Canon HF-R100 Flash Camcorder Review

I received the HFR100 as an early birthday gift and at first it seemed alright. But then i really started testing it,and came up with an overall conclusion to the camera. It's not all it's cracked out to be, and could be better for the price.

Reasons:

The 60i Frame rate is pointless. If you're going to shoot shoot with this camera shoot in 24p or 30p. At highest quality it's not too bad... If you're in bright light scenarios. Once you get regular light (i.e. a typically lit indoor room, or a room with natural light coming in) and low light, it gets really grainy. I also realized that you don't get 1080 unless u use the FXP 12mbps mode. Otherwise it's slightly less resolution and not true 1080.

But the biggest kicker that made me really dislike this camera was the noise that comes from the camera and manages to seep into your video. Unless you're shooting a loud scene, you will notice an audible, fast, repeating "Clacking" sound seep into your video. This was the killer for me. I plan on using my next camera for some semi-professional projects. The part that I don't get is why it makes this kind of noise from a Flash Based camera!?

Additionally i don't like that you can't put on additional lenses, the auto focus is pretty slow to react. Image stabilization is useless even slightly zoomed in (Dynamic Image Stabilization helps a little but not much). No place for a light attachment. The microphone input is nice, but if you're using a wireless mic, the camera person is going to have to hold in his hand or pocket the receiver.

I didn't try the editing software that came with the Camera and used Final Cut Pro instead. It worked fine with that using the "Log and Transfer" option. FCP works with the files just fine. The drawback to the file format that this file uses is that it needs to be converted for a mac to read it by default. Didn't try any other programs to view the video so i can't comment on which programs will work on the Mac.

Bottom Line: If you are just shooting to shoot family vacations or something that may not be seen by a bunch of people? This isn't that bad of a camera for that. However if you care about the quality and the ability to do more than just point and shoot, skip this and spring for a higher model like the HF-M30.