Customer Ratings & Reviews

Not good. spend a little more and get a different one

The Cannon vixia hf camcorder is good, not great. There is much to like, but much that is just ok. The camcorder has a sleek look and is very lightweight and easy to hold. It is well balanced in terms of weight. Mine is blue in color and looks real cool. I like the color option as it gives an option to the standard black. The 40 times zoom feature is very good. Simply press the button and zoom activates easily and effectively. The video quality is better in light and "ok" in darker areas. The stability seemed a bit shaky, but I need more time with it. That may be me, but I am not sure. The overall image quality is good, yet I expected more because of Cannon's history. The only supplied 8gb internal memory is just passable. Really frustrating that the capacity out of the box is not greater. It means added cost for SD card. Battery life is very good. To watch on TV you will need to connect a mini hdmi cable, not supplied. The fact that it is waterproof is terrific. Same for the shock proof feature. The screen is good. The touch portion is not very responsive. I found I had to press hard to get it to respond. The screen is flippable and good. It also is able to take still photos which is nice. The instructions are passable not great. Go online to Cannon website for a more detailed look and instructions of this camcorder. Why companies do this is mind boggling. I do wish a small carry bag came with camera to carry accessories. If traveling you will need to supply your own carry bag. Seems a small bag would have been nice. Overall this camcorder is good, but not great.

I had a lot of mixed expectations based on everything i read about this product. It turns out it excels in some places and just needs some basic user experience adjusting in others. The product works right out of the box since it has 8gb of internal memory. Definitely enough to play around with and get started, but you’ll need an SD card to do any real work with this device. Additionally, the memory card does not become the default storage method unless you tell the camera to do so, which left me very confused once i went to download my videos and nothing was on the card. Wind reduction controls - on auto by default, but it must require a tornado to activate it. If you’re outside you should likely turn it to ON Instead. Image stabilization really didn’t seem to stabilize much of anything even on its highest setting. I might not have an extremely steady hand but i started to get motion sick trying to watch my video especially when i had zoomed in on a subject. That all being said, you can easily attach to a tripod and get great quality video if you’re willing to put in that level of effort. I’d say the most worrisome feature i encountered was the port cover. It has a separate small button you have to engage to unlock the flap, and then a motion to actually open - this mechanism should just pop open once the lock is pulled because what you really have to do is an unsure slide across that feels like it’s going to break off the door in the process. I’m not really sure what the competition looks like in this category but i think Canon has proven they have years of experience building high quality and feature rich products. I just wish more of that engineering would have went into the design of this one.

For a dedicated video camera, I expected more, but I don't feel like I got much more than a perfectly average video camera. The separating selling point for this over other camcorders is clearly the waterproofing and shock resistance. To support the waterproofing, the touchscreen is pressure sensitive, instead of capacitive (which is used in smartphones). The advantage to this is the water doesn't render the screen unusable, which is good, since apart from the zoom and record buttons, there no other physical controls on this device. So, water never interferes with the use of this camera, which certainly is nice. I never had any issues using this camera underwater (tried creeks, small ponds, and my aquarium) and video always came out nice, and camera never skipped a beat. Some negatives however, is this only records in 60fps, which some may find unnatural looking, and is atypical of most video recording (television and movies are 24-30fps). No option to change this (which would also save space on recordings) is a bit disappointing. Further disappointing, is the lack of the option of a slow motion mode (which having 60fps would be possible). I otherwise found the image quality to be average at best, and the camera was prone to flare and "blooming" from bright light sources. This might be from the protective from "glass" (plastic?) element on the front of the camera to protect the actual lens from the harsh elements they designed this camera for. I suppose this camera is good for a small subset of the population who need a durable camcorder, but a smartphone or an action camera aren't a good option.

Okay product but bad design. Bad location for ports. Uncomfortable hold. Cell phone took better videos.

My mother bought this for me since I was pregnant. I used it for the first year of my childs life and lost all the videos. Same issue others are saying when I copied the videos off the memory card they all came over in pieces, some files I couldnt open, other videos had the voice of another video and was all distorted. I took to Best Buy Geek Squad and they were no help. They were confused on the format and why I couldnt change it to an mp3 or wav instead its some MTS file. I lost my childs 1st year of life because of this piece of junk.

I was so excited to get this camera to use as a taping tool of some old video tapes. I taped them fine but transferring to my computer and getting the files to play was so complicated. When I go to find them on my computer it takes forever to get to them. The worst part is that the files are in a format that my computer won't play and they will not attach to a message so I can send them to friends. Waste of money. Maybe I can sell it on ebay.

I don't get why Canon is lacking so much. I like the idea of this Camcorder is great. The sounds are not good at all. Think about a GoPro with the water case on. The video on the flip out screen is great on this but when you upload it is not the same. I have been looking at video of older Canon camcorder at the R800 is way better than this. I got this because I can shot videos in the rain and snow. I believe this is the worst VIXIA that Canon made.