Rebel Filmmaker - View Single Post - Canon HF-S10 vs Sony XR500

Ken Ross · May 14th, 2009, 08:30 AM

Dave, interestingly I found little difference between the SR10 and my HG21. There is no sense in 'upgrading' for what the SR-10 is offering. In fact, I thought color renditon took a step backward and is a bit too cool for my taste. I also found the low light of the 10 to be worse than my HG21. I will say this, Canon has finally solved the 'magenta skies issue' that I've always had with Canon cams. But it appears this comes at the price of a cooler overall color balance.

Darrin, there's a 'trick' in watching the XR footage on your TV as I discovered. Since the Canon is already using some "in-camera sharpening" or so it seems, you can raise the sharpness on your TV when watching the Sony to compensate.

I can raise the sharpness on my 60" Pioneer 9 notches without any signs of edge enhancement or ringing. You can't do that with the Canon footage since it will look far too 'edgy'. When you compare the Canon footage at a default sharpness and the Sony at a raised sharpness on the same display, you'll magically find the difference between the two largely gone.

However, as far as I'm concerned, you are left with a more natural looking image with the Sony. To my eyes the Sony looks more like how I saw the scene than the Canon.

That together with the great low light, better OIS, better sound and the presence of a viewfinder, makes this a pretty easy choice for me. But they are both great cams and I'd be happy with the Canon too if the Sony weren't available.

Lou, I was able to get my hands on the Canon HF-S10 for a day and did some shooting yesterday (both indoors & outdoors). I agree with what you said regarding in-store shooting, but I always check all settings when testing in a store. So I remove that potential for error off the bat. I will say this, even when adjusting the gain settings of the 10 in low light, you simply could not produce an image, anywhere near the quality of the XR. When you limitied the gain at the different settings, you were left with an image that was simply too dark and too desaturated. The Sony gave far better colors and a much brighter image. We could argue about daylight images & relative sharpness, but for low light and even regualar room lighting, the Sony was clearly superior. It also produced a significantly sharper image under these conditions. As I've said, I found the low light to be a step backward from my HG21.

I'll list my comparison thoughts in another post.

May 14th, 2009, 08:30 AM	#18
Ken Ross Trustee Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Plainview, N.Y. Posts: 1,012	Dave, interestingly I found little difference between the SR10 and my HG21. There is no sense in 'upgrading' for what the SR-10 is offering. In fact, I thought color renditon took a step backward and is a bit too cool for my taste. I also found the low light of the 10 to be worse than my HG21. I will say this, Canon has finally solved the 'magenta skies issue' that I've always had with Canon cams. But it appears this comes at the price of a cooler overall color balance. Darrin, there's a 'trick' in watching the XR footage on your TV as I discovered. Since the Canon is already using some "in-camera sharpening" or so it seems, you can raise the sharpness on your TV when watching the Sony to compensate. I can raise the sharpness on my 60" Pioneer 9 notches without any signs of edge enhancement or ringing. You can't do that with the Canon footage since it will look far too 'edgy'. When you compare the Canon footage at a default sharpness and the Sony at a raised sharpness on the same display, you'll magically find the difference between the two largely gone. However, as far as I'm concerned, you are left with a more natural looking image with the Sony. To my eyes the Sony looks more like how I saw the scene than the Canon. That together with the great low light, better OIS, better sound and the presence of a viewfinder, makes this a pretty easy choice for me. But they are both great cams and I'd be happy with the Canon too if the Sony weren't available. Lou, I was able to get my hands on the Canon HF-S10 for a day and did some shooting yesterday (both indoors & outdoors). I agree with what you said regarding in-store shooting, but I always check all settings when testing in a store. So I remove that potential for error off the bat. I will say this, even when adjusting the gain settings of the 10 in low light, you simply could not produce an image, anywhere near the quality of the XR. When you limitied the gain at the different settings, you were left with an image that was simply too dark and too desaturated. The Sony gave far better colors and a much brighter image. We could argue about daylight images & relative sharpness, but for low light and even regualar room lighting, the Sony was clearly superior. It also produced a significantly sharper image under these conditions. As I've said, I found the low light to be a step backward from my HG21. I'll list my comparison thoughts in another post.