Canon VIXIA HF100 Flash Memory High Definition Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

The day after I got the camcorder, I went to a wedding. I recorded there under not good lighting condition. When I came back and play it on my Sony HD tv, I was amazed how good the video quality is. Last weekend, I recorded a political rally, it is better than my local news quality (they are not all converted to HD recording yet).

Love it.
I had an HDD right before this, but was not happy with the quality.
This camera even exceeds my expectations.

I love the SD format as you can store your video indefinately.
Great weight, great function.

The only con I can think of is there is no good way to store the video.
(other than leaving it on the card)
If you try to burn it down to a DVD it converts to normal DVD. Still good, but not HD. You have to either get a Blue-Ray burner (too expensive) or use the camera for watching back.
Not a big deal, but it seems that the storage technology has not caught up with the camera......so for now, I simply buy new SD cards.
16GB for $30 is cheap enough. (2 1/2 hrs of recording)

BOTTOM LINE: BUY IT, YOU WONT REGRET IT.

The camcorder is great. Very happy with optical stabilization, Flash memory storage, and image quality. I found that being able to quickly switch from video to stills and back was much more useful than I thought it would be. It is nice to have a series of high resolution stills to edit into a slide show with music to accompany the videos on a DVD. I am very impressed with the still images. Optical stabilization gives me sharp zoomed images that I could never get on my other camera, and with the capacity of an 8GB memory card, I can store thousands and thousands at the highest resolution.
Flash memory is the only way to go. It is so easy to transfer data to the computer. The absence of tape drive, mini-DVD, or hard drive motors really improves the sound quality. The low light video is not too good, but the low light still images are fantastic. Also, it is very difficult to tell the difference between the top 3 video recording modes, so I shoot most of my videos in the second-best mode, saving the best mode for tripod supported shots where the benefits might be apparent. That also saves battery life which is a little short, but I don't find it to be a problem. I was originally thinking of buying a second battery, but after using it every day on a two-week vacation, I don't need it.

I bought this camera for two reasons, one becase I just wanted to get rid of the old one that used tapes and was big and bulky, the second is because I was going on a trip cross country to a Wedding. The Camera is very small, and very easily fit in my pocket when I wasn't using it, which was fantastic. The quality of the camera itself and the video it records are stunning.
It is worth every penny I spent on it. The still camera setting was very usefull to, because I did not want to take both my HF100 and my Rebel, the camera on the HF100 took very good pictures.
Very pleased with this camera and will definately recommend it to people in the market.

This camera produces excellent visuals inside, no need for a flash or any other lightings, it adjust itself perfectly!