Canon Legria HF-S21

Review: Canon Legria HF-S21

Canon’s flagship Legria HF S21 offers full 24Mbps 1920×1080 HD video recording plus 25P progressive scan video and is already grabbing the attention of serious videomakers. But can it improve on its predecessors?

What many serious camcorder enthusiasts tell us they like about HF S21 is its robustness and, cool, ready-for-action looks.

Yes, it’s also quite heavy and won’t easily fit into the pocket of your shorts when you saunter along to the beach, but then again the target user for these more feature-rich AVCHD models are probably not intending to get them covered in sand or sea water.

The upper-end Legria models are aimed at serious users who look for not only high image and sound quality but also a level of functionality not found on your average pocket-cam. And that helps to explain why they cost a lot more money, too.

Rugged good looks: Canon's LEGRIA HF S21 AVCHD Camcorder

The solid build quality of the HF-S21 and its HF-S20 sibling, together with improved ergonomics and stability, are what will attract the attention of users looking for a semi-professional HD video production tool; they’re the kind of people who will be using a range of camera accessories like external microphones, headphones and good, solid tripods.

Professional standard features

Look at the official specifications from Canon and you’ll quickly discover that its stylish black body houses a single 1/2.6” 8.5 MP CMOS image sensor, a Canon HD video lens with 10x optical zoom and DIGIC DV III, the company’s proprietary image processing engine. And that’s not all. The so-called “twin memory media” camera gives users the choice of recording either to its built-in 64GB flash memory or to one of two SDHC memory cards, each with their own slot. With maximum SDHC card capacities currently running at 32GB, that gives the user a potential 128GB of storage for movies and still images. Unlike Panasonic’s HDC-TM700, there’s no support for SDXC cards, however.

The HF S21 does offer “relay recording”, meaning that if one of the available storage media fills up, the device will continue recording onto another available one automatically and seamlessly.

Five HD video recording modes are on offer, ranging from the 5Mbps, 1440×1080 “LP” mode at the lower end to a 17Mbps, 1920×1080 “FXP” mode as well as 24Mbps, 1920×1080 “”MXP” mode at the top end. Users should note that clips shot at 24Mbps may not be playable when playing back as “AVCHD movies” on certain DVD devices. We should also mention that it has a viewfinder, too – but the small 0.27” LCD has a fixed position and therefore has limited use.

There’s a host of standard features like PreREC (the camera continually caches 3 seconds of recording even when in standby in order that you don’t miss an unexpected action), multiple Face Detection, a built-in ability to trim clips or build playlists in-camera, fast start, and so on.

These are supplemented by enthusiasts’ must-have features like an external microphone input, headphone output and a good level of manual control over all main operations thanks to its Control dial which sits snug to the large 58mm diameter lens barrel. All models in the Legria range have been given a brand new and very attractive menu system, but is reliant upon the use of the the camera’s 3.5”, 922K pixel touch-screen LCD to navigate

Touch-screen navigation

Whilst the screen itself produces fine pictures from many viewing angles, it’s not as responsive to touch as it should be, whilst the menu system could do with being a bit more intuitive. A good example of the latter is of the so-called Powered OIS (optical image stabilisation) utility. Without reading the manual, it’s almost impossible for a first-time user to figure out how to disable it. And, of course, a manual didn’t come with our early review sample.

Conclusion

When it comes to the quality of recordings there’s no doubt that the HF S21 is a stunner. Shooting in 17Mbps as well as 24Mbps modes produces superb Full HD clips even when recording in Auto. By switching to Manual and rummaging your way around the touch-screen menu to select its PF25 “Cine Mode”, you’ll see beautifully-rendered shots when playing back via HDMI on a good display or when ingesting into your preferred AVCHD-capable Windows or Mac editing application. Even movement looks good when shooting 25P.

Summary: Canon Legria HF-S21 AVCHD Camcorder

• AVCHD Full-HD 1920 x 1080 24Mbps recording
• Built-in 64GB Memory and twin SDHC memory card slots
• 10x Optical Zoom and 1/2.6” 8.5 MP CMOS image sensor
• Pre-Rec and Relay Recording
• 3.5in Touch-Screen LCD interface

With the price of high-capacity memory cards cheaper than ever, it’s debatable whether its 64GB built-in memory is as much of a selling point as it would have been two years ago despite its usefulness. That aside, the HF S21 is a fabulous addition to the Canon AVCHD range. It has the full set of features most sought-after by serious – and even professional – users and produces output that will be difficult to match at this price-point.

Find what others think of this product over at Testfreaks.co.uk

Words: Colin Barrett, SimplyDV. Image supplied by Canon UK.

See larger image Canon LEGRIA HF S21 High Definition Digital Camcorder - Black (10 X Optical Zoom, 3.5 Inch Touch-screen LCD) (Electronics) Release date April 9, 2010.