Canon FS100 Flash Memory Camcorder

I am very much impressed with the cost to performance ratio. I will not say this cam has poor sensitivity to light. Coz it has got all the options like aperture and shutter speed settings usually found in other costlier cams and can be made well use of to produce excellent video. Battery back up is also impressive Overall this has got everything (may be more ) for a medium level camcoder.

I'm a beginner with video, so I'm not one to judge the quality of the image. After reading other reviews, I thought it would be better than it is though. You have only the small LCD screen to use to make adjustments such as exposure or white balance or manual focus, and LCD screens are notorious for looking different at different angles. The screen swivels for ease of use, but where do you set it to know you are seeing what the camera is seeing? Once I put some video onto my computer, it was easier to view, but several shots taken of a marina on a cloudy day had vague purple stripes in the sky. The still images are awful, with lots of purple fringing. The stabilization is electronic and only applies to the video mode, so the camera portion is almost worthless. I took some video of some real estate to show my family, and the microphone picked up my footsteps in the grass much better than my voice. The windscreen hardly works at all. I shot some video at the beach and didn't even not... Read more

Canon FS100 Flash Memory Camcorder with 48x Optical Zoom (Garnet Wine) This is my 6th Canon digital video camcorder, having owned a ZR30MC, ZR50MC, ZR90, Optura 20 and Elura 100 before this one. My main objective for purchasing the new flash-memory based camcorder was to get away from the dreaded motor noise from most of these units. Out of all 6 previous models, the Optura 20 had the best video sensor CCD size (1/4"), followed by the Elura 100 (1/5"). The other models, including this FS100, use a sensor CCD size of 1/6", so I was expecting the video quality to be a bit more grainy (especially from reading all these reviews). Right out of the box after charging the BP-808 battery, the unit starts up very quickly, however, the LCD is a bit grainy even in moderate lighting. Don't be alarmed though, this granularity image is not transferred to video, it's just the nature of the 123K pixel color LCD (my Powershot SD750 has the same problem with its LCD but still takes great pictu... Read more

Canon FS100 Flash Memory Camcorder with 48x Advanced Zoom (Silver) We bought the FS100 prior to a trip to Spain to upgrade from our old 8mm camcorder and to save space. I chose the flash memory type due to the absence of moving parts, as well as the reduced size and weight. The camera has been impressive. The picture and sound quality are very good, despite the fact that the unit isn't hi-def. I like the fact that you can just shoot in auto mode and let the camera adjust itself or you can compensate for unusual lighting or motion situations in the pre-selected scene mode. There is one major problem with this camcorder; the lack of a viewfinder. Granted, a viewfinder would add to the size and weight a bit, but I think that it is a necessity. With a camera this small, it is very difficult to hold it steady while shooting a scene. You need the stability offered by holding the camera against your face. A viewfinder also makes it much easier to see what you're shooting when you are in ... Read more

I had 4GB card free with purchase of this Garnet colored camcorder. It lasted about 1.1 hours in SP quality. I took this to some caverns at Shenandoah National Park and the videos turned out to be OK. Battery life was better than my team caver's Sony flash camcorder. In addition to being so cute and made in Japan (hard to find these days), it is quite impressive in low light settings. I just used easy mode in the caves. At first, when I checked random reviews here (mostly negative), I was worried about low light in the caves. I won't repeat what other reviewers said. For files, it was not organized as per time sequence. I did not initialized the memory card and not sure it caused the case. It should not be. I'll try again in this weekend and update my reviews. Movies are in mod files and if you are comfortable with Command Prompt, use ren *.mod *.mpg. Google for detail script. Some websites let you upload video files only in mpg format. Hope this helps. BTW 1: the price dropped ... Read more

Ok, I am writing this small review to people who are like me who look everywhere for the lowest price on an item and live and die by customer reviews. This camera is great for everything it does but I am mainly focusing on the file problem. I read at least 100 reviews on this item from professional sources and customers until I finally purchased it. Anyway the files come in as .MOD files which need to be converted into .MPG or .AVI or something else that can be read by your editing software. After trying multiple FREE converting software, I found the easiest and fastest one was sdcopy. It did not degrade the quality of the video and allowed choice to convert into 4:3 or 16:9 which is very handy.