The brave new world of High Tech, High Def

At its best, this camera delivers stunning high-definition images at a killer price.  I got the camera and 12GB CF card for $634 from Ritz Camera during a store closing sale, and the price/performance is definitely unbeatable.

There are, however, caveats, starting with operation and ending with the sheer agony of making the camera's files work with video editing software, at least on my Mac.

Operation and Handling

I used the camera to report on a "Tea Party" protest event.  While there, I had my Nikon D300 digital still camera around my neck, and my HF100 in my pocket.  It made a large bulge in my pants pocket but carrying it there was not a problem.  I found switching between the D300 and HF100 reasonably easy and convenient.  

There are a couple of major issues, however.  For anyone who has artistic pretensions, this camera is not really acceptable since it has no manual focus ring or any acceptable substitute.  In theory, you can focus using the joystick, but in my testing it was almost impossible to do in practice. What I mean by this is that if I am sitting outside, trying to film a pastoral outdoor scene, it will take me minutes to figure out focus, and half the time I won't be able to make it work at all.

The most annoying problem, however, was that when I put it in my pocket and took it out, the mode knob seemed to have a mind of its own, often rotating to the "Still Picture" mode.  When this happens, the camera's little bell clangs and tells you you cannot shoot video in still image mode.  And then, when you try to change modes, half the time it doesn't work and you have to reboot the camera.  Oops.

Technology marches on and one of the great gains we have from it is extreme miniaturization.  This camera is tiny - small enough for me to fit into my pants pocket.  This makes single handed handling of still and video images at an event a genuine possibility, which is great. However, the camera is also so light that it's difficult to hold steadily, and many of my images have reflected this.  A tripod might be worth considering, but is generally a poor solution for event photography since it ties you down to a single location.
Battery life is abysmal unless you fork out another $120 (!) for the extended life battery.  I did, and it worked flawlessly during the three hours I spent at the protest event.  Batteries are tiny and easy to hold in your pocket.

Image and Sound Quality

I found the sound quality through the built-in microphone to be acceptable.  Sound was clear and the automatic recording levels worked well.

Color is seriously over-saturated in normal use.  This means that colors, particularly greens, will look harsh and artificial in many situations.  This is because the initial human reaction to oversaturated colors is that they look better.  Only with detailed viewing is it clear how poor those colors really are.

Fortunately, Canon has a "CINE" mode for people who are more serious about their image quality.  It basically turns down the saturation dial to a more normal level.  Unfortunately, the dreadful manual is horribly confusing about this and I actually learned this valuable fact from an online forum.  Take my advice and leave your camera in CINE mode for the best image quality.

Images from the camera are sharp, clear and crisp.  Unfortunately, you will not see this during shooting since the LCD viewfinder is far inferior in quality to the picture.  You may actually be disappointed looking at this camera in the store because the LCD is mediocre at best.  Once you get video on your computer or TV you will be a lot happier!

The old capture is gone ... meet the new capture

You're likely to be excited that you can download video from this computer clip by clip, instead of tape where you need to play the whole thing through while downloading.  The old days where you needed to halt everything else on your computer while importing video are dead and gone.  Hurrah!  Now your camera is like a disk drive and all you need to do is copy files.

This would be great, except that transcoding the video - converting it from the AVCHD format to a format usable by video editing programs - is a time and disk space consuming feature that may really kill your ardor. To be specific, getting a half hour video out of the camera will take you about an hour or even more, depending on the format you choose.  So the new ways are in some way even less convenient than the old real time "push play on the camcorder and let it import" ways.  This is probably not what most of us expected!

A Mac User's Agony

Because I only just switched to high definition, my version of Final Cut Pro (5.1) is outdated and couldn't figure out AVCHD files.  So I turned to iMovie '08, hoping to export the results to Final Cut.  iMovie '08 creates files that are so huge - over a gigabyte for just a few minutes - that it was impractical for the hour plus of video I shot with the camera.

A $35 program called iSkySoft Video Converter solved the issue for me and enabled me to do editing in Final Cut.  Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to figure out what format should be used for the end product, because Final Cut has to do its own internal conversion magic, requiring rendering.  

I most likely have not yet figured out the best editing solution, and I encourage you to fool with the program and try several different format types before settling on a final solution.  In particular, figuring out what resolution can be used is a royal pain.  Hopefully the upcoming Final Cut Studio 3.0 will solve these problems and make editing a joy again.  

My computer, a 2.4 ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, had trouble playing and editing video at full speed.  The 1920x1080 size looks great on paper until you see how inefficient editing with it is.  If Final Cut Studio 3.0 doesn't solve this problem I may have to lose my portability fetish and go with a Mac Pro with its dual quad core processors for my next computer.

I should make it clear that my main problem here is probably with trying to use cutting edge hardware with ancient software I haven't updated in a few years.  But still, people who want to upgrade their cameras from the older MiniDV standard, as I did, are likely to find themselves with similar difficulties.  The biggest problem with switching to HD video, in other words, is that you may need a new computer to edit it (a $3,299 Mac Pro, in my case), new software upgrades ($500 to get me to Final Cut Studio 3.0, when released) and even a new TV ($1,000-odd to get a nice 1920x1080 model).  Yikes.  At this rate, I'd might as well get a RED ONE ($35,000-odd) and be done with it!

In short, the wonderful convenience of the randomly accessible clips may not be so wonderful since it is very difficult to get the clips compatible with whatever video editing software you use.  Be prepared for extreme pain trying to figure out a solution.

Of course for all I know the included software works fine for video editing.  I'm an Apple user and really love Final Cut, so that wasn't really a good option.  Others have noted the included software is sub-par, however, and so even Windows users may not be too happy.

Conclusion

This is a great time to be a purchaser of gadgets like this, since you can really get surprisingly professional image quality from a light box that fits easily in the palm of your hand.  The really cool thing is that the quality's actually better than the Canon XL1 I bought for $4,400 in 1998.  That's great.  It's a pity the smooth manual focus ring and the professional features didn't migrate along with it.  To get the pro-style features of the XL1 on a HD camcorder still costs about $4,000.  Darn.

I bought this camera because I really wanted to get video of the tea parties, and RED Scarlet, the $3,800 twin sister of the RED ONE, with incomparable image quality and ergonomics, won't be available for a few months.  I'm having fun with the little guy, so I don't regret the purchase ... but I do wish there was something with professional controls to match the superior image quality.
Results
You can view my video of the West Palm Beach Tea Party, my first major use of this camera, here:
http://www.motionbox.com/videos/3097d7b11e1de0c5be