Canon FS100 (Silver)

• Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 18 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 8 stars

  Great cam!

  by ro7477 on June 15, 2009

  Pros: - SD card is awesome
  - outdoor shooting is great
  - zooming is fantastic (provided you use a tripod)
  - so small it fits into my pocket!
  - great battery life and no noise

  Cons: - cam is not the best at night

  Summary: Hey guys, so you all have heard it all by now on here. Let me give you a few tips on how to use this cam (based on the cons ...

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  Summary: Hey guys, so you all have heard it all by now on here. Let me give you a few tips on how to use this cam (based on the cons i have read on here).
  
  - zooming is unpredictable some say on here. well, i am not sure if they know that you can change the soeed setting of the zoom. set it to 3 and you'll be fine!
  - to get better image quality - turn the image stabilization off (the outdoor image is sharp but just in case you need that little push over the cliff)
  - everyone says the videos grainy at night. that is correct - but, why do you think we spend $5000 or more each time we plan an indoor shoot for a wedding/professional shoot etc? there is a reason for spending so much cash for lighting, right? so, get on with the program and dont be complaining.
  
  i use this cam for vacation/travel videos - this is the best fit for what we need. love it
  
  Updated on Jul 16, 2009

  I just finish an extensive overseas trip with this cam. a lot of heat has been aimed at this cameras performance at night - well you can judge for yourself. here is a video i just shot - with no/low lights, its a aviation videos so we are in motion. You be the judge - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNAmwcE1dQ

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  4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Best flash media, standard defination (not HD) camcorder.

  by duncanshaw on August 2, 2008

  Pros: Great stable zoom,3 hour battery life,well made.Canon tech support

  Cons: no threads to attach lens filter,editing sortware supplied not the best. Get your own

  Summary: Tried theCanon DC 330 miniDVD. Also great camera.Same price $300. Then tested Canon FS 100! Same innards as Dc330 but much smaller and convenient! Quality on my monitor is ...

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  Summary: Tried theCanon DC 330 miniDVD. Also great camera.Same price $300. Then tested Canon FS 100! Same innards as Dc330 but much smaller and convenient! Quality on my monitor is excellent.The steps getting the vid out of the camera and onto the computer are alot less than tape/DVD based camcorders. I was nervous about editing the .mod files they put out. I have Adobe Premier Elements, Ulead Video Studio 11 Plus and they work great. Do a quick search on how to work with the .mod files these flash camera put out. Simple as renaming them .meg or mpeg. SDcopy is popular. In Adobe Premier Elements for example. I read the SD card with card reader. I open up Adobe. I drag the .Mod file to the project table then right click the movie in the table ,5th down is interpete footage then click on conform to then chose wide. Will play letterbox format for you to edit.
  
  Canon left off threads to attach a protective filter!
  If ANYTHING gets down there the camcorder is ruined.
  
  This works for me.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJRyzHsfS_w
  
  Bought at Best Buy. UV filter by
  
  Sunpack. $10. 34mm/37. Shipping tape or scotch tape will secure it to the camera just fine. Just be sure smear,dust,water is not on the filter. Will show up on your vid.

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  4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  Great Overall, a few drawbacks but its $300,

  by badhairdude on July 27, 2008

  Pros: 37x zoom, ease of use, cheap, decent video quality, mic in, great design, batterylife

  Cons: slightly washed out colors, no optical zoom, bad low light condition

  Summary: For a regular user, this camera is great. It doesn't compare to HD camcorders, but for $300, it's the best deal. I'm just going to highlight my ...

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  Summary: For a regular user, this camera is great. It doesn't compare to HD camcorders, but for $300, it's the best deal. I'm just going to highlight my thoughts into random sentences.
  
  Colors are washed out if not in sunlight. 37x zoom is great and sharp, but WILL be unstable without a tripod. Zoom toggle is flimsy. Easy to edit with a PC (get sdcopy). Video light is pretty crappy. Menu navigation is easy. Battery life is great, up to 3hrs. audio is pretty good.
  
  The stuff i do is for youtube and i used mr. divx to convert my files and the quality is superb, the best quality/compression I've found on the internet and i was looking and testing for days.

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  2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 5 stars

  Not Mac Compatible!!!

  by 13craig on June 15, 2008

  Pros: Idiot-proof setting, easy to navigate menus

  Cons: .mod video format - horrible

  Summary: Requires the third-party software (included) to do anyhting with your movies. Software is NOT Macintosh compatible!!!
  HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!!!

  Summary: Requires the third-party software (included) to do anyhting with your movies. Software is NOT Macintosh compatible!!!
  HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!!!

  2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 9 stars

  Outstanding value

  by on September 26, 2008

  Pros: Ease of use. Battery life. Zoom. Price. Size

  Cons: None so far. If you want to be very picky then the location of the power button

  Summary: I've got a Sony mini dvd, takes a great picture, sound is great, but needed a longer zoom and converting it to regular dvd was an absolute chore. This ...

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  Summary: I've got a Sony mini dvd, takes a great picture, sound is great, but needed a longer zoom and converting it to regular dvd was an absolute chore. This is so easy it's unbelievable. I put the card in my card reader, drag n drop. Double click on the video and there it is. It seemed to me when I converted the files from Sony I lost quality, not hear. An item to mention, it's got a big zoom, use a tripod when you are at full zoom otherwise you'll notice your recording movements. A great buy! I'm really wow'd by it!

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  Good Compact Camcorder - Easy to Use

  by fearlessphil on September 18, 2008

  Pros: Great outdoor video, no moving parts, easy to get the video from camera to computer, can't record over your movies like a miniDV camera (this happened to me).

  Cons: Still shots are poor, indoor video is mediocre, no on camera video editing, you have to convert files to burn them to DVD, video is a little grainy on my HD TV.

  Summary: I bought this camera to replace a Sony Handycam miniDV. I have gone through two of of the Sony Handycams. The tape eject mechanism failed on both cameras. So I ...

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  Summary: I bought this camera to replace a Sony Handycam miniDV. I have gone through two of of the Sony Handycams. The tape eject mechanism failed on both cameras. So I wanted to get away from tape. I really like the convenience of an SD card. Pop out card and insert in laptop. I convert the .mod files to mpeg with free software called SDcopy and burn the movies to DVD. The video quality is on par with the miniDV cameras I had. It seems like all of these budget camcorders have problems with low light and this Canon is no exception. Don't bother with using this camcorder for still shots they are horrible!

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 5 stars

  Below average perfomance

  by terrym21 on September 14, 2008

  Pros: The long recording capacity. External microphone input. Fast power-up.

  Cons: Terrible low-light performance. The hues were ok, but grainy....actually more splotchy than grainy. There was a lot of rainbow colors in the images. USB connector under the flip-out display. Internal battery compartment.

  Summary: When comparing to my older ZR500 miniDV camcorder, the FS100 was disappointing. The lack of options for higher capacity batteries and no capability for lense filters is a big negative. ...

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  Summary: When comparing to my older ZR500 miniDV camcorder, the FS100 was disappointing. The lack of options for higher capacity batteries and no capability for lense filters is a big negative. I was hoping to gain at least as good of video quality as I was accustomed to with my miniDV while gaining longer recording time, but this was not the case. I will be returning my unit and probably bite the bullet for an HF100 even though I don't need HD capability yet. I really like the idea of no moving parts with SDHC cards. However, anyone on a buget, for SD video, should consider staying with miniDV.
  
  Updated on Sep 14, 2008

  One other nice feature: audio level meter.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  Very durable and versatile camera

  by Reverend_Deb on February 20, 2012

  Pros: This has proven to be one of the most durable and versatile cameras I have ever owned. Excellent battery life and recharging speed.

  Cons: Difficulty with focusing in low-light conditions, cannot handle sodium lighting at all (goes totally out of focus). Lacks image stabilization. Unable to "live stream" video to computer via USB. No Firewire or video time code.

  Summary: 3 years and over 300,000 miles of hard trucking later, this remains my favorite camera to use in a vehicle, despite all the issues I've found. I bought ...

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  Summary: 3 years and over 300,000 miles of hard trucking later, this remains my favorite camera to use in a vehicle, despite all the issues I've found. I bought this one at Wal Mart when it first came out, and paid $289 plus tax for it. For what I paid, and what this camera has survived, I'm amazed that it looks and performs just as well as the day I bought it.
  
  I use this camera primarily as a stand alone "dash cam" in a tractor trailer. I am serious about the durability of this camera, it is well beyond expectations. Temperatures it operated under ranged from -19F to over +130F. Humidity went from bone dry to condensing, and I've had it out in the rain many times. Dust never phased this little device, with the exception of the automatic lens cover (it requires weekly cleaning). Cigarette smoke never effected it. Continuous moderate to severe vibration, shocks, and drops from up to 10 feet never seemed to phase this camera. It continues to operate as new, using the original 16 GB SDHC card I installed.
  
  I would typically use this camera in its widest shot setting, in 16:9 mode. This proved sufficient to capture everything going on directly in front of my vehicle from my perspective out to maximum human visible range. Daylight operations were flawless, and the widest shot setting minimized the problems faced by the lack of any image stabilization. Tighter shots simply weren't possible due to the constant vehicle vibrations and shocks.
  
  The low-light functionality was problematic, though the picture quality was sufficient for my purposes. The lower the light, the more likely it is for the camera to go out of focus. There is no manual focus setting that I could find. If you are using this at night, beware of sodium lamp street lights. For some reason, the camera will go out of focus if the lamp itself is in the shot, and stay that way. That little bug occurs even in daylight, I discovered.
  
  The lack of image stabilization makes the digital zoom useless. Even the slightest vibration from normal geological ground activity will show up, despite using a shock mount on a tripod on a paved surface. The problem is amplified exponentially as you go from the widest possible shot to the tightest, making still shots and video useless. The lack of image stabilization made it impossible for me to get a quick video or still shot of the license plate of the vehicle a few feet in front of my rig, even with the rig turned off.
  
  I was disappointed to find that USB functionality is extremely limited, for file transfer only. The camera I previously used (a Sony Digital Hi 8) allowed this under WinXP-32. The camera also lacks a Firewire connector, which would have allowed for much faster video transfers than is possible in USB mode, and usually allows real time streaming to a computer. I typically use that capability to allow me to put a date and time stamp on the video and then store it to an external hard drive. The camera does seem to have an internal clock, but it frequently malfunctions (switches time and time zone for no apparent reason, can be up to a year off inside of a single day). I've never been able to get the internal time on the camera to overlay on the video.
  
  I typically do not use the supplied software, unless I need drivers, for any camera. This camera has no drivers, as the USB functionality is easily recognized by Windows and Linux (Ubuntu) as an external storage device. However, if you are not familiar with how to manually transfer the video and still files, I strongly recommend using the software to help. I've found it easier to simply switch the SDHC card from the camera to my computer for faster transfers, even when taking into account the time to manually do that.
  
  This is a great little camera for what I do with it, and it has paid for itself several times over by proving I was not at fault in collisions, catching hit-and-run drivers, and proving I am 100% compliant with all traffic laws and commercial vehicle regulations. I'm still using the original SDHC card I purchased along with the camera, after nearly 1,000 re-initializations (it's easier than deleting files one at a time). The 16 GB SDHC card stores about 10 plus hours of driving in AVI format, close enough to the maximum 11 hours of driving I'm allowed to do. It takes about a minute to reinitialize the SDHC, which is far beter than the several minutes it usually took for me to rewind a Digital Hi 8 tape every 2 hours or so.
  
  For what I paid, and what this camera has been through (most give up the ghost after a year or so), I'm happy. But, this camera doesn't rise to the level of "pro-sumer" by any stretch. The picture quality and lack of image stabilization or low light functionality, to me, are more like low-end consumer grade, though the durability brings it up to mid level by itself.

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• 1 stars

  Vad camcorder, very dissapointung

  by ronwel on August 20, 2011

  Pros: Very compact

  Cons: Uncontrolable automatic zoom
  Impossible to get the cam stable
  v ery bad quality of Photography
  No ViewFinder, this can be very important when there is sun reflection on the lcd, etc..
  The lcd screen - very bad quality, you can only use it in a dark pl

  Summary: After 3-4 years of experience with this camcorder, it is he worst camcorder I have ever met.
  Everyone deserve a better camcorder then this one.

  Summary: After 3-4 years of experience with this camcorder, it is he worst camcorder I have ever met.
  Everyone deserve a better camcorder then this one.

• 6 stars

  Not Very Mac Compatible, But Pretty Good

  by FrootLuipz on July 18, 2009

  Pros: Good non-HD quality, portable, strong light, good zoom.

  Cons: Horrible image stabilization, not Mac compatible (unless you use iMovie 09), hard to hook up to your computer, mediocre photos.

  Summary: This is a pretty good camcorder, but it's not too compatible with my Mac, and the software doesn't work either. My dad bought this because the man at ...

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  Summary: This is a pretty good camcorder, but it's not too compatible with my Mac, and the software doesn't work either. My dad bought this because the man at the store said it worked well with macs, but it actually has .MOD files, which don't play video unless you convert them, which degrades the quality severely. But, if you use iMovie 09 or 08, it will upload onto that with slightly better results. The low light and night performance is VERY motion blurry, but the light on the camcorder is blindingly bright. Overall, a good camcorder if you know how to get it to work on your computer, but could be a little more compatible.

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