Canon FS10 review

First, they're usually on cheap camcorders without optical image stabilisation, so the telephoto video tends to be a jittery mess. And second, when you're zoomed out very far, if the subject moves out of the frame, it can be close to impossible to find them and get them back in frame without zooming out. So really, these ultramegatelephoto zoom lenses serve one purpose: to shoot distant, nonmoving subjects from a tripod mount. Hello, stalkers and stakeouts!

Performance
As for the rest, the FS10 performs very well, from the fast, accurate autofocus and speedy autoexposure adjustment, to the solid LCD, which is rather coarse but remains viewable even in direct sunlight. The latter is essential because of the lack of an electronic viewfinder, which is typical for the FS series' class. Like most flash-based models, the battery should also outlast the time required to fill up a 16GB card. Start-up and shutdown are relatively quick, and Canon includes an instant-start standby mode that toggles when you open or close the LCD.

Because the camcorder looks higher-end than its price tag implies, the typical budget video it produces is that much more disappointing. Except when zoomed in, the video looks pretty soft, and like many of its peers, seriously blows out highlights. Most colours tend to look washed-out and orange hues shift. Low-light video is even softer, and relatively noisy. The audio is okay, though the wind filter is pretty ineffective.

Canon bumps the saturation up tremendously for still photos, but they're low resolution -- about 800,000 pixels -- and are suitable only for scaled-down Web use. On the compatibility upside, most software recognises the MPEG-2 MOD files, and we had no problem connecting the camcorder to a current Mac.

Conclusion
Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending upon your perspective -- flash card prices are volatile enough that it's hard to make a recommendation as to which model to buy. Just remember to factor in the cost of a Class 4 or better SD card, though you probably should double-check that it supports a minimum transfer rate of 10Mbps or better, since that's not a given, and figure out which total is cheapest. There's really no advantage to having the memory built in, except for the convenience of not having to make sure a card is fast enough. (In fact, we tend to prefer it not built-in, because then we don't have to worry about making sure the camcorder is recording to the right place.)

Any one of the Canon FS series models -- FS11, FS10 or FS100 -- is a stylish, flexible camcorder that produces serviceable video for its price. The flash-based camcorder market is composed of an odd group of competitors, including the much cheaper straight-to-Web mini models, with the occasional ultracheap HD unit; alas, a real recommendation from among the group will have to wait until we can review some more.

Additional editing by Nick Hide