Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer

I bought an HG10 after seeing so many good reviews on this camcorder. However, I was disappointed by the video quality. The video of my almost two-year old Sony SR5 hard drive HD camcorder is so much better than the HG10 -much higher resolution and better color. I than bought a Sony SR11 and compared the SR11 with the HG10 head to head. The SR11 also produced much better video than the HG10 in all lighting conditions -indoor, outdoor, good and low light conditions. I have to say the HG performs pretty well at low light but the resolution and color is still not as good as the Sonys (SR5 and SR11). I also found that the 24P was not useful. HG10 also has some other features that the Sony's don't have, for example, a wide range of manual shutter speed. Although a wide range manual shutter speed is very important for a still picture camera, I don't think it is useful for a camcorder unless you are a "pro". I found the standard shutter speed (1/60 second) is appropriate for all of my need for family video.
Many of the reviews claimed that HG's video quality is excellent. I am not sure how many of those reviewers had compared the HG10 head to head with some other HD camcorders. I returned the HG10 and kept the SR11 and I have taken tons of videos with the SR11. I am happy with the amazingly good videos taken by the SR11.

As your average camcorder user, I've found this very easy to use right out of the box. While there are plenty of options to enhance your shots, this does a great job in a very basic shooting mode.

With multiple formats for shooting, the storage is excellent for most 3-7 day vacations. The first time I used this was on a 4 day trip to Walt Disney World, where I go frequently. My first shots were from the monorail, while moving. Stabilization was not perfect, but came out nice once I steadied myself.

Half of my shots were with low light, either at the fireworks shows in the Magic Kingdom & Epcot, or on rides. Almost all of them came out perfect, with the exception of a couple that were out of focus. I found that if low-light focusing was a problem, manually zooming in & out would quickly correct the situation. I was able to zoom in on a full screen shot of Tinkerbell, launching off the castle at the start of the fireworks, with amazing clarity.

While the movie software it comes with takes some understanding, it does work well. It allows you to convert all movies to Mpegs manually, or will do it automatically when creating a DVD. It works fastest when burning straight to AVCHD DVD, and can take a very long time if converting first.

The clarity of the pictures on SP format (2nd only to XP) was true HD quality, and used less space than I thought after 4 days. On SP, over an hour of footage only used about 10% of the storage. When hooked up straight to my TV, or viewing from the AVCHD DVD created, footage came out like I was still there. The next time I go, I will be using the XP format, now that I know I have plenty of storage space.

All in all, was an excellent choice, well worth the money for such fantastic footage.

We bought this to replace our outdated MiniDv camcorder and have been very pleased so far. The quality of the video and sound are great! We connect it to our HDTV and it looks and sounds great! It is very light in weight and easy to use if you're familiar with camcorders. I haven't done much with it yet, other than record video. I'm in the process of putting some videos on DVD with this camera. Overall, I'm happy to have this camcorder.

Canon HG10 AVCHD High Definition Camcorder with Optical Image Stabilizer
This light and easy to carry camcorder is amazing, and the price was unbeatable! The images are sharp and clean, and it's very easy to use, with very little help from the directions (which I keep handy in case I get stuck, because I'm constantly finding new things it will do - things I wouldn't miss if Canon hadn't thought of them, but which I'm really happy to discover. Truthfully, I'll probably never use all the features, because I'm an amateur, but it's nice to know they are there and that you don't have to learn all the technicalities of advanced use in order to get good service from this great camera. I love being able to store tons of stuff right on the hard drive so that I'm not pressured to process the videos to make room for more. That fits in with my busy, crazy life! The battery life is very satisfactory as well. I'm sure this video camera will give me years of great service!

In the past I have been quite loyal to Sony products. I bought this after reading great reviews about how this is superior to Sony. Additionally, I gave in to the lower price. However, although I think this camcorder is worth the price I paid, I do not agree with others that it is the greatest camcorder ever. The auto mode over corrects in back lighting situations and the color cannot compete with the vibrant color of Sony. In some situations it doesn't even feel like HD.