Canon Vixia HF R11 – Inexpensive Camcorder With Mic And Headphone Jacks

We loved:

The Canon Vixia HF R11 comes with headphone and mic jacks, which is really rare in this class and the camcorder has a pretty practical and simple design.

We hated:

The Canon Vixia HF R11’s battery life is below the accepted standard, the camcorder delivers poor color accuracy and low-light performance and the lens of the camcorder focuses really slow.

Introduction:

The Canon Vixia HF R11 belongs to the entry-level Vixia HF R series of Canon’s “high-definition” camcorders, and the camcorder offers a lot to like about it. Some of the features that we liked in particular were its practical and simple interface, its headphones and mic jacks, which are rare in this class. But despite all these features to like about, these camcorders reminds us of early days of HD camcorders when everyone was focusing on the up converting from 1440 x 1080 pixels resolution, either in software or hardware, to the actual HD 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and were using the old comparatively slow low-resolution sensors.

Build and Design:

Considering every single thing about the design of Canon Vixia HF R11, we must say that there is a lot of like about its design and features. The camcorder has a very basic yet, sturdy design, which is superior to its expensive Vixia siblings in more than one way. The LCD recess of the camcorder hosts the membrane button for the camcorder, which lets you Toggle in between the playback and capture modes; take 2, 4 or 8 second video “snapshots;” allows down converting the video from HD to standard definition for wireless uploading through an Eye-Fi card (Web); and playback options and control display. We particularly liked the connector layout, having the USB, Mini-HDMI, headphone and mic jacks and components are all positioned at the rear end of the camcorder. One of the unique features for the camcorder is its external headphone and mic jacks, which we haven’t seen in camcorders of this price range and this is what makes this camera catchy for the education market. The camcorder lacks an accessory shoe, though; there definitely is no place on the camcorder for attaching the mic.

Specifications:

Manufacturer: Canon
Part Number: 4383B001

Price: $559.00 – $699.99
Product Type: Camcorder – 1080p
Weight: 9.5 oz
Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 2.4 x 4.9 x 2.5 inches
LCD size: 2.7 inch

Optical Sensor Type: CMOS
Shooting Modes: Digital photo mode
White balance: Custom, Automatic and Presets
Supported Flash Memory: 32 GB Flash Integrated
White Balance Presets: Cloudy, Shade, Tungsten light, Daylight, Fluorescent light (warm white) and Fluorescent light (cool white)
Exposure Modes: Manual,   Automatic and Program
Peripheral Devices: USB port & CD-ROM drive
Software: Drivers & Utilities and Pixela ImageMixer 3SE
Cables Included: 1, 1 x USB cable, 1 x A/V cable and Component video cable
Connector Type: 1 x Composite audio/video output, 1 x Component video output, 1 x Microphone, 1 x HDMI, 1 x Headphones and 1 x USB
Additional Features: Face detection ,   Direct print ,   PictBridge support ,   24p Cinema Mode ,   RGB primary color filter ,   USB 2.0 compatibility ,   Dolby Digital AC-3 (2 channel) recording  and Takes photos while movie recording
Shooting Programs: Snow, Cine, Sunset, Beach, Low light, Fireworks, Night scene, Spotlight, Portrait mode and Sports mode
Included Accessories: USB interface cable, Stereo video cable, Battery pack, Compact power adapter and Component cable
Peripheral Devices: USB port and CD-ROM drive
Shooting Programs: Snow, Cine, Sunset, Beach, Low light, Fireworks, Night scene, Spotlight, Portrait mode and Sports mode
Supported Battery: Canon BP-2L5
Battery Type: 1 x Canon BP-2L5 Li-ion rechargeable battery

Performance:

Considering the modest price of the camcorder (yes, the camcorder definitely is not dirt cheap) the performance delivered here was satisfactory, although, we already has our expectations very low. The video shot from the camcorder looked a tad better than what we expected. The color accuracy of the camcorder was somewhat poor and the camcorder can not reproduce the red hues. But the video shot in decent lighting condition was pleasing and saturated. The image quality of the camcorder was really bad in the poor or even in dim lightening conditions. Even at the highest quality settings there were plenty of compression artifacts and noise. So, although the performance was decent here, but there still were plenty of problems with the camcorder.

Another performance downer for the camcorder is its short battery life of around 45 minutes. The battery life problem has affected all the Canon’s 2010 Vixia models. Though,  there are some pluses as well, one of them is the lens of the camcorder with doesn’t incur fringing like many of the other cheap camcorder lenses do and the autofocus for the camcorder is also accurate and reasonably fast in good light, though we would have loved to see it focusing a little closer.

Expert Comments:

At max what you will get from the modestly priced Canon Vixia HF R11 is decent video. Hence, if you want great HD video, and that too at affordable prices then keep looking. Although, the availability of headphone and mic jacks, in this lowly priced model makes it somewhat considerable deal.