Canon VIXIA HF S200 Flash Memory Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom, 200x Digital Zoom, 3.5" Hi-Res Touch Panel Widescreen Color LCD

2011-04-14T21:00:00

I've had this camera for about 6 months now. I use it primarly to capture indoor sporting events, but also use it for vacation videos and videos of kids. I use 16GB Class 4 memory, and the recorder works fine with this speed memory, even in the highest resolution/data rate modes. I especially like the 3 second pre-record feature. It's a feature that I read about, and said "no big deal" but after using it, it's great. Picture that your 10 year old is playing in his first football game. You don't want to record the whole game, you only want the highlights. So you turn on the 3-second pre-record and fix your camera on your all star. When he/she breaks a tackle and starts heading for the end zone, you hit the record button, and whammo, you've got the whole play recorded from the very beginning. Awesome feature for videoing small children, as you never know when they're going to do something cute. The video quality is top notch. I can't speak for the canon editing software, as I use Adobe for all my video processing, but the included utility works great to transfer video directly from the camera, or from the memory card (if you're using a memory card reader) The transfer software renames the recorded videos with the Date/Timestamp in the format YYYYMMDDHHMISS. This is very nice for organizing clips in your video library, as they are all stored in chronological order. The Video display screen is the best I've seen on a camcorder. The videos are very watchable right on the camera. The speaker on the camera is terrible, but that's to be expected. The touch screen interface is very nice, and extremely responsive. It took me a few minutes to get used to the interface, but now that I'm used to it, it's very nice. I don't use the "still shot" very much, but the still picture output is reasonable, considering that you're using a video camera. Battery life could be better (it's about 1.5 - 2 hours) of actively using the camera, but I've purchased 2 non OEM extended life batteries from a popular online auction house, and they work very well (and they were only $10 each)

ERIC R.