Looking at the Canon VIXIA HF S100

[jordan.hamilton]

I am looking at the Canon VIXIA HF S100 to replace my aging standard def camera. From what I have seen online it has received some great reviews, anyone have any experience with this camera out in the field? Thanks in advance.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

I think it is noteworthy to remember that all video cams are not equal. Low-light quality is illusive for the most part for most cameras, and in a storm enviorment - it will be a critical factor.

I haven't made the jump to video cams for a couple of reasons. First, I am trying to get decent with still photography first. Second, the price for video cams that can handle a low-light situation are expensive at this time.

 

[Kiel Ortega]

I am looking at the Canon VIXIA HF S100 to replace my aging standard def camera. From what I have seen online it has received some great reviews, anyone have any experience with this camera out in the field? Thanks in advance.

I shot with this starting in late April. It's a good camera. The closest sorta dark storms I had were the 15 May Pampa, TX, and the 5 June Goshen Co, WY, tornadic supercells. I didn't get a chance to play with the settings much (for the Pampa storm I was just lazy and for Goshen, I was half trying to navigate and record precip obs in one of the V2 probes and half trying to not shake the camera to death). The out of the box performance in those two events was pretty good for my tastes; I'm sure if I try harder, I might find some better settings. I did take the camera to the Norman fireworks this year and the video came out really good (I set the camera to its pre-programmed fireworks mode). Only complaints I have are the controls make it a little difficult to switch settings quickly and that if you want to take photos and video at the same time, you must be in its auto/easy/out of the box mode. Won't do both if you're in one of the aperture or shutter priority modes.

Screen capture of the Pampa, TX storm (smaller than actual size since Facebook shrinks photos)
Screen capture of the start of the Goshen Co. tornado
(sorry, I don't have any screen captures up of the fireworks)

 

[Chris C Sanner]

S100 is a pretty good camera, I played around with one a little bit this last year...seemed to shoot pretty well and such. For storm chasing though, Sony's HDR-XR520V is pretty quality, it's slightly better than the Canon in low light. However, as with all consumer handycam comparisons both have their strengths and weaknesses you have to judge. While the Sony has good low light performance, the Canon's performance in bright light is better.

What I like about the S100 are the controls for aperture and shutter as well as variable frame rates, if you are into that sort of thing.

 

[jordan.hamilton]

Yeah, I am really digging the price on the Canon right now though, $899

 

[David Schuttler]

I've got more to learn as I hate reading the booklets but here are some example videos on Youtube from my Vixia.

Fireworks

Lightning with skyline lights

Nighttime Storm

Lightning Flashes

Moon Timelapse

My worst low light try

Favorite low-light non storm