1- Housing and Connectors
It is already small and light in the hand. Despite my large fingers I have no problems with the operation of the normal keys such as start / stop, zoom or On / Off. This is mainly due to the rounded shape of the FS100 and the sufficiently large-sized buttons. I can accept almost in his fist the camcorder quasi, the keys are absolutely right.
It is the most necessary for an amateur filmmaker connections available, such as a microphone input. The much criticized position example of the charging cable connector I think now is not that bad, you get pretty good turn. Just a pity that Canon, as well as Sony mitliefert only power supplies, you have to buy a charger separately. That is for example, achieved better at Panasonic, and Canon could it better. So you can give the second battery does not just invite between there while filming already with the first.
The miniaturization fallen victim is also the accessory shoe, on which you can attach as a video light or Mirko. While the FS100 comes with a LED light, but good lighting is different. Personally I can on the accessory shoe rather do without. In this small case a mounted video light might see from a bit oversized.
Completely incomprehensible, however, is that Canon looks a filter thread obsolete. Especially now would have been really corresponding place. The necessary 3mm would have been even accommodate. For example, for a wide-angle converter. But more on that later.
2- Operation
Who a Digital Ixus or other device from Canon already calls his own, comes with the menu structure cope immediately. But even newcomers will not demanded much training time. The operation by the joystick is quick and properly, in my view, better and more accurate than using the touchscreen with Sony or other operating concepts. Although some additional control element for example, want the focus, which is found but little of this magnitude.
The controls are, I mentioned it already, handily placed and adequately dimensioned. The icons are self-explanatory.
3- delivery / accessories
Before I get to the video quality, I would like to say a few words about the delivery. Included are the camera (logo), the battery, an AC adapter, a wrist strap, a video cable, a variety of software (more on that later) and the manual. Canon missed it here, settle at least a small SD card. So please do not forget mitzukaufen an adequately dimensioned card. I have gained 2 Verbatim SDHC cards with 16GB. On each fits in the highest quality level more than 3.5 hours of video. Thus, together more than 7 hours. These are expressed in D8, 6 cartridges. Wow. Progress is sometimes a cool thing.
I also have a second battery (there is only one size) system sold. I usually take the manufacturer-original or, if available, also by experienced third party as Ansmann. The device displays only good, 100% compatible batteries to the remaining term. And in my opinion this is true most likely in the original batteries. A battery lasts, depending on the load with Zoom, light, power on / off, etc about 2-3 hours. For such a small and light power storage mean feat. The coming safely to Good that no tape drive or a hard disk driven in rotation must be maintained.
Another accessory the external charger CG-800 will soon be added.
4 recording quality
I was now filming in various weather conditions both in the interior and exterior.
As long as the weather is good film, ie slightly cloudy sky, the camera records a clear, well ausleuchtetes and color-neutral image. Strong sunshine turns the display to be very rich in contrast is, you already afraid that too much detail is lost in bright as in dark areas. But in the subsequent control on the PC you quickly realize that this is probably a weakness of the display. Schade, a manual exposure compensation can be realized so difficult.
Indoors, the picture is quite fast something pixilated, color artifacts make their appearance. This must be well ascribe also the rather small optics including not just generously sized sensor. A problem that is now also all digital compact cameras. Nevertheless, the image of the FS100 is very handsome long, only in extremely low-light subjects, such as candlelight, etc. is the noise disturbing. But even on this point the FS100 completely fulfilled the expectations. I can not expect from a compact model, the image services that I might expect from a professional camera with 5 times the light intensity and 10 times.
The only weak point of the FS100, and unfortunately so many other compact film kamere meanwhile, is in my opinion, erroneous interpretation of the lens focal length. I do not understand why it is more concerned with an extremely strong message that out of hand, especially at such a flyweight, is barely usable, rather than more to be highlighted the wide-angle range. Because, frankly, Wide is virtually non-existent. The smallest focal length verges on a 50mm (KB) normal focal length.
About the photo quality should not lose too many words you. That was years ago and nothing will probably long be nothing. A feature that I would not miss. In the quality rather reminiscent of a mobile phone, it is good at most occasional snapshots. But because the FS100 either in video or photo mode, you need not include this option.
5- connection to PC
The SDHC card can, so I do it at least, pushed directly into a card reader and so be read (Attention XP Users! If the SDHC card is not recognized or XP will format it, install the patch from the KB934428!) , But then one is faced with the problem that a video sequence one finds two files each. The file with the extension .mod contains the video in MPEG2 format. The other contains additional metadata that is not provided in the MPEG format. The easiest is to copy the .mod files and to give them the extension .mpg. Then they can also be read out by the media player etc.
But since more than one hundred scenes will be located on a memory card frequently, you can rely on the supplied software ImageMixer. This copies the files from the memory card to the hard drive (unfortunately without that you can set the path), you missed the ending .mpg and renames it also just around after YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.mpg scheme. Unfortunately, this can not influence this.
6- Conclusion
Who keeps in mind, what compromises you have to make to evaporate a camera in such a format, will not be disappointed. The housing is in spite of the size / Small good to use, the quality of the videos very neat. The battery life is remarkable. And if you can do without the missing things like accessory shoe or adapter ring, everyone must know himself. In any case, it makes better images than any larger, more expensive camera, which one does not drive because it is too heavy or too large.
For this size, and this money is a highly recommended product.
