The "Official" Canon Vixia HF10 / HF100 Owner's Thread - Page 30

Posting again. One i just did is posted somewhere else. I just bought the HF100 to record blues shows as well - just haven't had time to fiddle with it. Wondering what audio settings worked best for you in club environment with or without external mic?

Dear thread posters-

I'm planning to buy the HF10 for my company with the purpose of recording a product demo (in a quiet, controlled environment), and capturing live testimonials from some of our current customers while at trade shows (noisy environment). Can anybody please recommend a setup for me to get the most bang for my buck? I work at a small company, and dont have unlimited resources.

HF10
Microphone
Headphones
Tripod
Camera bag

Mostly, I need help with the mic since I'm set on the HF10, while the headphones, tripod and bag can be somewhat generic. Can the HF10 record the inputs from an external mic AND the ambient noise from the integrated mic at the same time? I saw a wireless lapel mic made by Sima that looks pretty interesting. any info on that?

Thank you so much!!!

Mike (not mic )

I have the fotodiox 37mm hood on my HF10. Makes it look really sharp (black on black). I don't think the set screw works very well, so I am thinking of using a 37mm to 43mm step ring to tighten and clamp the hood down down onto the supplied adapter.

I just got this camcorder and I am surprised at how useful the still photo mode is. I'd like to attach a separate flash that can be separated from lens slightly and avoid the shadows caused by a lens hood or wide angle adapter. Does anyone know if the VFL-1 would be compatible with an advanced shoe adapter? Ideally, I could use the adapter and then an extender cable to change the placement of the external flash. Does such an adapter or an advanced shoe to mini advanced shoe cable/cord exit?

Will any other external flashes we compatible with this unit? I guess I could also mount some mirrors or something to divert the flash.

Well, here's the thing. I never knew much about filters, and I had no idea that with the circular polarizer, you were supposed to rotate it to achieve different results. I should've thought about it before, but I have no experience with filters. So after I accidentally discovered the way it works, I'm more than happy with it. The problem is that it's still a pain in the butt to screw it in, because of the narrow dented ring, but also because the camera threads being so narrow and even worse, plastic, something that baffles me. I think I already deformed them a little bit while trying to put in the B&W ND 0.6 filter, and I think that after several times of screwing the CP in and out it's going to get deformed, even being extremely careful. I'll probably just leave the CP on all the time. I just need to get a cap to protect it. If I use the 37 to 37 step-up ring, would that cause any effect on the picture quality, since the CP would be a few mm farther from the camera lens? Or is it exactly the same?

Actually, the term "initialize" is 40+ years old, way before Canon made their first lens....Initialized is an old IBM term for "formatting" a harddrive ;-)

It seems like a 37mm to 37mm step up ring for your filters would do the trick. Step up rings are cheap. I would keep one on your CP ready to go.

I would not recommend leaving the CP on all the time. You will find out in low light, it is just not going to work out and you have to think about whether you want to shoot everything with a polarized effect. Better to swap it out quickly and it looks like a step ring is the way to go.

I ordered hf100 from 6ave.com on may 15th. It was "In Stock. Shipping in 1-2 days". However, they never shipped it. They are saying that it is on "nationwide backorder" and will be available approx in 3 weeks from now.
Could you recommend whether I should cancel the order and order in another place? The thing is that I need it on vacation in the end of June.
TIA

Just to let you know guys ... HF100 costs 1300$ in the Czech Republic. Compared to US prices, it's pretty much... Even more, PAL version of HF100 doesn't have 60i, 30p, 24p modes. Only 50i/25p is available... Damn.

I guess I got lucky then. I ordered it late night on the 14th at 6ave.com and they shipped it on the 16th. DHL is showing me estimated delivery date of the 22nd. I'm keeping my fingers crossed since I want to take the camcorder along for the long weekend trip to yosemite.

I ordered my hf100 on the 15th as well, but I decided to go with BeachCamera instead. It arrived yesterday via FedEx. Free shipping, too.

I got my HF100 on the 16th from Electronics Expo via Amazon and am so far pretty impressed. But this is my first Digital camcorder after more than 25 years using analog camcorders from Panasonic and Sony. I record a lot of volleyball matches and tournaments and have come to rely on the date and time being recorded in the frame to help sort out the clips when editing. What I've noticed so far with the HF100 is that it doesn't record the date and time directly on the video but records it on the time track. You can display it optionally during playback on the camera but so far as I have yet been able to tell, you can't see it in the recorded video. And that creates a minor problem in editing. So far, I have used Nero Vision 5 to do my editing directly from the .MTS files - but there appears to be no way to see the date and time of the clip in the frame. Does anyone know how to get the Date and Time to be part of the video frame?

I just got the HF100. I took some video, then hooked it up to my 70" HDTV, and Wow. The picture was stunningly good. And I was only hooked up via the RCA jacks (not HD). I was incredibly stoked due to the fact that I will be down-resing to DVD for a while, until I get a blueray burner.

However, when I ran the RCA connectors into my DVD burner (I wish the camera had S-video), and burned a DVD, I lost a ton of resolution and the faces were noticibly more blurry.

Still optimistic, I loaded the included software on my PC and burned a DVD, letting the software downres the HD. Again, the quality suffered substantially. Much worse than when I was playing directly from the camera via RCA.

Now I am bummed, knowing that I have the potential for great DVD quality, but not knowing any way to burn and not kill the quality. Is buying expensive movie software the answer? Please help if you have advice.

I'm still looking for suggestions for a hot shoe microphone that will work for this camera. Doesnt it have a "micro shoe" or something like that?

Note that discussion of bags and cases is now in this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1023356

I've posted comments and photos of the Rezo 60.

Ordered mine from abesofmaine.com $649, cheapest place I could find at the time, it's now up to $659, but still a good deal, and in stock. Use the code loyalty10 for $10 off.

My first video camera and I love it. I'll also be burning to DVD for the time being until BR players and burners come down a bit more, so I hope someone can figure out the blur issue garbec is encountering. I personally haven't tried burning to DVD yet...

Now I just to find a nice collapsible steady cam rig, and possibly a microphone with a windscreen that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

[quote=hytek22;13916364]I'm still looking for suggestions for a hot shoe microphone that will work for this camera. Doesnt it have a "micro shoe" or something like that?[/QUOTE

Me too...

Hey guys, how to you get the date & time to NOT appear in the video playback?

Press "display" (Disp./Batt. info) button

AFAIK, so far only Canon offers a mic with new hot shoe.

has anyone tried one of the cheaper (<$50) wide angle converters on their HF100? I just ordered the camera and would like to try a wide lens but I have already spent a great deal of money (for me) on the camera. If the $100 plus lenses are the only ones worth buying then I will have to wait a while. Any info is appreciated.
I can't wait to get this camera
Thanks

Duh.

Thanks!

Wide angle converter

I just ordered the Canon WD-H37 wide angle from Ebay for 69.50. Its an older version of the new WD-H37C which according to one user, works very well.

Check out vimeo.com/1008987

Got a reply from Canon Tech Support - it's a feature! According to Robert of Canon Tech Support there is no way to display the date/time of a clip in the video on any of the current consumer-grade Canon Camcorders - while you can see it during playback by hitting the "Disp/Batt. Info" button inside the Viewfinder pocket it will not appear and cannot be put visually into the stored digital image. If you want to do that then you'll have to re-record the camera's playback on another device. That's an interesting "feature" since many of us are recording family historical events and having at least the date displayed in the video frame is a pretty nice capability that's been in ALL the other Camcorders I've ever used. Not a show-stopper because the camera, overall, is a great value proposition, but what a curious "feature."

I wonder whether date/time is contained in Clip Info files.

I picked up a PS3 for just this purpose and am very happy with it. The 40G is $399, and a card adapter for the USB port cost 7 bucks. I can pop my 4G SD card into the reader and view the video immediately, or I let it fill up and then burn the contents into a DVD-R using the bundled software and burner on my (3yr old) laptop. It all works beautifully together, and you get the added benefit of BD player, game machine, media center, etc.

It must be somewhere, when I hit info button [SELECT] during playback on my PS3 it brings up date/time and other metadata.

Portable Storage!!!

I wanted to let people know that I just tried backing up my SD card (8GB) full of video from my HF-100 to my Epson P-3000 portable storage device. It works perfectly. This is a great option if you want to keep the number of memory cards down.

Basically I have a hip pack for the P-3000 and two 8GB cards. When one is full I put it in the P-3000 and start the transfer and put the empty card in and keep on shooting. Works very well.

One note, there is an option in the P-3000 to hide unknow files. If this is on you will not see the files on the device, but you can see them if you go to the device in something like Windows Explorer or the Epson software that comes with the P-3000. If you turn off that setting you will be able to see the files. They will not playback, but they are backed up and verification after transfer also works.

Now what we need to do is get Epson to update the thing to handle these camcorder files. That would be killer. However, because of the type of compression I doubt such a low processor powered device could do that. But, we can dream.

Robert

Is it this way if you use ImageMixer to transfer the files? Just wondering if maybe it puts the metadata into the m2ts file it creates.

A 40GB storage priced from $360 to $515? Ten 4GB cards will cost you only $150. I don't want to keep number of memory cards down. If I lose one 4GB card I lose only 30 minutes of video. (In the last three months I lost my hat and coat, today I misplaced my car keys, hope did not lose them completely. I have stopped any attempts to find my watch I lost about two years ago).

There is a slightly more sensible device. Still, the price difference compared to ten 4GB cards is not large enough for me to consider it.

I might appreciate a portable 500GB device for $100-150. Should be able to work as an external computer drive as well.

I have the Archos 504 player, works as USB host when inserted into a dock. Same functionality as the Epson for only $200. Does not play hi-def video either.

Even cheaper but less portable is to buy a 80/100GB notebook at Dell outlet (around $380). Sure about same price as 6x16GB cards and less portable but then you can review the clips as well. Though 16/32GB will go down further.

Regarding metadata: I don't see anything and Vegas reports there are no metadata markers. However the 'Date Modified' column does hold the exact recording time. What other info does the PS3 show that's not in the general file properties?

I always thought recording the date/time into the video clip was a bad idea. You can't really remove it anymore and it can be quite annoying to see it all the time. You can always get recording date/time from date modified (even if you copy later it will be correct).