Canon HF11

We really liked the HF10, Canon's first memory-card based camcorder, and this HF11 is a simple update of that product.

Two new features have arrived along the way: a 24 Mbit/s mode and twice as much memory: 32 GB instead of 16 GB.

Handling

The Canon HF11 will definitely be a hit with those looking for something small, light and easy to use.

It's compact enough to slide into a large pocket and robust enough to rattle around inside a bag.

Although miniature, it's not so small as to be difficult to use, though, and all of the buttons are within easy reach.

All told, 'running' the HF11 is easy enough, especially given the presence of an 'Easy' mode which does away with the need to bother with many of the settings.

If you want to tweak the settings yourself, though, you can do so using the interface on the LCD screen.

Measuring 2.7'' with 210 000 pixels, it could do with having a slightly higher resolution, especially given there's no separate viewfinder.

The menus themselves are well thought-out and it doesn't take long at all to get your head around this camcorder.

A few nice little details help, including a small LED lamp that can illuminate night scenes provided the detail is close enough, as well as jacks for both headphones and mic.

Powering it on is quick, and the Quick Start function allows you to start shooting straight away, providing you've left the camera on standby.

The camcorder has 32 GB of flash memory built in, and it's possible to expand this with the aid of an SDHC card.  Altogether, the maximum capacity is 64 GB.

With the internal memory alone, you can record around 175 minutes of video in the highest possible quality, or around 250 minutes using FXP mode, which occupies 17 Mbit/s.  Either way, the battery will only give you around an hour of freedom before it needs charging.


Video Quality

The HF11 captures video at a resolution of 1920 x 1090 using the AVCHD standard.

Like Panasonic, Canon has adopted the High-Profile version of this technology, which allows for a different encoding of each frame according to how complex it is.

This, however, is the first flash memory camcorder to use the maximum bandwidth allowed by AVCHD, 24 Mbit/s, and we talk about whether that's really necessary here.

In the studio, the HF11 produces excellent video, and images are sharp with an impressive level of detail.

Colors are sometimes a little too saturated, a problem which seems to effect reds, greens and blues equally.

To achieve a more neutral effect, you can try the HF11's Cinema mode.

Finally, to avoid the shimmery effect of interlaced video, this is one of the few camcorders that's capable of recording at exactly 25 frames per second.

It does a reasonable job, but there is nevertheless a certain jerkiness that makes the HF11 unsuitable for professional use.

When light levels fall, the HF11 does well, but there's far too much chromatic aberration in darker areas, although detail levels remain high.

The automatic white balancing is a touch too warm for our liking, but the optical image stabilization is very powerful and means you can make the most out of the 12x zoom.