The "Official" Canon Vixia HF10 / HF100 Owner's Thread - Page 86

Whoa, can you explain that last sentence further? My understanding was that higher speeds (100, 250) are better for panning, action sports, etc., but there's much I don't understand about this and it's the kind of filming I typically do. Thanks!

I think the previous poster meant "at shutter speeds 1/60th and shorter", which is what happens when you use the 60i video mode with auto shutter speed. When you use the 30p video mode with auto shutter speed, the speeds are 1/30th and shorter (or may be even longer in low light conditions? There's an option "Auto slow shutter", ON by default - what does it do?).

Indeed, for fast action scenes one would want to set the shutter speed manually to as short speed as the light conditions allow, to reduce the motion blur.

Actually, it depends on the effect you want to achieve.
Faster shutter speed freezes the action, so it gives you clear freeze frames. So if you pause the video, or step through the video frame by frame, the action looks clear. This is preferable if you want to capture a frame or slow down play back speed during editing to do slow-motion.

BUT if you play the video at normal speed, faster shutter speed may make the video look stuttering and possibly worse. Motion blur makes the video look smoother and more natural at normal playing speed. Good examples are helicopter rotating blades or turning wheels of a moving car. We expect to see motion blur; and if a fast shutter speed freezes the blades or wheels, they would actually look very unnatural.

So there is no right or wrong answer, it all depends on how you want the video to look. Obviously, you need very good light to have fast shutter speed.

Interesting. What if the goal is not so much to have a clear picture in freeze frames or slow motion so much as getting the best possible video after converting to SD using a program like ImageMixer? The HD video is going to look real good either way so I'd just like to get optimal SD video as a benefit.

Another great topic here on the Owner's Thread

I don't think HD or SD make a difference. The effect should be similar in both.

I found one video which could illustrate my point. Someone shot video of a humming bird with HF100. The first 13 seconds video uses 1/2000th s fast shutter speed, showing the motion freezing effect; 14-28 seconds clip is the same as first one, but played back at 1/5 speed slow motion using editing software, the subsequent video uses normal shutter speed showing the normal motion blur you would expect:

http://vimeo.com/1061969

Two interesting and very different effects. You may find use for both settings.

Thanks.. will try. It's not a show stopper, just an inconvenience.

exactly my point, thank you... running a fast shutter speed also means that you'll be able to see the rolling shutter artifacts easier, which is not good... rolling shutter is a nightmare on these cmos cameras:
http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/

i shot this footage in 60i, at 1/60th of a second shutter priority mode, deinterlaced it to 720p for youtube, look at the fast pans and the slow pans:
Drag Racing Video Pro Street SCSN shot with canon vixia hf11

I tried follow the procedure using Adobe Encore CS4, but structure doesn't match 100% with what is on the SD card (recorded on the cam).

Files from Adobe Premiere has extensions that are 4 characters long, e.g. 00000.clip instead of 00000.CLP and streams have extensions .M2TS not .MTS.

Tried to rename and copy files, but it doesn't work on the player to play them.

I also use an editor an the header of the files seems a little different. Anyone manage to use Adobe CS4 Master Collection to generate AVCHD streams that can be exported to a SD card and played on the HF10/HF100 cam?

please help , cannot get the video card to transfer video, if a take videos and some still pictures and then put the SDHC card in the card reader it only sees the still pictures and not the video , however the vixia sees the video on the card , ive tried 4 or 5 different card readers including a mac ,
i took a brand new optima SDHC 8GB card and followed all the instructions in the owners manual to no avail

Err, dumb question. Which unit do you have, the 10 or the 100?

If you have the 10, then video could still be on the internal memory?

Seggers

After a considerable amount of trial and error, I was finally able to resolve this issue and write AVCHD files to a DVD-R disc that was readable by my Samsung BD-P2500 Blu-Ray player. No matter what I tried with Ulead Video Studio, I couldn't get a HD AVCHD disc written that my player could playback. So I thought I would try making an AVCHD disc with unedited video using the Pixela software that came with the camera. That worked. So I knew the player could, in fact, playback AVCHD files. So then I tried using Ulead Video Studio to output edited video into an AVCHD file that I could import into Pixela, and write the AVCHD file onto a DVD-R with Pixela. That worked also. So now I can finally write edited 1080p video onto a DVD-R and playback on my Blu-Ray player. I'm not saying there isn't anyway to do this directly with Ulead Video Studio. But if there is, I didn't find it.

One of the downsides to the HF10/100 is that it can be tedious to switch between different modes. For example, my current "default" shooting mode is 60i, P mode, and "custom" image effect with contrast -1. But for low light I prefer 30p, cinema mode, and image effect off. I really wish the camera had some user configurable presets that would allow me to store and then quickly select different groups of settings. Unfortunately Cannon didn't give us that capability. I realized however that Easy mode can be used to quickly switch between the camera defaults and one other group of settings. For example, I could set the camera to my preferred low-light settings, use Easy mode for normal conditions, and turn off Easy when I want my low light settings. Obviously this only works if you are happy shooting with the camera defaults when using Easy.

Another option I'm considering is to just use 60i cinema mode as my default, and use the custom image effect to increase sharpness, color, and contrast to counteract the somewhat dull look of cinema mode. I may give that a try, and if I'm happy with it, then I won't need to switch modes as often.

Any other thoughts on this?

I agree with you. Another thing I'd like to see if Canon are reading this:
If the zoom is not at zero, the zoom indicator should always be displayed. It's too easy to accidentally touch the zoom lever and not be aware of it.

This might be a dumb question but I'll giver shot anyway:

When zoomed in to the maximum on some fine detail, such as the texture of some carpet that is about 2 feet away, should the camcorder not be able to focus properly? Mine just sort of pulsates like it is trying to focus but never really does. I'm assuming this is just out of it's focus range but I just want to make sure that is the case.

with a passive autofocus system (which I'm not sure if this camera uses that or an active one, but since you say exhibits the above behavior, I would only assume passive) the camera needs to see something of contrast difference in order to compare the pixels to determine if it's focused or not

The processor searches for the maximum intensity difference between adjacent pixels which of course would happen along the edge of two objects. In your example, carpet, there is no edge and everything is the same intensity no matter how you focus it, i.e. all the pixels change together therefore rendering the camera unable to choose where the maximum intensity difference between adjacent pixels exists.

To fix the issue either use manual zoom or put some item on the carpet (your foot, a piece of paper, etc.) for your camera to use as a comparison for focusing.

This happens with the manual focus as well when zooming in on some fine detail of a close object. It would appear as if it is out of the camcorders focus range. I was just curious if that is normal or not?

Depends. Is is 70's era shag carpet with the ventilation fan running?

2 feet away? I don't think that is within it's focus range, is it?

edit:
Minimum Focusing Distance
10 mm (wide)/1m (tele)

Bought an HF100, 16gb card and extra capacity battery today from Amazon (shipped from Amazon, not 3rd. party). $529 for the camera which I thought was a good deal. I have an old version of Pinnacle (v.9) which I can upgrade to v.12 for $80 which I think I will do. I'm also going to purchase the Adobe design premium suite (student discount) to run on my MAC. Looking forward to shooting Christmas in HD.

any suggestion for HF10 tripod?

'Cause it's Christmas, I won't have too much fun at your expense.

Maybe you could give us a clue as to what you actually plan to do with the unit, how level the ground might be, how tall you are, how much money you have to spend etc etc etc

I have a 3 legged, 3 section, 52 incher for mine. I've had this for quite some time and have used it for my old Sony's. It usually see's the light of day on the 25th.

Seggers

I wish. This is just plain crappy townhome carpet.

My HF100 came today with a 16gb Transcend class 6 card and card reader. Very happy so far but I have not had much time to play with it. I was browsing through the manual and didn't see anything about recording in slomo Does the HF100 have this finction?

Hi Seggers,,thanks for ur reply., actually I am new for this camcorder stuff, I just bought a HF10 and I learnt that I should have a tripod for having good shot, I'm planning to use it for making some family videos and parties only so It's not like thinking of making some kind of wildlife video yet this time,,
And I really concern about getting good tripod since it's said in the manual that I better have suitable one for HF10 ( the one that has less than 0.2" for its fastening screw) orelse it'll damage the camcorder.
For ur information I have $300 budget for the trpod, and a friend suggested me to get 701 HDV for the head coz it's suit for light camcorder such HF10, what do you think?

You need a tripod but also get a beanbag.
I find I use that much more often than the tripod. You can balance it on a railing or the car dash and it's easier to carry around.
Mine is a 20cmx20 suede bag with a zip, filled with 1kg of split peas.
(You can do the conversion to inches and pounds yourself.)
Cost: Some kind words to a curtaining lady with a sewing machine and some leftover material.

I bought a "Pedco Ultrapod II" a couple of years ago to take on a vacation. It folds up very small and fits right in my camcorder bag. It's a great little mini tripod, but it has a velcro strap that allows you to fasten it quickly to a tree, railing, chair, sign post, or whatever. I've been very happy with the flexibility and rarely take my full size tripod on vacations anymore.

http://www.amazon.com/Pedco-UltraPod.../dp/B000ANCPNM

A few months ago I also bought an Opteka MP100 monopod. I wasn't sure how useful it would be, but we took it on a recent trip to the mountain and I found it very handy for hiking and moving around in general. I could stop and take a shot quickly, then move on without having to breakdown and setup again later. And it collapses quickly to stick in the car when we're on the go. I highly recommend this too if you do scenic shots or work in areas that would be difficult to set up a tripod. I was also surprised how well the monopod helped stabilize moving shots like walking, though I need to play around with shutter speeds to see if I can reduce motion blurring.

http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-MP100-P.../dp/B0002RBQO0

Take care,

Anthony

Just started using this camera this week (HF10), after a couple of days of dissatisfaction with the audio clipping (and no gain control!) on an FS100. To say the least, this is a significantly better unit. It's the best video device I've ever owned, and what I've done with it so far has NOT done it justice.

Currently editing in the Vegas Studio 9b demo. Undecided whether to go with that, or the FCE path on my macbook pro. This Vista machine has a quad core, which seems to be a *good thing* with AVCHD, so I'll probably stay on Win for it despite preferring to use the Mac UI.

Been scanning this threads many pages for several days and have found a lot of answers to my questions. Just dropping in to say hi really. I just sent up a (kind of crap) video to Vimeo which I discovered as a result of this thread. Very impressive stuff up there done on the HF10/100. Very impressive indeed. I've got a long way to go. I'm an electronic musician/audio guy of 15+ years, but videography is something I have never delved into deeply - mainly because the quality of the video I could make was so relatively poor. I don't think I have that excuse anymore, so now any poor video is all my fault.

I got my HF100 yesterday but have not had a great deal of time to play with it yet. I noticed that when I record and stop and then record something later it shows up on the card in my BD55 as one movie. Do I need to create a play list or is there something else I need to do so each time I start and stop it is separate?

Are you hitting pause or stop? On my 100, if I hit stop, then I get a separate clip each time.

Seggers

hi all,
I consider buying wd hd tv player.
did anyone try to play your video's (1920 x 1080 25 fps) from canon hf100 on this player?