Others seem to love this camera, but really, after owning it for a just few days, what could one possibly know? My report is based on a full year's use under all kinds of weather and lighting conditions. There is no in-between rating option, but I actually give the Canon Vixia HV30 two and a half stars.A huge and unforgivable --and easily fixed problem with the Vixia HV30-- is consistently overexposed images and blown-out highlights. Software such as iMovie may compensate somewhat, but certainly cannot correct this flaw. It's impossible for software to create pixels where the Vixia HV30 never did, so don't count on software to save your images --because you shouldn't have to.
Much of my dissatisfaction comes from shooting video of whales from my yard in Hawaii under every imaginable lighting condition. Whales are completely unpredictatable, and when one appears you have to press the record button, or else lose the shot. There is no time for adjustments.
Under average-scene brightly-lit conditions the camera performs well, but in bright sunny conditions, and anywhere near the water it fails with horribly blown-out highlights and by consistently overexposing the entire scene no matter what the weather: sunny, overcast, or gray and stormy. This cannot be easily compensated for, because when set to P for program mode, a lot of fidgeting must be accomplished very quickly before this exposure compensation option disappears from your screen, and you have to start the steps all over again, faster. Very frustrating. This would be bad enough when setting up for a planned shoot, but most good shots are serendipitous grab shots, with no time for complicated adjustments. Whether it's the kids, the dogs, or whales, it's either shoot it, or lose it.
When the P mode's exposure is turned down/darkened to try to compensate for the overexposure-prone HV30, the settings go away when the camera is turned off. There should be an option to set the exposure where we want and leave it there until we want to change it. Or as in the Canon xti, a dial that allows you to instantly dial it down without first going through a dozen adjustments on tiny little buttons. Or, a center-weighted metering option, right at your fingertip.
Another reviewer, "Sounds of Kauai", posted a video that illustrates exactly what I mean: note the first half a dozen shots of turtles and seaside scenes are way too light with the highlights completely blown out.
On a sunny day and zoomed in on people standing in front of dark-colored but sun-lit cliffs, with bright sunlit trees in the same frame, the people are completely blown out as well. The HV30 seems to be way overzealously weighted toward capturing detail in dark areas while overexposing mid range areas and the complete exclusion of any detail in the highlights.
Why does the still camera function allow for adjusting the meter from an averaging meter to center-weighted metering, but not the video? How crazy is that? Flipping a switch to center-weighted metering would solve 95% of my overexposure complaints and allow this camera to be light-years more valuable to all videographers. There's such a button to toggle between auto focus and manual, and another for back lighting compensation, Canon, so what are you dunderheads thinking of anyway?
People who have trouble with the TV remote will bristle at the unintuitive function menu, which after a year still trips me up. And I'm great with the TV remote. To go through a dozen steps to make a simple adjustment is a real negative. The manual is difficult to decipher as well and not clearly written or well presented, and I say that as an author of Hawaii guidebooks, in which I try my best to assume the reader knows nothing about Hawaii, and it's my job to inform, or "teach".
One of the most diabolical problems with the HV 30 is this: when skies are stormy, and the image is almost monochromatic due to absence of color under those conditions, troubling colored artifact fields appear in the scene, with magenta/purple coloring appearing all over the edges of the scene, and cyan/green artifacts in the middle. To view what should be a gorgeous rich monochromatic smorgasbord of grays and silvers in a scene of stormy skies and diamond-colored water with whales spouting in the distance is ruined by the intrusion of large areas of purple artifacts on both sides of the image, and cyan/green artifacts in the middle. These either don't appear in scenes shot under richly colored conditions, or are just not noticeable.
The still camera is a real pain primarily because Canon didn't want to spend fifty cents to include a card that fits the stupid thing, and hunting one down is ridiculously difficult. Also, you must choose between shooting video and shooting stills, even though other makers allow shooting stills while you are recording video.
The eyepiece is absurd, with no cup or sun shield, so when the sun is bright and at either side, or low in front, you cannot see through the viewfinder, much less the little monitor. You're shooting blind. This is an egregious flaw, easily remedied by Canon, so to have this problem not change, apparently, from the HV20 to the HV30 to the HV40 in unforgivable.
Errant sun also can destroy the contrast in your images, so invest in a lens hood; I found one on eBay for $12, expensive for just a piece of plastic, but priceless for improved colors and good contrast. Canon should have included one.
Tapeless = Clueless. Do not run wild with the hard drive-crazed herd. I do like tape: the image is better than on hard drive, people say, but having a tape copy as back up is terrific, and having a full hard drive with no place to download it when you are on vacation or assignment and still need to shoot more stuff is absolute torture. There are lots of ways you can miss a great shot, but a full hard drive has to be the most ridiculous of all.
As a professional photographer on assignment, I've always said I'd rather a thief stole my camera than the film I had just shot, and I feel the same way about video: drop a hard drive camera or lose it, and the masterpiece you shot is gone as well.
Canon VIXIA HV30 MiniDV High Definition Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
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