Hi, I am looking at retiring our family miniDV camera and selling my DVX100B. I do not have a big budget, so here are my questions. It looks like the main difference between the HF S11, HF S10 and the HF S100 is that the S11 has a internal 64gb memory, the S10 has 32gb and the S100 has done. Are there really any other differences that I am missing?

The next question is comparing one of these with the Panasonic HDC-TM300. It seems to be the equal of the HF S10 as far as both having internal 32gb memory. Also, it looks like the TM300 does not do 24p, which I know some of you don't like. But, with some of the things I do I use 24p (with my DVX). Any comments here?

I have viewed footage, and thank those that have posted footage in this forum and have been impressed with footage that I have seen over all these cameras. One thing that I am trying to do is justify the cost difference of $1,000 (HF S100), $1,300 (HF S10 & TM300) and $1,400 (HF S11).

Thanks for you advise and comments.

I sold my DVX100A and bought the HF-S100. I like it a lot. Really sharp, vivid image. You do have to get used to not having all the manual control of the DVX. I've settled down to just shooting everything in 60i in automatic mode. In dark situations you have to experiment. Leaving the gain on auto will add grain in dark situations. When you shoot 24P it will actually be in a 29.97 format. You have to be able to do the frame pull down trick to get actual 24P on your timeline. These consumer HD cams aren't going to be as able as the DVX in low light but mine does pretty well playing with the manual gain and shutter speeds. What they do offer is a big detailed great image in HD, especially in good light.

Hey David,

Thanks for the reply. I am sure that is true about the manual controls. Although, most of my filming is in control areas and I would think that would help. Thanks for the heads up about the 24p. That's what I have to do now with my DVX.

I have also been thinking about a 35mm adapter like the Jag35. Have you used any with these cameras?

Thanks,

Bryan

No, I haven't done any 35mm adapter stuff. There are some videos on Vimeo with guys using the HF camcorders with adapters though.

I don't know if this will help at all, but I use an XH-A1 and I borrowed a HG20 to use as a safety camera. The quality was ok on auto, but not having the easy access to manual controls was a pain.

One issue I had was that it was not clear what setting to set recording at. Instead of giving me SD, HD 1080i, and HD1080p, it gave me mbps selections which I wasn't prepared for. I ended up recording at the highest resolution. But I only briefly read the manual and used it for a day. I'm sure more careful inspection of the manual or some experimenting can get you what you need.

The only other issue I had was that Final Cut for me didn't easily recognize the camera's hard drive. I had to get it back to the person I borrowed it from the following morning, so I just had iMovie ingest it and threw the .MOV's into FCP later.

I don't know if that helped at all, but that's my experience with Canon's smaller camcorders.