Canon Legria HF G10 review

The HF G10 is Canon’s top-of-the-range camcorder, and the most expensive we’ve seen of this year’s crop. It takes a different approach to capturing digital video to Panasonic’s high-end HDC-SD900 – instead of separate 1/4.1in sensors for red, green and blue light, the HF G10 has a single, larger 1/3in sensor. The sensor also has just 2.37 megapixels, compared to the 3.05 on each of the Panasonic’s three sensors.

The less densely packed sensor has two effects on video quality. As there are fewer pixels, the camcorder catches less detail overall. Daylight footage had fairly accurate colours, but was generally soft – it had none of the sharpness of the SD900’s video, and didn’t jump out of our PC’s screen in the same way. There was little noise, though – something which was even more evident in low-light shots, where the HF G10’s clear footage made even the SD900’s video look noisy. The HF G10’s lens has a 35mm equivalent focal length of 30.4-304mm, compared to the SD900’s 35-420mm, so has a significantly wider field of view.

The HF G10 may be £600 more expensive than the SD900, but you can see where some of the money has gone. Canon’s camcorder has 32GB of built-in storage, plus you can supplement this with memory cards in the twin SDXC card slots.

The main LCD has a huge 922,000 pixels, compared to the SD900’s 460,800. The camera also feels like a quality item. It’s relatively heavy and is made of tough-feeling matte plastic, and everything from the display’s hinge to the focus ring has a heavy-duty feel.

Unlike the SD900’s multi-purpose ring, the ring around the HF G10’s lens is strictly for manual focus mode. You have to access the other functions through the touchscreen, apart from some exposure settings, which you can change with a thumbwheel on the left of the battery. The focus assist mode works well; the camcorder zooms in to the centre of your image, and the screen’s high resolution makes it easy to make everything sharp. The electronic viewfinder is comfortable to use and clear, it extends outward but doesn’t swivel upwards.

There’s a microphone input for external mics, essential for serious use, though the inbuilt mic sounded pretty impressive. There’s also Canon’s proprietary Mini Advanced Shoe, which can take Canon-branded microphones and lights without any additional cabling.

We missed some of the SD900’s functions – particularly the fine zoom control buttons next to the screen. There was one extra button that really blew us away, though – the one marked ‘Powered IS’ on the bottom-left of the screen. While the camcorder’s image stabilisation couldn’t quite match the heights of the rock-steady SD900, pressing the button at full zoom cut out almost all camera shake. The only problem is the button’s position on the far edge of a large screen – the lever effect means that pressing it always results in a slight rotation of the camera to the right, which is noticeable at high zoom levels.

There’s a lot to like about Canon’s HF G10, from its high-quality construction to excellent screen and impressive low-light performance. Its image quality suffers by comparison with the Panasonic HDC-SD900, though, which remains our favourite high-end camcorder.