Check Out Hi Def                                           Wonders

When we are out on a shoot and our main camera goes bonkers for some reason—be it the fault of the camera or its owner—we reach for our backup. What no backup? Not a problem if you are within striking distance of a city large enough for repair or replaceable sources. The Serengeti may be a problem.

My advice: Buy one of the little Sony, Canon or Panasonic mini High Definition camcorders. The image easily compares with the big HD guys four or five times their cost. The small backups are in the $500-$1,000 box-house range, perhaps a tad more at Best Buy, Sammy’s or wherever.

I ended up with a new Canon Vixia HFM30, but only after I discovered my first choice, a Sony, had no microphone port. The Canon is part of the company’s vaunted Vixia line of flash memory camcorders.

No matter which one you buy, be sure you have two or three days to test the little bugger. While these cameras are so small they will fit into the palm of your hand, the accompanying PDF manual for my HFM30 is a hefty 210 pages—so little, so mighty. So complicated.

The HMF30, like most of these camcorders, has a High Def image sensor—full HD CMOS—that captures video at 1920×1080 pixels. The video is then recorded in HD using AVCHD specs. The image stabilization is excellent—something one might need if not using a tripod for these little guys.

The HFM30 has only 8GB of internal flash memory, while its more expensive big brother, the HMF31, has 32 gigs.  Both cameras have a card slot for additional memory. The camera also has a 15xHD Canon lens, which is fine in low light, better than my old digital Sony.

Any negatives? Yeah. It has no viewfinder, just the LCD screen, which is murder when the sun is behind you. (I liked a Sony with a viewfinder plus the LCD, but it was in the $1,000 range. I paid about $600 for the HFM30 at Best Buy.)

Another negative—for me anyway—is that many of its controls are operated via its extra-wide LCD touch screen. And my thick fingers more often than not touch the wrong subject. I would have the same problem with any of these little cameras.

Still, it’s great for a backup and one you could use in simultaneous shoots. Is it good enough for a full-length shoot? Probably, but the (human) subjects you film with one of these little guys would think you were the rankest of amateurs.

Full High Definition is here—in force.

Here’s a minute or so of footage I shot with the Vixia at How Much Is that Lion in the Window.How Much Is that Lion in the Window