Buy Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 15x Optical Zoom

This camera has a lot going for it. It's really small and easily fits in a jacket pocket. It has an incredible number of controls and adjustments if you're the type that wants to tinker with the settings. While it has shutter priority and aperture priority modes, unfortunately there's no full manual mode. This isn't so bad for an inexpensive consumer camcorder. I was worried for a minute that this camera didn't have any form of manual focus. It is there in the menus, but it would be much better if it had a dedicated dial.

For the folks looking for info on the different frame rate modes and not finding much information, I have good news. I was able to get true 24 frame footage from this camera. It's confusing as the specs say 24 frames recorded at 60i. The footage I recorded in 24p mode imported into iMovie at 29.97. But I was able to take that footage into After Effects and when I told it to guess the 3:2 pulldown pattern, it successfully interpreted the footage at 23.976 fps (essentially 24) and there were no interlace issues, just 24 whole frames a second. I'm assuming other software can handle this conversion too, maybe even iMovie?

The image quality is really fantastic, especially for footage shot outdoors. I would be thrilled with this camera if it weren't for one issue. Areas with fine detail (like trees and greenery) tend to strobe or pulse, especially in a wide shot. It usually looks fine when I zoom in closer. It can be very distracting. It shows up on all 3 frame rate modes. It seems a little less pronounced with the low sharpening mode turned on, but of course this makes the image clarity softer. In some shots it's not apparent at all, but in others it practically ruins the shot for my taste. (I'm very picky!) It's not too bad when the camcorder is on a tripod, but handheld shots tend to have this strobing problem. Is anyone else noticing this issue and have you found a solution? I might just be expecting too much.

Also, people like to complain about the low light ability of this camera, but I find it perfectly acceptable. Yeah, it's not amazing, but for the price of this camera, I think it's pretty good.Get more detail about Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 15x Optical Zoom.