by ahmik72 » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:24 pm
Canon VIXIA HF R10 Full HD Camcorder w/8GB Flash Memory
United States: http://amzn.to/ifydp0
Review: The Canon Vixia HFR10 Camcorder is a wonderful camcorder. Please don't let other people mislead you. Before buying this camera, I have had a long list of video cameras since they first came on the market, including VHS, 8mm, Super 8, mini-DVD (Canon Elura 90) and several other Canon and Sony. This one is by far the best. I have had several photo exhibitions shown here in Atlanta, including one on China and another on the Mediterranean. I had a color full page photostory published with mug shot on the back page of the Detroit Free Press which printed 760,000 copies. I have won first place in photo contests in open competition.
I think that many of these other reviewers made amateur mistakes when using this camera. Their expectations are too high without using proper techniques. First, they didn't mention if they used a tripod or a monopod. I never shoot without using one or the other. Also, I always use a high quality external microphone which I mount on a bracket I got from EBay. Because of face recognition, this beats the other cameras hands down. Although this camera doesn't have lens threads so that filters and attachments can be added, I measured the front end of the lens and found that a 34-37 step-up ring could be added using superglue (Loctite No-Mess Adhesive). After doing that, I was able to attach a wide-angle lens. But one warning. If you do this, you will get fantastic shots that look fine on a big screen or on the camera's LCD screen, but alas, when you put the same video on YouTube, you can actually see the sides of the wide-angle lens so I had to take it off but works fine if you don't transfer the images to YouTube with its greater capture ability.
The county where I live (Gwinnett County Georgia) won the Golden Award for having the best park system in the United States in 2008 beating out Las Vegas and Fort Worth, Texas. I thought, gee, this would be a great project to film all the walking and hiking trails in these parks - a monster project since there are 37 parks in the county but I now have about 20 on You-Tube which were all shot with this camcorder. If you would like to see how great this camera works in the field go to YouTube and in the Search Box enter these five words:
Gwinnett County Parks by Frank and all of my videos will appear. Hope you enjoy the walks with me and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
It amazes me how many people expect crisp and perfect shots when they don't even bother to use a tripod, monopod or even a chest pod when using their camcorders.
Hope this review has been helpful to you? I should add that I found the software supplied with this camera to be superb when uploading to YouTube. I have CyberLink's Ultra Power Director 8 but haven't needed to use it since the Canon software that came with the camera (Image Mixer 3) does just about everything I would want in an easy to use friendly fashion. I have found their Customer Service to be very responsive if I have any questions.