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

This camcorder purchase is my second one in about a month. The first try was a Sony HDR-UX20, which is also a HD camcorder, priced at $599.

I tried the Sony for a couple days, but was very unhappy with the performance in regular day-time living room light, i.e. noise levels. I sent it back and researched a ton on camcorderinfo and cnet to find a decent mid-grade camcorder for around that price range.

I hesistated on this camera at first because of the reviews...but I really have to say I was totally impressed with the quality of low-light performance, and it's of course great in better lit areas as well.

The "cinema" mode makes the video look great, and it adjusts shutter speed automatically to enhance low light performance. The 60i fps is good enough, but if you have a slow moving (or still) subject, you can adjust that to the 24-fps mode. In very low light, which is how I would described the living room last night, the lower shutter speed on 24-fps caused too much trailing.

Last night, I got the package, it was after 9 before I began shooting, so the living room was dark, turned on one fluorescent light, and the video light, played around with the settings and I was shooting decent video in no time. It even had a compensatory mode for shooting under fluorescent lighting. The amount of noise on the footage was about the same or better than the Sony during the middle of the day! So if you're at all hesitating because of low-light, I think this camera does a better job than others in the mid-grade price range. I also like the joystick controls, and user interface/menu system, better than Sony's. It's easier to move around the screen with the LCD size being so small, and it's intuitive.

The video quality, image stabilization, added features and amount of manual controls are wonderful for this price range. I would have a hard time justifying spending another $400 for the the HFS100, I just don't know if could be that much better. Get more detail about Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder with 15x Optical Zoom.