Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon HF10 High Definition Camcorder - 12x Optical Zoom With 2.7 inch Widescreen Multi-angle Vivid LCD

I did quite a bit of research before buying this product (I actually bought a HF100 which is identical apart from the lack of built-in memory) and was very encouraged by all of the glowing reviews, all of which seemed to say that this is the best of the bunch of current consumer HD camcorders. My experience with the product has largely confirmed these verdicts. The camera is compact, a joy to handle, and produces pretty good results in almost all circumstances, except low light conditions.

The only significant downside is that the battery life with the standard battery is less than ideal. When fully charged it promises about 60mins of usage, but this is reduced by using the standby facility to more like 40mins or so of active filming. I would recommend the purchase of a second standard or extended life battery if this is going to be an issue.

Another thing to beware of is that although the sound quality from the built-in microphone is generally excellent, it is prone to overloading in a very unpleasant way in the presence of loud sounds (such as near to the stage at WOMAD, which is where I belatedly discovered this problem!). I don't know why it doesn't have some sort of limited to guard against this problem. You can alter the sensitivity of the mic, which should address the problem, but you need to be monitoring the sound with headphones at the time of recording to know that this is necessary.

Editing with iMovie on an Apple MacBook is very straightforward with no issues whatsoever like any Apple product - it just works. As one other reviewer has mentioned, you do get a warning dialog when you first start transferring to the Mac, but this is simply a standard warning for any 1080i video which gives you the option of importing at full or quarter resolution, and warns you that full resolution will use more disk space and take longer (what a surprise!).

A word on the choice between the HF10 and HF100. I would always choose the HF100 (without the built-in flash memory) as the built-in memory is much more expensive than buying a couple of 8GB SD cards (I got mine for about £16 each - make sure you get Class 6 speed). Also, SD cards can be put into a flash card reader and the transfer speed of these (assuming you get a relatively decent one) is much faster than the camera itself via USB2, which is the only way of transferring video from the built-in memory. I personally feel the flexibility of the cards is much better than the built-in memory, and I just can't envisage any reason why the built-in memory might be better.

All in all I am extremely pleased with this product and feel confident that I have chosen well for my camcorder for the next few years. The last one lasted seven years before I felt that things had moved on enough to make it worthwhile changing - I wonder what will be around in another seven years?

Bought this about a month ago to replace my old DV tape camcorder that's a few years old now. First of all the size....its small as it does not have a hard disc drive and relies on in built flash memory (16gb) that is good enough for 2hrs to capture HD quality movie or 6hrs at lesser resolution. You can capture data on a SDHC card and potentially add a further 16gb.

I am one of the few without a HD TV yet but even on a standard CRT TV the HD picture is simply amazing. There is a simple one button setup if you do not want to play with individual settings but even that is pretty easy to manipulate and use. Transfering the recorded pictures to DVD is fairly straight forward....if you like me are not into fancy editing and are initally careful about what you are recording then a 'dump' on to a DVD is easy but you will need a good spec PC to handle the data. Stills are captured at 3M pixles though I for one will rely on my Canon ixus 960iS to do that.

In summary am really pleased with my purchase..I looked at other brand comparable HD camcorders but the Canon HF10 is the best in my opinion for the price ...and flash memory is the way of the future.

Bought this HD camcorder begining of November so i can capture my son's second birthday, and the picture quality is amazing. I wasn't even watching via a mini hd, i just took the sd card and pluged it straight into my blue ray player. The sound and picture is as good as watching a hd movie. Make sure you use a class 6 sd card for ultimate results. The manual is so easy to follow and everything is where is suppose to be. The quality of this camcorder is excellent. Canon was late on the game in HD camcorders, but was worth the wait. At the moment this camcorder is the best by far.

I bought this Camcorder in a hurry after my Sony camcorder suddenly broke after only two and a half years (note to self, never buy Sony again). Having had two Canon Ixus digital cameras and found them excellent, and seeing the good reviews on Amazon, the HF10 seemed the one to go for, and so far I have not been disappointed. (At the time, the HF100 was only about £20 less, so having some extra built-in memory was worth the extra money).

Although a lot more expensive than my Sony was, it is such a big step up in quality and ease of use. With the Sony, every recording had the annoying background sound of the Mini DVD whirring away. And trying to link the Sony up to our laptop proved to be impossible. The debates over different recording and disk formats was a constant headache, and it seemed that camcorders were still stuck in the dark ages compared to still digital photography. The Canon changes all that, and although I haven't had a chance to do any major editing on the computer, it all seems to work easily and intuitively.

So if you are wondering whether it's worth the extra money to go for hard drive / flash recording rather than DVD, I would say it definitely is if you can afford it, and the Canon is dead-easy to use and produces excellent results.

This is a great camera, easy to use and transport. When I brought this camera from Amazon it was actually cheaper than the next model down (HF100)!

Only downside is the battery life- does not last very long (hence 4 stars) so would recommend purchasing a spare when out and about.