Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder w/15x Optical Zoom – 2009 MODEL
June 23rd, 2010 | 
Author: Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder w/15x Optical Zoom - 2009 MODEL
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 List Price: $749.99 Sale Price: $649.99 Availability: unspecified 
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Product Description
No description available.
Details
- Record crisp HD video directly to a removable SDHC memory card
- Genuine Canon 15x HD video lens; SuperRange Optical Image Stabilizer
- 1920 x 1080 Full HD recording; 24p Cinema Mode, 30p Progressive Mode
- Dual Shot for capturing both video and photos with ease
- HDMI terminal for simple, one-cable connectivity to your HDTV
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Tags: camcorder, canon, hf200, avchd, windows live movie maker wave 4 mts, hd camcorder8 Responses to “Canon VIXIA HF200 HD Flash Memory Camcorder w/15x Optical Zoom – 2009 MODEL”
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Rating
This camcorder buy 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 miserable 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 really impressed with the quality of low-light performance, and it’s of course fantastic in better lit areas as well.
The “cinema” mode makes the video look fantastic, and it adjusts shutter speed automatically to enhance low light performance. The 60i fps is excellent 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 started 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 reckon 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 simpler to go 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.
Rating
After reading many of the earlier reviews I took the plunge and bought the Canon VIXIA HF200 flash memory camcorder. I upgraded from a Canon mini-DV camcorder because I had bought my first HDTV from Amazon last Christmas. Of course, I needed an HD camcorder with my new HD television!
I use a Sonnet 21-in-1 multimedia reader&writer Express Card/34 and pop the SD card in to transfer the video clips to my MacBook Pro. Using iMovie ’09, this works fantastic. iMovie ’09 recognizes it without flaw, and with this software I can choose the clips I want to download from the SD card to my laptop. I use iMovie ’09 to organize my videos, and I make the initial selections of clips that I want in each project using iMovie ’09. Then, I export to Apple’s Intermediate Codec and open this export file in iMovie HD. I prefer the timeline in Apple’s older version of iMovie. I also bought Final Cut Express 4, but haven’t cracked that product yet, as it’s much more complicated than what I’m used to in iMovie. So, for now, I’m bringing video clips in with the latest version of iMovie, then downconverting and editing in iMovie HD; this works fantastic. I’ll eventually learn Final Cut Express and go forward in my video editing leisure activity. I share all of this because I didn’t realize until I read in David Pogue’s Missing Manual book (iMovie ’09 and iDVD) that I could still use iMovie HD with a flash memory video camera and the AVCHD codec. I’m glad to have learned this.
As others have said, getting AVCHD encoded video clips into a computer takes LONGER than real-time because of the converting that must take place. My mode of operation with a Canon mini-DV camcorder was to fill a 60-minute tape, then transfer it to the laptop when convenient. I would get it started and come back 60 minutes later to 60-minutes of video ready to edit. Now, I come back 90 minutes later instead. Transfer seems to take about 1.5 times the length of the clips, give or take. For me, this is not a problem when I use my usual transfer and edit process.
If you’re looking for instantaneous transfer of files in useable form, though, flash memory won’t give it to you — at least with this camera. Others have stated, and I found directions in David Pogue’s book stating that it’s possible to transfer the files to the computer’s hard drive for LATER conversion to useable form for editing. I haven’t done this yet, and I would be nervous about deleting the clips from my flash memory card until I had them converted, could see them, and had them backed up on another hard drive. That’s when I clear the flash card and re-use it for new video clips. I’ve had too many lost data situations in the past and I guess I’m a bit overly cautious when I have once-in-a-lifetime video that I don’t want to lose. I believe in multiple copies of precious data, video data included. I get around this limitation by having two 16 Gb flash memory cards which, in best mode on this camera, gives me about 1.5 hours of video per card. I have yet to fill one before transferring video.
I also have multiple firewire and/or USB hard drives which I use for backing up video. If I take a long trip I’ll just buy a handful of SD chips, along with the two batteries I already own, and shoot away. Each evening it’s my practice to download to hard drive anyway, back that up to an external drive, and this seems to work for most situations. It’s less expensive to do this with mini-DV tapes (which provide one backup source), but when precious video is involved I don’t mind paying for a few extra 16 Gb chips. They’re pretty inexpensive on Amazon.com.
I recommend this camera if your habits fit mine, or if you’re looking for fantastic-looking video on an HDTV. I have a lot to learn about this camera to get the most out of it, including the editing process. It will serve me for many years to come, as did my Canon mini-DV standard-definition camera.
APRIL 10, 2010 UPDATE:
I’ve received many nice comments and questions via Amazon, so many that I chose it might be helpful to make a video to show how I go video from a memory chip to my MacBook Pro laptop. If you’re a Mac user you might find this helpful. I use iMovie 9 and this tutorial clarifies the process using that software.
Video (be sure to click on the full screen button): [...]
Rating
The video quality is superb, as is ease of use. Here are a few hints and things I noticed. The battery out of the box will not power-on the camera and needs some minutes of charge to even show 0%. You can operate the camera from the charger but the battery is not being charged, says the manual.
There are two 1920×1080 picture quality modes: MXP at 24 mbps and FXP at 17 mbps — and three at 1440×1080: XP+, SP and LP, at 12, 7 and 5 mbs, respectively. I believe it defaults to LP out of the box, which is 1440×1080 at 7 mbps. I suggest you select FXP to get right 1920×1080 resolution. Upping to 24 mbps might be a excellent thought only if you are going to do a lot of post editing — I can’t see an improvement over FXP. Recording times with a 16GB card are 1:25, 2:05, 2:50, 4:45 and 6:05, respectively.
When the camera is OFF, pressing the DISP button (on the camera body) will show battery capacity in minutes and percent. Pressing DISP when ON turns the LCD to max brightness. IOW, you can set the LCD brightness for normal indoor use with the menu and instantly set it bright for outdoor use. Handy.
The CINE mode seems to digitally soften the image; there may some color change but I didn’t notice it from the shots I took in a park. The PF30 and PF24 rates show a jerkiness when panning as you would expect from a lower frame rate. I reckon these rates are simulated because all recording is done at 60i. For example when I played back PF24 stepping one frame at a time I saw the same image for 3 steps, then the next. (The “3 steps” varies with both PF24 and PF30.) OTOH, PF24 is useful in low light situations as it permits the HF200 slow the shutter speed down to 1/6 sec.
Previous Canon users will find the menu system simple and familiar, similar even to their still cameras. The joystick is “huge” and has a positive, certain feedback feel to it. Menu navigation seems simpler and clearer than earlier Canons I’ve used. There is even a Large Font choice. Excellent!
The Power On button is deep in a groove that makes it unlikely to accidentally turn on. But with your right hand in the nice grip you have to use the left to press it On – my fingers don’t reach. No loss, you need the other hand to open the LCD panel anyway. The zoom lever on top is a middle finger control. The adjacent Photo button is for a trained index finger. Record, at the back, is thumb operated. You can also use an LCD panel button to Record.
The Quick Start feature means you can close the LCD to save power (runs at 1/3 normal) and be ready to shoot in about 1 sec after opening it. Note, if you close the LCD panel while recording it will continue to record — so slamming it shut does not stop the shot.
The still photo features are quite incredible. The resolution is 3 megapixels, but a very excellent 3mp! You can shoot continuously at 3 or 5 frames/sec. And you can shoot at the same quick frame rates with flash! The flash is really a high-power white LED, not a xenon tube. There is a separate warm-white LED for video that works OK to 5-6 feet.
There are the usual auto white balance, auto exposure, instant focus features and so on that you can read about above. There’s face detection for proper focus. They all work very well. I like the Vivid color setting for most all shooting – video and photo. It is a slight pump in saturation that helps if you mainly view using your laptop LCD. Instant AutoFocus is aptly named. There is a honestly large IAF sensor next to the lens for this purpose. The 15x zoom, a first for me, is fully useful all the way out. Impressive.
Battery life (BP-809) takes a certain second place to 16GB storage. I just checked and it indicates 100%, 94 minutes. But you can of course buy larger batteries. (I use the smaller BP-808 battery from my FS100 SD video cam as a backup.) With the Quick Start feature (can be turned off) power is used between shots and this will generally use more juice that actual recording. Figure 3 to 5 times battery vs video: one hour of video needs 3+ hours of battery cap. Unless you buy a charger you must charge in the camera. Only one sample so far, but it seemed to take a small more than an hour to charge from 0%.
The supplied Pixela software is minimal. You can combine up to 99 shots into an M3TS file. It can be played on video players like Popcorn Hour and the WD HD TV player. (I have both and strongly recommend the $99 WD over the $230 PCH. The PCH can connect to Internet servers, its main claim to fame.) These players can also play the MTS format directly copied from the SD card but there is a 1-2 sec delay between each shot. Pixela lets you pick and chose shots, trim a given shot, and add titles and audio. I don’t know how to get past the 99 shot limit with Pixela — I made about 170 shots in the park yesterday.
All in all, I luves it.
Rating
I just came back from family vacation from sunny Mexico, connected camcorder via HDMI cable to my HDTV, and I was stunned. Picture quality from this camcorder was amassing and comparable to if not better then blu ray DVD. Outdoors shoots were comparable to professionally done movies, color were vibrant and rich, but not over saturated. They were natural, and accurate. Sharpness was brilliant, and thanks to superfast auto focus you do not vast firs few very vital seconds of your video on un usful video footage. Indoor footage was a small bit granny, but considering low light conditions I did not expect better results. You can use built in video light to improve video image for close shoots (which did help), but I plot on purchasing external video light that you can connect via hot shoe connector. You can do a ton of adjustments on this camcorder, and that was vital to me since I used to work as a cameraman for TV station. Sound was fantastic, and you can control level of sound recorder during recording (this is one of many professional tools in consumer camcorder in this price range offered only by CANON). Still photos were fantastic quality. Do not let relatively low number of pixels on this camcorder to confuse you. This camcorder is equipped with 3.3 MP chip, excellent enough to reproduce stunning still pictures as huge as 8×10. If you want to make poster size pics, than you would need more mega pixels. This camcorder is so small and lightweight that I fit in in camcorder/camera bag that I carry on my belt. I owned this camcorder for only 7 days and I am vary satisfied with my buy.
Prior to this one I owned several Sony camcorders (analog and digital), and I was huge fan of them, but I have to say: GOODBY SONY, HELLO CANON.
Rating
For the price, this is a really fantastic camcorder. Canon makes the Canon VIXIA HFS100 and Canon VIXIA HFS10 which are higher end than this camera, but cost a lot more. I thought about getting those higher end cameras, but I ultimately chose on the HF200 because it’s smaller and simpler to carry. The camcorder is very comfortable to hold, fits easily in a coat pocket and the controls are simple to use. The HFS100 and HFS10 are both a lot larger than the HF200. The Canon VIXIA HF20 HD Dual Flash Memory with 32 GB Internal Memory and 15x Optical Zoom is nearly the same camcorder that just has 32GB of internal memory, which seems like a waste of money because 32GB of SDHC is much cheaper than the price difference between the HF20 and HF200. I also looked at the Sony HDR-CX12 High Definition Memory Stick PRO Duo Handycam Camcorder With 12x Optical Zoom but didn’t like that it only used Sony’s proprietary memory cards, and it was a lot more expensive.
I reckon the quality from the HF200 is nearly as excellent as the higher end models, just make sure that you set the video quality on the HF200 to MXP (24 mbps) because the default setting is not that impressive. That setting does use up a lot more memory, but I bought this camcorder because of the quality and don’t want to use the lower levels. I bought a second SDHC card, but quickly found out that I needed more storage. I bought a MoFoto 500GB Portable Photo & Video Storage to download all my video, and reckon it’s awesome. It works well with this camcorder and gives me nearly unlimited recording capacity.
The other accessory which is a must have, is at least one additional battery Canon BP-827 Lithium Ion Battery Pack for Vixia HG 20/21, HF11/10 & 100 Camcorders. If you’re adventurous then you could go for an off brand battery like the Canon BP-827 3000mAh Li-Ion Battery by Pexell to save some cash.
Rating
Fantastic camcorder, but get a larger battery such as the BP-827, the default one makes a nice backup.
The software provided sucks, and you have to figure out by yourself which program does what: The main interface can upload videos, but not play or edit them, as it does for photos. It also makes a clutter of Start menu shortcuts in Windows that you don’t need since these programs are called by the main program, ZoomBrowser. About the Pixela video editing software provided, well, let’s just say that it’s better forgotten…
Only 15 music tracks in wave format are provided to use as soundtrack.
There is also a Canon online photo storage offer that you probably don’t need if you already have a blog or email provider.
The excellent thing is that the AVCHD format of this camcorder is supported by Windows Media Player 11 (at least on my Vista Ultimate machine). Not sure if it’s native to Windows or if it came with other software I installed. The MTS file extension was not supported, though, you need to add it manually: Open a MTS file from Windows Explorer, choose “Select an installed program”, select Windows Media Player and the checkbox to remember it.
Transferring the videos using the software provided is very cumbersome (cantbearsome really): You need both the USB and power cables, and clicking your way through a few screens on the camcorder before the transfer can start. I could start the photo transfer from either the camcorder or the computer, but only from the computer for videos.
My suggestion: Don’t install any of the software, it’s simpler to just copy the files from a card reader to your hard disk using Windows Explorer. You can get a multi 23-in-1 card reader for about $20, finally get rid of this useless floppy drive, and add a front USB port to your PC!
The camcorder in this offer does not ship with any card, you need to buy one separately. 16GB is excellent enough for medium quality. If you need higher quality or continuous shooting, you should probably get two cards, like a 32GB card for long capacity and a smaller one as a backup while uploading the videos from the first card. Transcend SDHC Class 6 cards are from a excellent brand at decent prices.
The default BP-809 battery provided is excellent for 1 hour of recording, I suggest you match your battery model to the duration of your memory card. For instance, if you have a 32GB card that can store 3 hours of video (at highest quality), get the BP-827 battery that provides 3 hours of battery life.
One more thing: This camcorder is VERY small and light, and its right HD resolution means that it is hard to shoot without making jumpy videos, you need to hold it with 2 hands or more. The built-in stabilizer can only help so much, and will not save you from the butterfly effect: A wing beat on the other side of the planet WILL shake your video. On the other hand, nobody can see the difference if you shot your video drunk or sober, so delight in the beer. I found a tripod helpful (when shooting from a static location is OK), any tripod should do because the camcorder is so light.
If you need a bag, the Lowepro Edit 110 is just the right size and fits the camcorder with the largest battery, an extra battery, the power adapter, the remote and as many SDHC cards as you need. The camcorder manual also fits in, but it’s a pity it’s so thick, as it includes 3 languages (English, French, Spanish). There are 23 languages on the camcorder’s menus. Cables won’t fit. BTW, the camcorder ships without a HDMI cable, you need to get your own if you have a AVCHD-compatible TV and you want to playback on TV directly from the camcorder. Not necessary if your TV has a card reader or is connected to your computer.
Lastly, check your computer rig, you may need an extra large disk (1-2 TB) to store these videos, and more than one if you need to keep the original AVCHD videos for post-production: DVD backups just won’t do for this kind of files, unless you have a Blu-ray writer. If you don’t need to keep the AVCHD files, burning DVDs is the best way to archive your movies. Just remember that even in HD, DVDs are highly compressed (meaning losing a lot of the quality of your original AVCHD files.) $13 will get you a very basic USB IDE/SATA external adapter, a cheap way to use obsolete hard disks to archive your videos.
Windows 7 update (01/26/2010): While you still need to install the driver tools in Vista Ultimate for MTS playback, none of this is required for Windows 7 Ultimate, it can play the MTS files natively and the Import Wizard will start automatically as soon as you insert the SD card in your computer’s card reader.
Rating
I need a HD camcorder for my new born baby, but with a limited budget. So I compared canon HF200, Sony CX100 and Panasonic TM20R since they are all in sub 600 range. I tried all of them in local stores and finally settled with canon HF200, although it’s a small bit more expensive than cx100 and TM20R.
The sensor of HF200 is the largest one among these three, 1 /4″ (1/5″ for CX100, 1/6″ for TM20R). It guaranteed best resolution, 2.99 Megapixels ( 2.3 M for cx100, 1.14M for TM20R) and in my experience larger sensor also helps lower the noise in dark environment. Indeed, minimal illumination condition for HF200 is 0.4 lux, much better than thre other two. I took a couple of sample shots in local stores and the picture from HF200 for dark environment is acceptable. Sony cx100 is barely acceptable and Panasonic TM20R is total crap, not even as excellent as my webcam.
After I finally bought HF200, I never regretted! The video quality is just superb. For the 1920×1080 quality videos, it has two modes: MXP(24Mbps) and FXP(17Mbps). To be honest I can’t tell the quality difference between these two. I guess unless you are gonna do massive editing, FXP is excellent enough for daily usage. So on a 16GB sd memory card, I can record 135 minutes 1080p HD video.
The still image shot quality is quite excellent too, and it’s powered by the 15x optical lens(35mm equivalent: 39.5 – 592.5mm). It gives you a very handy telephoto camera and the image stabilization works very well on the long focus end too. Last weekend with this camera, I easily took some nice pictures of two bears far far away from me. Most of other HD camcorders only have 10x lens.
All the button and menu are well designed. It’s very simple to use and I don’t even need to read the manual. LCD panel is in excellent size too.
Canon Face Detection is also a very nice feature. The same high quality Face Detection technology used in Canon digital cameras is now available in Canon High Definition camcorders. Up to 35 faces can be detected automatically, and 9 detection frames can be showed at one time. Face Detection ensures razor-sharp focus and natural, accurate exposure of the chosen subjects.
Okay, let me also mention some cons. First, like one of the other reviewer said, the software coming with it sucks! It can only edit the original format from the camcorder and output to same format instead of other more well loved formats. Thanks god the newest windows media player support the video files directly from the camcorder. You can just use the usb cable or pop the sd memory card into a card reader and copy all the .mts file into your computer and rename them into .m2ts, then by double clicking it windows media player opens it straight away. But, windows movie maker can’t handle them, and you can upload .m2ts file to youtube.com but the sound of the video will be cut off after a couple of seconds. So if you want to edit your videos and share your videos, probably you need buy a converting software like total video converter
One thing I forgot to mention, Its twin brother canon HF20 has exactly all the same configuration as HF200 except with 32GB interal memory. But HF20 is nearly 200 bucks more expensive than HF200. Now the SD memory card is so cheap. I suggest you to buy HF200 with a 16GB or 32GB SD card. Just don’t forget to use class 4 or up SD card.
To summarize, overall it’s the best entry level HD camcorder. With the price drop alert subscription from http://www.pricetrace.com, I got it from amazon.com for only $560.5. It is worth every penny.
Rating
I had the Sony HDR-FX1 HD camcorder (1440×1080) a few years back and that was impressive then but this camcorder is even better at 1980 x 1080. I was trying to
choose if it was a excellent thought to go tapeless this time and make the transition to
SDHC cards so I ordered the HF-200 to see what I was getting into. Well after 2 weeks monkeying around with this thing I’m glad I bought it. I know some of you are complaining about the static electric charge that can remove all your photos
from the card. Well there is an simple solution to this. Make sure you back up all your videos to your hard drive. It’s simple to drag and drop from the drive or using the imagemaker software. This is nice cause imagemake gives you the option of writing the mts files back onto the card. So save your stuff before you chose to
touch the card and remove it to a card reader. I have not had to take the card out yet anyway. And play it safe when you have the card in your hand. make sure you touch something first to discharge before pull the card out and don’t walk around the room with that card in your hand. Remain stationary when inserting it and removing it.
The other problem I hear so much about is the editing part. Well I’m a guy who likes quick fixes and someone in an earlier post said that COREL VIDEO STUDIO PRO X2 DOES a fantastic job. I downloaded the trial version (30 days) and it works flawless!!!! If you want an simple solution thats it. Here is how I did it. I hooked the USB connector to the computer (with play function on the camcorder) and imagemixer 3 software(provided with the camcorder) will automatically download all the m2t files. I prefer to just click on the drive and drop and drag all the files onto a file in my hardrive. Thats simple enough. Then bring up Corel VideoStudio program up, look for the file with the m2t files and it will make thumbnails of all the files you drag into the program. It also has a small viewer/player at the bottom so you can check out each file and play it before you drag in into the mainframe/timeline.
After you do drag the files into the program for editing and you cut, enhance, process, add titles or whatever. When finished just click on the the ‘Make VIDEO FILE” and use either of these 2 settings. I tried them all and these gave me perfect picture quality.
HDV 720-30p (HDV)
HDV 720-30p (for PC)
Note files rendered in HDV are half the size of those in (for PC) mode. I could not get WMV to work right at all. It looked like a 25th generation VHS copy. I’ll have to do more tests. My favorite video editing program is Magix Video Edit pro (11& 15) so I just load the HDV conversions into it and save it as
WMV-HD or other settings. This will save you a lot of head splitting aggravations!!! I spent nearly a week trying to find a program that could just read the m2t (mts) files from the HF-200 and kept getting blocked one way or another, Corel Video Studio pro takes care of the whole problem. In fact it has a feature called “SMART PROXY” that makes handling any size m2t files like regular
ancient analog video. If you had a 2 hour video in HD you could go from one end of the
mainframe layout to the end in a second!!So there is your quick fix for the average guy and I am a guy who always looks for the quickfix when I have a problem.
PS: One thing I have not read on any of these posts is something also that needs to be addressed. Ever wonder why some people rate software 5 stars and other people rate it 1? When you are editing video on a computer–that computer needs to not only have all the engine power, ram, etc. It also needs to be a dedicated computer. A dedicated computer is one that is only used for editing and you must keep it off the internet. No computer can be protected from the digital filth floating (spyware, malware, viruses) etc. in cyberspace.
That should be stated on every editing software package sold on the market and every professional review made available to the public (videomaker magazine etc)
does use an unpolluted PC for proper function. Furthermore! Though I have a dedicated computer for video editing you must keep it defragged monthly and use a registry fixer (windows has one free on the internet)to keep internal bugs from bugging your excellent working program. Kenn
Here is a link to some test footage I uploaded on YOUTUBE:
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