Canon VIXIA HF S100

Overall I wanted the highest possible production value for a budget. With that said this camera delivers in spades. There are many manual controls and a beefy 24 mbps AVCHD codec, reaching the pinnacle of AVCHD.

The images look creamy good.

As someone wanting a film like feel, I am very impressed with Cine Mode and the image that the camera captures. I do wish it had a larger sensor, which permits a more shallow depth of field. This camera does come in with a very fast lens at f/1.8 at full wide angle (43mm equivalent in 35mm film terms), and only diminishing to f/3.0 at telephoto. 43mm equivalent at the wide end of things incidentally gives a 100% "normal" perspective spatially. I am pleased with the result and what you seen on screen is basically as your eye sees it. Canon also has a high definition 0.7x wide angle adapter available that brings you to about 30mm (in 35mm film equivalent terms) and would be useful for indoor shooting.

There are a lot of manual controls and options available, including zebras, color bars, audio attenuation, aperture priority, shutter priority, frame rate (24p, 30p, and 60i), headphone monitoring, hdmi uncompressed output, adjustable exposure and exposure lock, etc. If you are an independent filmmaker with some creativity and who is resourceful you can do wonders with this camera. Make no mistake.

After a while using the camera, I do have a wish list. I wish that the cameras exposure options were expressed in more traditional (i.e. professional) parameters. I want to see adjustable ISO and full manual control as a choice, not just nice options that you can work with when you understanding the limitations. There is no ISO listing (typical in a consumer camcorder) just the option to pushing exposure up or down. Another example, I wish that I could control aperture and shutter speed simultaneously (instead of one or the other), and ISO. And finally, I don't want to have to leave cine mode to even get to aperture or shutter priority modes. That sucks, and I feel all of the above mentioned issues are "marketing choices" so as not to infringe on sales of higher end camcorders and could be relatively easily overcome.

Additionally I do have the wish that the 24p and 30p frame rates were not stored in a 60i wrapper. Final Cut Pro Studio 2 cannot import the 24p properly as of this date, and needs a reverse-telecine conversion applied after log and transfer through Compressor. 30P and 60i import just fine. If you are reading this and don't know what that means, don't worry, you probably won't ever be using these tools. I honestly don't know how the software is that Canon provides, but I strongly suggest you Google this model camera and see what editing options work for people. You will need a modern computer no less than 2-3 years old to edit (or even view) the motion picture created by this camera at full quality. You will also need a lot of hard drive space and backup space. These are things to keep in mind.

The provided battery also sucks, so look at forking out an extra $150 bucks for an external charger and double capacity battery (if you go for Canon brand name).

In any case, for a "prosumer" camera I think that you'd be really hard pressed to find anything better for the price. I bought it after extensive looking. I also feel it is important to mention that low light performance was impressive for it's size.

This was all true to the best of my knowledge as of 05/08/09. Thanks

This is by far the best Camcorder I have ever owned, Its a little on the pricey side but fortunately you do get what you pay for. I haven't been through all the settings yet, I'm still getting used to it but the footage i have taken is Super Clean and it has very good contrast plus the manual focus is Excellent, I can focus on extremely close objects, very good MACRO.

The Battery life is not too good you would be better off with a bigger one plus it doesn't have a view finder but I never use one anyway so all in all it is a Great Camera.