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This camcorder has been Factory-Refurbished to perform as new and comes with Canon 60-Day Warranty. The FS100 is one of Canon's first Flash Memory camcorders. In addition to the advantage of added recording time, Flash Memory offers quick response time, because it doesn't have to wait for moving parts. The FS100's lower power consumption rate allows your battery to last longer. Measuring only 2.3" wide, 2.4" high and 4.9" deep, it combines huge video storage capacity in a small, simple to carry body. The 2.7" Widescreen LCD on the FS100 lets you see more of what your camcorder is recording. With the FS100 you get a powerful 1.07 Megapixel CCD image sensor. The video you shoot will be sharp, clear and more right to life, as will your still photos. The Genuine Canon 48x Advanced Zoom on the FS100 extends the power of your zoom. In both wide angle and telephoto positions, there is virtually no loss in image quality throughout the range. The Canon DIGIC DV II Image Processor is the next generation of Canon's exclusive DIGIC DV signal processing technology to ensure optimal image quality for still images, even though video and still images have different color requirements. Focal Length - f=2.6-96.2mm Minimum Focusing Distance - 10mm (wide)/1m (tele) White Balance - Daylight, Tungsten, Auto, and Manual Programmed AE - Auto, Program, TV, Portrait, Sports, Night, Snow, Beach, Sunset, Spotlight, and Fireworks 2-channel Dolby Digital Audio (AC-3) 3.5mm Stereo Mini-jack Microphone Terminal Dimensions - Width 2.3 x Height 2.4 x Depth 4.9 (58x60x124mm) Weight - 9.2 ounces (260 grams)
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 The best camcorder buy to date |
| Review Date: July 19, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Nameless Faceless User, Holbrook, NY USA |
I've been looking to update my ancient Sony Digital8 camcorder and have been looking primarily at Mini-DV. But, this flash camcorder caught my eye since the price of SD cards has become amazingly inexpensive. To transfer video from a DV recorder takes a lot of patience, gigabytes of storage, and hours of work. By contrast, a 4gig SDHC card in this camera can store an hour and 20 minutes at 6 mb/s. The camera will do 9 mb/s, but I don't recommend it if your final format is DVD since some players will have problems keeping up.
My suggestion is to ignore most of the instructions which Canon provides and keep the software CD's in the box. There's a cute warning attached to the USB cable which warns NOT to connect it without first installing the drivers. I connected it to my MAC running OS-X 10.4 and a warning came on the screen to plug in the AC adapter. Once I did that the camera came right up as a disk drive. The manual warns not to access the folders directly. I did that, too and simply copied them to the local hard drive (more on that in a minute). Then, the camera warned NOT to change modes, or disconnect the USB cable, or disconnect the power. Ok... then, after I dismount the USB drive, how do I unplug the camera :) The manual gives a clue to disconnect the USB first, then power off.
By the way, it's just much, much less hassle to buy an SDHC/MMC card reader and copy the folders off.
If you wish to mess with iMovie and other specialized software, then I suppose you'll have to keep your file structure proper and follow the manual more closely. I use Final Cut on the Mac, not iMovie, so my first concern was, What is a MOD file and an MOI file? That is what you're left with after you copy your card. The small answer is, toss the MOI files - assuming you are not using the on-camera editing features. I just record and dump to the hard drive and edit with Final Cut.
A MOD file (not to be confused with the music format file) is just an mpeg2 file with audio included. This will confuse some Windows programs which expect the audio in a separate file, so use Media Player Classic. Quicktime on the Mac had no problem playing the file, although you may need to download the MPEG-2 Playback Component. Finally, the aspect ratio setting in a MOD file may not be right for WideScreen format. You may need Mpeg tools to right the header if you shoot WideScreen.
Next, Mpeg2 is not an "editable" format like DV. It's about 1/5 the size on my system and a single 4gig card backs up nicely onto a single layer DVD-R. You'll need to do something with the MOD files. My program of choice on the Mac is Visual Hub which is quite reasonably priced shareware. I simply dragged my Canon MOD files to it, selected "DV" and "Ready for Final Cut" and "Start." I was left with DV files ready to edit, although 5x larger. There's even a setting to force 16:9 aspect ratio. The catch is that you'll need to re-encode back to Mpeg2 if you're burning for DVD.
The nice thing is there aren't any tapes to get dirty and wear out. Flash cards may be used hundreds or thousands of times, unlike DV tapes which are used once or twice. The size of files are very small and easily archived, over an hour of video on a single DVD-R of raw footage. But, re-encoding to DV and back to Mpeg2 will sacrifice some quality. I reckon it's a excellent trade-off to using a DV recorder since you can do in minutes what it would usually take hours or days.
As for the features of the camcorder, it has an external mic jack. Thank-you Canon. Finally, someone is listening. If you've ever had to record a conversation in a noisy room you will appreciate the ability to use a directional mic. No headphones, but it has an audio meter level show. White balance! Numerous white balance settings as well as manual. Auto and manual shutter speed, exposure, focus, and audio gain at your finger tips. And, an "Simple Mode" for full automatic for those who despise buttons or just need to grab a quick action shot - press "on", press "simple", press "record" and you're recording in seconds. No moving parts except for the lens cap, which is automatic and built-in. No more lost lens cap or one which is smacking into the microphone in the wind while you're recording. And, size - I can hide the camera in the palm of my hand. It's tiny, lightweight, and simple to shoot without getting tired.
As for the not so hot stuff, the recording light is an LED. My ancient Sony Digital 8 camcorder used a tiny light bulb which appeared as natural light. The LED light is certainly better on the battery but makes everything blue-ish. Battery is internal, nice design but you're stuck with whatever capacity will fit into that size battery bay. Batteries and charging accessories cost a fortune, although SDHC cards are cheap. The built-in microphone will need some acoustic foam glued over it or check around for a strap-on wind sock. No viewfinder, not that I use one very much - you will need to shoot with the LCD open.
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FS 100 is a bang for the buck camcorder
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| Review Date: June 26, 2008 |
| Reviewer: kirry400mm, |
I bought this from amazon recently. It's simply as excellent as the other folks have said it is.
Battery life :awesome, above 2 hours of charge (have not charged it again in a week). Taken 1 hr or so of XP, SP quality videos. Windows vista simply rocks....plug the SD card in my HP entertainment PC and it takes care of everything. No file modification/renaming etc required.
Size/Ergonomics: Perfect, just like holding a 200ml can of red bull. sideways,that's all :)
Very easy1 handed operation, I am not worried about arthritis since the thing is soooo light even with the batery included. just handhold one of them sony dvd camcorders and you shall appreciate the small footprint of this thing.
NOW, the ONLY reason I am giving a review here is cos of reading the other folks consistently talk about the "night" "indoor" quality of the camcorder. Ok, I do agree to a certain extent that the indoors/lowlight videos are grainy. But I question you folks, in what MODE ? P, Night,Sunset ? I am prettysure that that would be your answer.
Being an avid photographer, I never use any of the preset "Scene" modes ever even on my slr or this camcorder. So,my solution to *reduce* the grainy quality for you would be to try the "Shutter priority mode" , Tv, turn the shutter down to 1/30, 1/15(indoors), or even 1/8(handholding will be tough at the slowest shutter speed). BUT, if you use this mode and increase the exposure to say +2 or 3 , I am very certain that your low light videos will turn out pretty pretty usable and less grainy. Please try it out guys and let me know.
Anyway, I just wanted to rescue the camcorder from the night video quality complaints.
What else....it's a bang for the buck camcorder. Amazon is awesome. They have refunded me all the price differences within 30 days of shipping. I have saved $15 already. Buy it folks, this should be a fantastic camcorder. I am a hardcore canon user (cameras, camcorder). Battery life of canons is one huge draw for me. Let me know how the "Tv" mode works out for you guys.
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This is a fantastic flash camcorder that works with Ubuntu Hardy Heron!
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| Review Date: August 26, 2008 |
| Reviewer: kah00na, Tecumseh, KS USA |
This camcorder has been fantastic! I was debating between this one and the Panasonic SDR-S7 and Samsung MX10. Those camcorders had around 680k pixels whereas this one comes in around 710k pixels. What does that mean? Better videos. The 48x advance zoom is awesome and if you want only the optical at 37x, that is fantastic too. You can't tell the 48x is doing some digital tricks. The quality looks just as excellent as just optical. The other camcorders can be found online for around $200 but with this one coming in at just over $300, you will be far more pleased with this one.
When I was looking for this, I wanted to get a camcorder who's file format would play on Ubuntu without any conversion and also plays on Windows Media Center Vista. This camera does both! To copy the videos, I remove the flash card from my camera and insert it into the flash reader on my laptop. The only "conversion" I have to do to get the videos to play is to change the ".MOD" ending to ".MPG". This also makes the videos play fine on my WMC box. I then copy them to my WMC box over the network.
I use to have a Sony Digital 8 camcorder that I connected to my computer via a firewire cable. The videos the FS100 takes are just barely better than those. But, to get the videos on my computer is way quicker copying them from a flash drive. I never want to use my Digital 8 camcorder again. The videos I have taken with this easily upload to YouTube. My FS100 videos show up there with the "watch in high quality" option below them. They really look excellent on YouTube when you click that link... better than most other videos out there. The quality of videos is phenomenal outside at sporting events and is just okay inside with low light conditions.
The videos I have so far record around 0.7 to 1.0 MB per second. That is why the 4 gig card gives will give you around 120 minutes of recording time. I have a "class 4" card and I haven't had any problems with it not being quick enough. I'd recommend at least a 4 gig card. If you can afford an 8 or 16 gig card, it would just give you more recording time before you have to copy them to your computer.
When the files are copied directly off the card on to my Ubuntu desktop, they play in Movie Player in wide screen format like they are suppose to. But, after I copy them to my Windows Media Center PC, they play in 4:3 mode. I have to adjust the "Zoom" setting to "3", I reckon, and they look normal. This isn't much of a downfall. I've heard there is a "sdcopy.exe" file that will copy the files and right the header information for WMC so they will play in widescreen format by default.
I finished up going with the gray version because companies now seem to be charging more for the colored ones. It doesn't matter much because other than the color, they are all the same.
The FS100 really is about the size of a can of soda, except with a large screen sticking out of it. Some people criticize the lack of a view finder but why would you want anything like this attached to your face.
It starts up from a cold start in about 6 seconds. If you close the screen it goes into a low power mode which conserves the battery life.
The menu options on this are pretty simple and the "simple" button makes things, well.. simple.
If you are thinking about getting one of these... do it. The only type of camcorder that could make a better picture would be an HD one.
PROS:
Fantastic Quality Videos - 710k pixels!
MPEG 4 video format and AAC audio
Videos Compatible with Ubuntu Hardy Heron with extension change
Videos Compatible with Windows Media Center with extension change
37x Optical, 48x Advance Zoom (check YouTube for examples)
Simple Menu
CONS:
Picture quality is kind of low... keep your digital camera for those. |
Fantastic camcorder (Linux user here)
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| Review Date: June 1, 2008 |
| Reviewer: T. Kienle, Fredericksburg, VA |
I wanted to write a small review of this camcorder without repeating a lot of the stuff from other reviews. First, let me say the quality is fantastic for a standard definition camcorder. The key is always to have decent lighting.
Pros: fantastic form factor (about the size of a can of soda), light, built-in automatic lens cover, fantastic video quality.
Cons: some functions are buried under odd key sequences & aren't intuitive...you'll need to keep the manual handy for advanced features until you have them all memorized.
Now, on to the file format issue. I'm a Linux user, so using the included software wasn't an option. I knew this before I bought, & went ahead based on the information in other reviews. My gamble paid off, & I wanted to pass this info along to everyone concerned about the .mod file format (especially Linux users). As others have said, its mpeg 2 w/ some configuration info for the included software. I have a Dell laptop running Kubuntu Hardy, & when I connect via USB to the Canon, it mounts it as an external drive (just like any other SD card reader). I then took the .mod files, copied them to my computer, & renamed them to .mpg. They played perfectly. Note: I record in 4:3 because not everyone we send videos to can view widescreen, & we have a Panasonic plasma which does an incredible job turning 4:3 into 16:9 with its "justify" mode.
In summary, I would highly recommend this camcorder! |
All you could expect...
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| Review Date: May 9, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Floyd Goodrich, Alta Loma, CA USA |
| I have had the mini DV tape, and mini DVD camcorders and I like this SD card camcorder much better. Gone are the hassles of tape sticking and skipping, DVD finalizing and being limited to 30 minutes of recording plus the expense of tapes and mini DVD's. This FS100 has a zoom to kill for. The video it takes is as sharp as any I've seen on a camcorder. It's small and simple to carry around and starts up instantly. The Joystick control on the outside edge of the viewing screen is very simple to get used to for accessing various menu items. Yes, the included video editing program sucks, but don't all camcorders come with bare bones editing? I own editing programs as do most experienced camcorder users for decent editing. I find I must edit what I've shot using the included editing program or the video is distorted, everybody looks tall and thin on the raw video. The included video editing program corrects this distortion without loss of any detail. You will need a tripod or mono pod when using the huge zoom that it has. The picture taking feature on the camera is just so-so. Not of excellent printing quality but OK for e-mailing, but do you honestly buy a camcorder to take pictures? Get a Canon SD1000 for that. In conclusion, shoot the video, plug in the charger, plug in the USB cable from the camera to your computer, after the computer opens the software, transfer the video then edit and save it under a new file name, its really that simple. All in all I'm very pleased with my Canon FS100 and I wholeheartedly recommend this fantastic camcorder. |
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December 1st, 2009 | 
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