Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon FS100 Digital Camcorder (45 x Advanced Zoom With 2.7" Widescreen Colour LCD)

I received my FS100 a couple of weeks ago and am more than happy. So small and easy to carry around this camera is ideal for holidays and trips out. Picture quality is very good outside but falls short of what I expected indoors. This camera struggles in low light condition leaving the picture dark and grainy. However! if your looking at filming a lot outdoors then this in the baby. I use a 8gb sd card which gives me lots of record time on XP quality and the battery life is great. Zoom is also great but if you have shaky hands then I would recommend a tripod if your looking at using it to its max.

This is my 1st Camcorder n i think in this recessionary economy this is the best that one could ask for i.e. the most stylish look, great features like wireless, expandable memory so that means you can go upto 32GB which is equal to the capacity that HDD cameras have and a very good price. So for all those looking with a moderate budget and who are not too fussed about HD should go for this. On the technical front, yes the video does look a bit grainy even in bright light but remember its just 1MP with 1CCD and thats good enough for home/family type usage.Stills are decent too and best is the remote and the lovely colors. Its surely better than going for a basic HDD like SR35E.

After using for 2 months on various family holidays etc I have now had time to download the result to my pc. The results are generally very good, albeit a bit grainy in low light. The problem I have with this camera is the very low resolution of still photographs. In fact don't bother they are rubbish. As such it meant I had to carry 2 cameras around. There lies the problem. My canon G8 takes excellent still photographs at 10 megapixels. and two video resolutions are included. The results of which are excellent but not widescreen. So my advice is buy the new canon G9 which is a far better still camera (chalk & cheese) but has widescreen video as well. All for around £300.
My other problem with the f100 is the lack of a decent software suite. In fact virtually nothing but a photo organiser and the download driver for your pc.
On a positive note the 45x optical zoom is excellent.

I purchased the Canon FS100 and am very impressed with it. Here are the features that are the most impressive.

1. External Microphone Jack- There is a jack where you can connect an external microphone, because most of the time the built in microphone (Despite being a solid stereo mic) just don't cut it, even on really expensive cameras. Have you ever filmed someone from far away but been dissapointed you can't really hear them? Or recorded in a noisy room and you only pick up what you don't want to hear? Well with a decent external microphone these problems will be a thing of the past. You could even buy a wireless microphone and using a supplied reciever box that will clip onto your hot shoe, record people up to a hundred feet away. Or if you buy a Directional mic, you can point it in the direction that you want to get audio from, so you will only pcik up the noise you DO want to hear!

2. Picture Quality- Compared to my old Sony this picture quality blows it out of the water. It is clear, sharp and almost looks like high definiton at times! Occasionaly it can get a bit grainy in low light but when you edit your clips on a computer they don't really show up as much, and with appropriate lighting you can fix it. Even the most basic video editing programmes will have some kind of feature to clear up video.

3. SD Recording- The Canon FS100 records onto a memory card instead of tape. So fumbling around trying to find a DV Tape and the limitations off it are another thing of the past. I bought a Trancsend 8GB Memory card which does great

4. Editing- Editing your footage is easier than ever. You can ever simply connect the camera to the computer via a USB Cable or just take out the memory card and slot it into the memory card slot in your laptop or desktop.

It's a great camera, buy it and you won't regret it!

I bought this camcorder because of the Canon's reputation for poor light performance, but I am disappointed, too grainy and lots of noice at low lit situations. Avoid this if you want to do filming indoors.

good points are ,
very good quality at ideal lighting conditions
Zoom is very good( I can't find much quality difference at say 1X and at 45X).