Evaluation:  
Conclusion: Very pleased with Canon FS-100
Review: Canon FS100 Flash Memory Camcorder with 48x Optical Zoom
I was looking for my first camcorder because we had a baby and I wanted to capture special moments. I'm pretty happy with it! It's very lightweight and the memory is not too expensive for it. It doesn't work so well under low light conditions (putting him to bed, for instance) but all in all a pretty good experience thus far and connects directly to my TV and computer.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: Great camcorder for the money
Review: For around $300 you can't beat this little camcorder. I love the format with the SD cards. The video quality is really high on it as far as color and clarity go. Not a great low light camera as others have stated but not unwatchable by any means. Video's look far better on the TV then on a computer so don't make any judgements based on computer viewing (at least on an older computer). I thought it was only marginal and then hooked it up to the TV and the difference was like night and day. I shot on SP and XP and both are good. I would definately recommend this camcorder to anyone who is a casual user. Great for family videos and vacations. Software is basic but gets the job done....even on my old computer. Only drawbacks are the low light issues and the image stabilizer isn't the best as the small size makes it hard to hold still.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: Not compatable with Macs
Review: I own an iBook G4 laptop and have not been able to download ANYTHING. The software that came with it is useless, both for videos and still images. Since I have iPhoto, I don't need the still imaging software. The files are written in .mod format and iMovieHD is in .avi. Somewhere, I found that if you use iMovie (not HD), you can download them, but we don't want to pay even more money to buy software that we shouldn't need in the first place. My husband owns a PC so we could try doing everything on his computer, but I'm the one with the time to download and edit and I'm the one who takes all of the movies. The clerk at Best Buy, where we bought the camera, told us that this camera would work with Macs. Either he was wrong, or we just haven't been able to figure it out.
As for the picture quality, it's quite good. The handling of the machine is easy and the interface is mostly user friendly. But, what's the point of having a good camera if you can't share the videos or keep them.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: Light weight duty, light weight camera
Review: For a number of years now, possibly 5, I've been using a Sanyo Xatci, since they first came out, mainly for it's small size, portability, flash based media and ease of use. It was not however used for it's high quality results. And for indoors, forget it, the light only worked for snap shots, not video. So for outdoor events, it was handy and easy to carry. But you could forget about it for indoors or low light situation. It's audio was also very poor unless your subject was within a few feet and battery power, under continuous filming you were lucky to get 60 minutes out of it.
I've waited a long time for another flash based card/medium, reasonably priced, light weight, small form factor,long battery life, a light for indoor recording, and the ability to use an external microphone. Over the last year or so, there have been some early models from different makers, however, they were very expensive, and still a little heavy. Also, the external microphone option was missing.
Along came the FS100. I've read the reviews on Amazon about this camera and other forums. I spent a lot of time researching other cameras, but couldn't find anything comparable in the price bracket. Since I was ordering from Amazon not an Amazon Market Place vendor,(though I've had good experiences with the majority of them as well) I felt confident in making the purchase that should it not meet my needs or expectations, returning it would not be a problem.
Now, I had just switched, after almost two decades with Windows to a Macbook Pro, though I'm running XP on the machine via VMfusion, however my goal was to winnow down my need for Windows products. So, I was somewhat concerned by some reviews and their experiences with OX 10. However, one reviewer made a great suggestion about a third party software which addressed the issue of changing the unusual movie format Movie.MOD to something I could edit or play on the Mac. It's Visual Hub, and works great. Be aware however, the longer the movie the slower the conversion, but it is still way faster than using the old DV tapes.
Now, if you buy a SDHC card and don't want to use the camera's usb cord, you must buy a newer reader that accepts SDHC card. The older readers will let the card fit in the slot, but will not read it. It took me a couple of days to find this out. I went with the FS100, because it didn't come with built in memory, and am glad I went that way, since you could only transfer those scenes via the USB cable.
I bought a 16 gb Kingston card for under 40 at [...], including shipping, and some unknown brand off Ebay for about the same price. (The [...] deal was only available after I'd purchased the one off of Ebay)
I've been playing with the camera now for over three weeks, and I have been pleased overall. Outdoors the pictures are clear, the audio a great improvement over my old Sanyo, and battery life close to three hours with continuous shooting.
Indoors, with the light on, it's still grainy, but much improved over the Sanyo without the light. With the camera set to it's highest quality video using my 16gb card, I can shoot about 3.5 hours.
If you are looking for a video camera for shooting a lot of indoor video, especially in low light, you may be disappointed with this camera. If your shooting indoors with lots of outside light coming in, it's fine.
For sporting events and action videos this camera really excels for with it's light weight and small size, you'll find yourself taking it along with you more often than a standard video camera.
But as others have pointed out, the software, at least for the Mac, is poor. Really poor in fact. Accessories like additional batteries, and a separate charger are outlandishly priced. But like I did with my video card, I found non oem replacements on Ebay for under ten dollars, not including shipping. I recommend buying at least one battery with a charger so you don't have to plug the camera in using the AC adapter to charge the battery.
Evaluation:
Conclusion: Bit disappointed with Canon
Review: I bought a JVC Everio GZ-MG155 about one year ago, and was never completely satisfied with the image quality, it was not as sharp as I expected. I decided to give a try with the Canon FS100 since all my digital still cameras had been Canon and I loved the images and colors they produce.
Well, thanks to the Canon FS100 I realized my JVC Everio was not in fact that bad at all...
I recorded some scenes with both cameras and edited them back to back in a DVD, so I could see the footage in my 50'' high definition TV and could compare results.
Outdoors, in sunshine, both camcorders performed more or less the same, same image sharpness, colors, etc. No big difference at all.
Indoors the difference was simply amazing; the Canon FS100 produced grainy images full of noise (annoying red particles around everywhere) in most lighting situations. Just to clarify this point, I'm not talking about recording in low light, I'm talking about regular indoor lighting (in low light the results were even worse). When I saw the recorded footage in my 50'' TV, the amount of image noise and pixelized artifacts was unbearable.
On the contrary, my JVC, does not produce any noise, not even in low light (yes, the image is much darker in low light, however, no noise or red particles floating at all).
I tried the manual controls of the Canon over the weekend (since the camera is so tiny and portable that I really wanted to like it), however I couldn't get any good results indoors compared to the JVC. And another issue also quite annoying; while the JVC stores all the manual settings when you turn the camera off, the Canon erases all the manual settings. This means every time you turn on the camera in manual mode, you need to reset the settings.
Finally, I just decided to stick to my JVC and returned the Canon FS100 to Amazon (which by the way, is great; they gave me a full refund on the camcorder).
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