worked Super w/ no problems.
Overall the camera is very good if you can get by these few issues.
Pros: Compact Design, excellent image quality, Accurate, Vivid Colors, good battery life
Cons: Uncomfortable to hold, Limited Software Compatibility
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Great device, but what about 24P?
on July 11, 2009
Posted by: Filmfan
from Manhattan, NY
Other have said pretty much everything. It's an amazingly good HD camcorder with incredibly good HD image and resolution.
The only problem I have is its handling of 24p framerate. Like most other models that can capture 24 frames per second, Canon shuffles those frames around and shoves them into 60 interlaced fields, using the usual telecine process (2:3 pulldown). Why? Why? Why, Canon???
There is no valid reason for doing this. Presumably, this is so that the few people who don't yet have HDTV can output this 60i footage to a standard-def TV, which just can't handle 24p.
I can't imagine how is it not clear to Canon that anyone who still plays back their HD footage directly on an old SD TV (minuscule minority of HF owners) will be shooting at 60i anyway. Us who shoot 24p already have HD playback devices and those can handle 24p perfectly well.
By wrapping 24p in 60i, it is practically impossible to edit that AVCHD video in a 24p timeline without acquiring third-party software that will analyse it, throw away duplicate frames/fields and recompose 24p from 60i (i.e. remove pulldown, or inverse telecine). In the process, we are transcoding that video, introducing another layer of compression artifacts.
Canon, please stop doing this. When you decide to announce next line of HF camcorders, please capture and encode 24p into 24p. That only makes sense, does it not?
Pros: Compact Design, excellent image quality, Ergonomic/comfortable to hold
Cons: Short battery life
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
2
Good video - HORRIBLE software
on December 14, 2009
Posted by: dnarich
from Woodinville, WA
Small and capable camcorder, but included video transfer/editing software is HORRIBLE - and transferring video to a computer and editing and generating usable video output with the included software is virtually impossible!
The camera itself has a wealth of capabilities. It will help to be an expert photographer to fully capitalize on the abilities of the camera to set Av (aperture priority), Tv (shutter priority), Exposure Compensation, and Manual Focus. Ability to set headphone levels also useful, as is the included hotshoe mount (suitable for an external microphone attachment).
The video quality on first-pass seems excellent in bright light but falls apart in dim light, where the image has a significant chroma noise.
Face recognition is magical, and for those shooting in automatic mode, it will help prevent a common error - shooting a portrait with the background in focus and the subject blurred. Face recognition can be turned off, and with manual focus and manual aperture, you can create portrait shots with nicely focused facial features and blurred background bokeh (it is impressive that you can actually do this (sort of) on a camera with a small sensor).
NOW, for the SOFTWARE and VIDEO EDITING. I would consider myself to be moderately computer-photography-video literate however, I find the included software absolutely horrible, and a discrace to Canon (incidently, I generally am very impressed with Canon - I shoot professional still photography and Canon gear is great!).
The process of getting video from the camera to a computer is NOT at all simple or intuitive. The included software can't even extract the video files from the SDHC card if you insert the card directly into your computer. Once you figure out how to transfer video (the included software allows you to transfer by plugging the camera into a USB 2.0 port)...Editing the video on the included software was all but impossible. It was horribly slow, terribly buggy, causing the computer to crash several times. The user interface is pathetically bad. I finally gave up and used Vegas, which provides real-time AVCHD editing. AVS also has video tools that will work acceptably.
NOTE that I am using a modern Core i7 computer (3 GHz) with 9 Gbytes RAM and about 10 Tbytes of hard drive space operating unders Windows 7 - a very capable machine. This is not a machine problem, it is a software problem.
The next problem though is ...how in the world do you create output for your devices (this is not a Canon specific problem!)? I have a BluRay player that presumes to play AVCHD H.264 files, but for the world of me, I cannot generate an AVCHD H.264 file that will play on this BluRay player (perhaps .MKV format???).
For anyone hoping to easily shoot HD-videos that they can enjoy on their HDTV - be forewarned, this is anything but a straight-forward process! This is a software issue and compatability issue yet to be solved by industry (HINT HINT) and whoever finally solves the home media problems will do well indeed.
For anyone hoping to easily shoot HD-videos that they can enjoy on their HDTV - be forewarned, this is anything but a straight-forward process! This is a software issue and compatability issue yet to be solved by industry (HINT HINT) and whoever finally solves the home media problems will do well indeed.
Overall - Pretty darn good camera - and in my view, it is magical how Canon made such a small camera with so many capabilities. It may not satisfy you in very low light - but for daylight shots, you won't be disappointed. The included software is a disgrace and will cost you a lot of aggravation and time to use. Best to find software that can read the AVCHD H.264 files and convert them to something you can playback either on your computer or via DVD or if you have a Blu-Ray burner - via BluRayDisc.
Good luck to all!
Pros: good battery life, Accurate, Vivid Colors, Compact Design, durable, Ergonomic/comfortable to hold, Easy TV Connectivity, easy to use
Cons: Poor Low-Light Performance, Difficult Computer Connectivity, Poor sound/audio, Limited Software Compatibility
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Excellent video, amazingly small
on July 29, 2009
Posted by: Andrei
from Houston, TX
Vendors should really add some comparison object next to this camcorder (i.e. a pack of cards), or else nobody understands how small it is. The video quality was stellar and, although I've read reviews that low light performance is so-so, I've gotten some really great footage even indoors.
I prefer this camera over the HF20 because of the price difference (I can buy more than twice the memory of the HF20 with the money I saved), but after an accident with the camera, I realized that my video was saved only because I could remove it from the camera, which wouldn't have happened if I would've had the HF20 with its embedded memory.
I prefer this camera over the HF20 because of the price difference (I can buy more than twice the memory of the HF20 with the money I saved), but after an accident with the camera, I realized that my video was saved only because I could remove it from the camera, which wouldn't have happened if I would've had the HF20 with its embedded memory.
Its flaws are the software included. The music CD is sort of useless, although it has music for occasions, if you want to make a typical wedding video, for example.
Canon should really include some decent editors with their somewhat expensive cameras
Canon should really include some decent editors with their somewhat expensive cameras
Pros: Compact Design, excellent image quality, Easy Computer Connectivity, Accurate, Vivid Colors, easy to use, Good Low-Light Performance
Cons: very basic software sometimes useless
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
5
Great for Mac User
on June 27, 2010
Posted by: TexWoo
from Houston, Texas
The camera shoots great video and is extremely easy to use. Others have complained about poor software. I am using a Mac, I have had absolutely no trouble importing directly into iMovie from the card. The Canon software is still in the box.
Pros: Good Low-Light Performance, Easy Computer Connectivity, Great sound/audio, Accurate, Vivid Colors, Compact Design, excellent image quality, Ergonomic/comfortable to hold, easy to use
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com
Customer Rating
4
Easy to transfer videos
on September 26, 2010
Posted by: ryan
from Kelowna, BC
Had this camera for about a year, and it's got tons of features that I'm still discovering. I see lots of reviews about not being able to get the videos off the memory card. I've had no issues with this, but maybe because I use a Mac. All you do is just stick the SD card in the computer, and start up imovie (if it doesn't start by itself), and click the "Open Camera Import Window" button. This opens a window that lets you choose your card reader for the data source, then you can choose which videos to import off the card, how to save them, etc. It's pretty simple, and quick. On a PC, you can probably just use the camera import wizard (or whatever it's called). Either way, the OS software is typically the easiest way to import videos or photos onto your computer. I've never even opened the software that comes with my video camera. Same goes for my Canon EOS still camera. Why bog down your computer with extra software when the OS will do the import for you?
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting usa.canon.com