Canon HF11 review

Canon's new HF11 looks pretty much like any other recent HD camcorder at first glance.

Check the specifications more closely and you'll appreciate just how significant this impressive new AVCHD model really is. For a start, it has no moving parts: it's fully solid state, offering users a choice of recording video and still images to 32GB of internal flash memory or an SDHC memory card. With these cards themselves now available in sizes up to 32GB, you've got up to 64GB of recording capacity without swapping cards. That's 12 hours of HD recording and playback on either medium. You can also copy from one to the other within the camera, which is great for backing up.

The HF11's big 1/3.2 inch CMOS image sensor offers a maximum 3.31 megapixels, and provides 2.07 megapixels in full HD video. The 12x optical zoom lens provides fine manual control, whether shooting in 'Easy' (fully auto) mode or taking manual control of all functions. A mini joystick on the left of the 2.7 inch LCD screen operates a well designed graphical menu system, making navigation and function selection a doddle, and this can also be used to change focus, exposure and sound levels while recording.

Some users will find the joystick fiddly, but they'll get used to it, and this aside, the HF11 (known as the Vixia HF11 outside Europe) offers exceptionally good ergonomics, with all the buttons and controls in the right places. Low light shooting is good, even allowing for the CMOS image sensor, and the external microphone input is a major plus point on a consumer camera.

The HF11 can shoot full 1920x1080p 25fps movies, and play them back directly to an HDTV via the built-in HDMI port or through digital component or analogue video/audio outputs. At 24Mbit/sec, the maximum data rate allowed under the current AVCHD specification, the Canon's images look almost perfect on a good display. That's quite an achievement, and puts the HF11 ahead of the competition - for the time being, at least - even though it's a bit pricey.