Customer Reviews

Canon VIXIA HF M30 Full HD Camcorder with 8GB Flash Memory

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Length:: 4:14 Mins

Positives:
Fits in the palm of your hand.
Great image quality.
Powerful manual adjustments.
Helpful image stabilization.

Negatives:
Low battery life on the standard battery.
Touch screen takes some getting used to.

Notes:
I used the Canon PowerShot SX20IS to film the shots of the camera.
If the internal memory isn't enough for you, you may want to consider buying a class 6 or higher card with at least 8 GB of memory. I used the Panasonic 8 GB High Speed 22MB/s SDHC Class 10 Memory Card.

Let me start of by saying I normally wouldn't give something a 5 star rating, but this camera has so far exceeded all my expectations.

The video quality is excellent. The zoom is great. The image stabilization is amazing. It has a button you can press to increase it even further and even zoomed in at 15x, I was able to get a very steady picture.

Where the camera has truly exceeded my expectations is underwater. I got the case Canon sells for this and have used it diving the past two days and its been awesome. The quality underwater is just as good as above! The camera has an underwater mode which is truly color corrects things underwater. They even realize that you may want to record above water and give you a way to switch between underwater mode and above water (boat) mode with the camera in the case. Buying the camera and the underwater case is not much more then buying a case from other 3rd party vendors either, so the value was huge for me.

There's really nothing negative I can say, other then the touch screen takes some getting used to. In comparison to previous models, such as the HF100 which I also own, they've really improved a lot of issues, such as slow switching between modes or slowness issues with taking stills while recording video.

Bottom line - If you want a great High Def Camcorder at a good price with the ability to get one of the least expensive underwater cases available, then this is the camera for you. Even if you aren't interested in underwater recording, its a great camera out of the water too!

I did research for 2 months before I bought this camera. I was confused between Canon Vixia HF200 and Vixia HF M30 but finally I selected Vixia HF M30 on the following grounds.
1. HF200 is an older model in comparison to HF M30.
2. After reading the specs on Canon website of each camera and comparing it to each other both are same.
3. HF M30 has 8 gb internal memory while HF200 has none.
4. HF M30 is cheaper in price than HF200.
5. HF M30 has sleek looks and nice touch screen While HF200 has no touch screen.
6. HF M30 has Dynamic Image stabilizer While HF200 has a regular Image stabilizer.
7. HF M30 has 5.1-channel(with optional Canon SM-V1 5.1-Channel Surround Microphone)on the other hand HF200 has 2 channel audio system.
8. HF M30 can take class 10 SDHC memory card, many owner of HF200 in their reviews said that their HF200 gives an error of buffer over flow when they put class 10 memory card in their camera.
9. Canon is concerned more about their new models than their old model that's why they are giving constant firmware updates for HF M30 on the other hand HF200 has no firmware update available since its release.
10. I love the manual focus of Vixa HF M30 some owner of HF200 complained about the manual focus of HF200.

I hope these points will help the amateur consumers like me to choose the camera which fits their needs and Who are confused between HF M30 and HF200.
Video quality of the camera is amazingly crystal clear, before any of you guys want to buy a camera I would recommend them to watch the videos shot by that camera on youtube. In low light the picture become grainy but I don't care about that If some one want camera for a low light they should buy the one with infrared lights. Every camera has this issue even professional camera which cost 4000 dollars.

The Canon VIXIA HF M30 HD Camcorder is Full HD 1080 with a great HD CMOS chip inside. It has 5 recording modes, so that you can lower your resolution and record longer. With your built-in 8GB's of memory, you can record 43m on the highest quality MXP of 24 Mbps (which is stunning). At its lowest, called Long Play (5Mbps) you can record 2h59m. You will need to charge your battery no matter what though, as the one it comes with lasts about an hour.

It has lots of functions when switched to manual. You can record in portrait mode, that detects faces, and eliminates red eye, and softens features and softens the background. You can swith to Sports for a faster shutter speed. And being that some of the best scenes of the day are at sunset and sunrise, you want a camcorder that can record in low lights and the M30 can, with the Night scene record option. It is so difficult to find a camera that can do this well. Either camera's shoot footage that is way too grainy and noisy, or else it doesn't at all. You can shoot magnificent sunsets with this camera! But it doesn't have nightvision, as you see so much in movies like "rec."

Then you have the bright, and vivid Beach setting, which is really good for shooting water and skies with or just enjoy more color. You also have a funtion for Sunset, which is best for shooting incredible looking sunsets. You get a dreamy, pinkish, purply, sunset with heavenly details. The last record function is Snow, and it lowers the lighting so you don't have whiteouts and amplifies the coolness of winter.

I personally love the touch LCD screen, and found it a major selling point. The lesser models had really small buttons to press and a flimsy analogue stick to navigate with. But at first, you may struggle, as you have to slid-up on the screen to navigate down lists, but no serious problem, it's inverted. It's sensitive, and you don't have to hit it hard, but down the road, I wonder if the slide with get too sensitve and skip over too quickly my tabs. No problems with it yet.

In manual mode, you can control the focus, mic level, exposure, shutter, aperture and whether or not you want to use cinema mode. Cinema shoots a strong amber look when under house lamps and is a fun creative tool for you to have fun with in absolutely gorgeous HD.

Sound is a really important thing for me and this camcorder has some good built in Dolby digital stereo creator. But no matter what camcorder you buy, any mic attatched to the camera is going to pick up vibrations, and make wind sound like thunder. You need a seperate mic that fits onto the mini advanced shoe and has a sock. I recommendCanon 2591B002 DM-100 Directional Stereo Microphone for HF/HG Series Camcorders as it runs off the camera's battery and you won't have cables running from the side of it.

Another really fun device, that I discovered to be invaluable was the wireless controller. You can turn the camera off and on, start, stop, pause recordings, and zoom while recording and if you need to you can navigate through menu's. It comes with its own battery and is ready to go out of the box!

I was not happy with the programs that came with this awesome camcorder though. In order to put music in your video's, audio files need to be in Wave, and editing is not easy, and wastes your time. I really don't like how you have to have your M30 plugged into the charger while attempting to work with some of the editing functions of PIXELA.

Once out of the box, you will need to charge your battery for about 2.5 hours and then set the date and time, then install three discs. Your instructions are mainly on PDF.

The VIXIA HF M30 is an awesome camera, probably the best under $700, with really good funtions and a lense that gives you beautiful results. It won't take up all of your computers memory either, unlike the $1000 semi-professional camcorders, but its quality is still first rate. It gives you the option to be very creative as an artist, and fits the needs for your vLoging if you want to take it to the next level. I adore this camera and am so glad I didn't cheat myself by buying a $300 dollar camera with a garbage lense.

My CANON VIXIA HF-M30 -- Works with 09 iMac/iMovie version 8.0.5 !!!

I've been looking all over for a camcorder that works with my Mac... I've read many reviews about many camcorder incompatibility issues, but this one has NO problem connecting with my MAC. My computer recognizes it automatically... no extra programs or downloads needed. I looked on apples site before I bought this camcorder to see what was compatible iMovie 08([...]) and iMovie 09([...]). I found it on the list for the iMovie 09, but seems to work just fine with iMovie 08 as well.

-side note.... make sure you invest in an extra battery and if you can afford it.. a charger as well. The one that comes with this will get you maybe an hours worth of video and takes 2.5hrs to charge through your camcorder. So, you might want to purchase another canon battery that will get you as much as 3hrs.
*Canon BP-819 Lithium Ion Battery Pack for HF10, HF100 HF S & HF M Camcorders
*Canon 2590B002 CG-800 Lithium Ion Battery Charger for 800 Series Batteries

The image quality will blow you away. If you use the auto mode to shoot in dim light, the image is not as good. But, the camera gives you the abiltiy to adjust the aperature and frames per second. If you open the lens, and slow down the frame rate, you can record in dim light without a problem.
HERE ARE SOME THINGS I LOVE ABOUT THIS CAMERA
You can record in full 1080p HD (AVCHD)
It has face detection and will adjust the focus as your subject moves.
It will record at 60, 30 and 24 frames per second. (24 is used for a "cinema movie" appearance)
It has good image stabilzaion.
It has external micriphone and A/V jacks. (along with the composite, USB and HDMI output jacks)
It takes snapshop photos. (and can take photos during video recording)
It has 15x OPTICAL zoom.
You can record to the internal memory, or SD card. (a setting that remains the same at the next power up)
If you don't have a fast SD card, you can record full HD to the internal memory and then transfer the file to the slower SD card.
It will downconvert 1080 files to 720 (necessary if you dont have a blu-ray recorder)

It has a menu driven touch screen that takes some getting used to. But, you do have the option to change to a larger font which makes using the screen MUCH easier. The touch screen funcions properly if you add a screen protector.

I have not used the software. Canon's software is ususally basic with limited features. I simply transfer the files to my computer and use my favorite editing program. (this way I don't have to learn a different program for every point and shoot, DSLR, and video camera I own)

The camera comes with a 50 page quick start guide that covers the basics. Some people might not realize the full owners manual (210 pages) is on the disk. If you don't print the entire manual, you won't know how to adjust for different conditions or how to manage the memory and files. (I believe this is the cause for a few negative reviews)

If you want to watch your videos on TV (straight from the camera) you will need to buy a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable. They can be found on Amazon for a few dollars.

Summary: I love this camera and if it were lost or stolen I would buy the exact same model.

It takes spectacular video and good pictures...if the lighting is right. Outdoor sunny shots look amazing. I got good video/pix with midday sun streaming into the house. Evening indoor videos/pix with only fluorscent lighting was OK. I think all cameras will suffer if the lighting isn't good enough so I don't consider this a knock on this camera. The ability to take still pictures while videoing sounds nice but if you again don't have good lighting the stills are grainy. Flash won't flash while videoing.
The touch screen interface is difficult. You drag your nail up and down the screen to line up the setting you want to adjut. Your finger is also in the way of what you want to view so you have to get used to recongizing what you want with only part of the text. With practice though it can be navigated but I still overshoot the setting regularly. Luckily I only adjust settings intermittently so the frustration is at a minimum. The only regular usage will be to access your saved videos/pix. It would have been nice if they could have repurposed the zooming toggle switch and any of the other buttons to navigate the menus.
Image stabilization works great. It does compensate well for the minor movements that may come about from the inevitable arm fatigue and position readjustments from holding the camera in a stable position. I find that I want the image stabilization on all the time, you can switch it on and off but if you power off it automatically turns off which is annoying. Similarly I was frustrated that the option of the camera switching from the installed memory that has become full to a memory card isn't saved either; it actually switches off when you close the monitor or power off. Why wouldn't this be a constant setting?
The small size is good and bad. It can fit easily into my pocket. It however gets uncomfortable to hold at times because you have to cup it partially with your palm. My wrist and dorsal part of my hand gets sore because it has to be in prolonged extension.
The included Imageviewer software is useful only because it creates snapshots of your video on your computer so you can see what the video is without having to open it. I don't get this snapshot when importing with Roxio. Also the AVCHD file won't play in WMP 12 unless I import it with Imageviewer. The port for the USB cable is covered by this molded rubber cover which needs to be meticulously realigned to close. This is annoying b/c it's a frequently used part of the camera. Should have stuck it on the side that gets covered by the monitor.
Despite these shortcomings I'm still happy with the features for the price ($540 online with no tax and free shipping). I think $800+ for a higher level camera is too much to pay for my casual usage. I wanted to save money for the tripod, extra battery, extra SD cards. I also had to buy another computer to handle the AVCHD files. My Intel Core Duo 1.87Ghz, 1GB RAM, 320GB HDD just wouldn't cut it. Playback was choppy, Roxio 2009 was slow and freezed several times. I had to convert to MPEG 2 or 4 just to make DVD's smoothly. I'm also expecting I will probably need to buy a Blu-ray writer because the files are so big. Also most likely will need a PS3 to playback the ACVHD files. No sense in buying a HD camera unless you got all the secondary devices to burn, play these files.

I have now owned this camcorder for a couple weeks. I love everything about it except the Pixela software it came with. The software gives an error message every time I try to import the videos from the camcorder to my computer, which is frustrating because I have tried everything I can think of to resolve the problem.

Other than that, the experience has been very positive. The touch screen takes a little getting used to, but once I got a handle on it, I found it much more appealing than a traditional menu toggle.

I plan to revisit this review and update after I have gotten the software issues resolved.

I have been looking for a camcorder for quite some time. After several months of looking through many reviews, I decided to choose the Cannon M30. I am happy with my decision. The camcorder is smaller than I expected, which takes time to get use to it. All functions are touch screen. So far the only issue I have with it is that the manual is in PDF format requiring you to print it out (220 pages). If you are debating about it...stop...go buy it. You will be happy with it.

Length:: 2:21 Mins

Been using the Canon Vixia HF M30 for about two weeks now it's been great so far, some night shots from the Canon HF M30, it's has pretty good image quality in low light. if you set it right,i use Night Mode or Cine Mode to get less noise in the video,feel free to Comment or if you have any questions