General Features
Video Camcorder Features
Digital Still Camera Features
Battery Information
Inputs And Outputs
Software Requirements

General Features

Overview: The Canon VIXIA HF S100 Flash Memory camcorder shoots high definition video or digital photos that can be stored on an SD or SDHC Memory Card (not included). With a 32GB SDHC Memory Card, you can store up to nearly 3 hours of HD Video at the highest resolution.

2.7" Widescreen LCD Screen: The HF S100 features a 2.7" TFT, color widescreen LCD screen (211,000 pixels) to make it easy to compose and review your shots. The bright screen lets you see exactly what your camcorder is recording, and what your widescreen TV will display later. You can rotate the LCD screen 90-degrees downward and 180-degrees toward the lens allowing the subject to monitor the LCD screen. The LCD screen also features an adjustable brightness control. The LCD Screen's frame contains zoom, playback and menu controls for added convenience.

Note: This camcorder does not feature a separate viewfinder.

SD/SDHC Memory Cards: The Canon HF S100 camcorder captures video and still-image footage onto an SD or SDHC media card (sold separately). Flash memory offers quick response time for recording and playback. By recording onto flash memory, the camcorder's power consumption rate is reduced, allowing the battery to last longer. In addition, by using flash memory, the camcorder is more shock resistant and is less likely to lose data because there are no moving parts. A Class 2 or higher SD card (64MB-2 GB) or SDHC card (4 GB to 32 GB) is recommended. Movie recordings require cards with 128 MB of memory or more. (Canon recommends using a card with a speed class no higher than Class 6.)

Image Sensor: The HF S100 features a 1/2.6" CMOS image sensor with approximately 8,590,000 gross pixels for excellent detail and clarity when recording video and exceptional digital still photography performance. The effective pixel count is as follows:

• Movies: approximately 6,010,000 pixels
• Movies (using Digital Tele-Converter): approximately 2,070,000 pixels
• Photos (L, M, S): approximately 8,020,000
• Photos (LW, MW): approximately 6,010,000 pixels

DIGIC DV III: DIGIC DV III, Canon's most advanced HD image processor, delivers enhanced image quality, true color production for both video and photos, and a sophisticated noise reduction system for exceptional low-light performance. Its high-speed engine powers the 8-Megapixel photo capture, 6-Megapixel Simultaneous Photo Recording, Advanced Auto Exposure system and the Genuine Canon Face Detection. DIGIC DV III allows continuous shooting of digital photos, faster processing to the memory card, as well as lower power consumption for longer battery life.

Genuine Canon Video Lens: The HF S100 comes with a Genuine Canon 10x HD video lens with a 10x Optical zoom and selectable 40x or 200x total digital zoom. Its Super Spectra Coating technology gives you images with minimal flare and ghosting. The built-in 1.7x digital teleconverter provides an extended telephoto range, while retaining image quality.

Zoom Speed: The zoom speed can be set to variable or one of three fixed speeds. In the variable position, the zoom speed depends on how far you push the lever. The purpose of the three fixed zoom speeds is a smoother zoom transition, at your choice of speeds.

Optional Lens Attachments: The lens has a 58mm diameter thread for attaching optional converters and filters. The optional WD-H58 wide-converter lens decreases focal length by a factor of 0.7, giving you a wide perspective for indoor shots or panoramic views. The optional TL-H58 tele-converter increases the focal length of the camcorder by a factor of 1.5.

SuperRange Optical Image Stabilizer: Canon's innovative SuperRange Optical Image Stabilization combines gyro- and image-sensors to give image stabilization through a wider range of camera motions. SuperRange OIS corrects the fast vibration you'd experience from a moving car, the medium-speed motion of hand-held recording, or the slower motion of body sway.

x.v.Color: The camcorder can be set to x.v.Color to record video that uses a color space with an extended gamut to achieve deeper colors, closer to real life. Video recorded with x.v.Color can only be played back properly on HDTVs compatible with x.v.Color via an HDMI cable.

Video Snapshot: The camcorder's Video Snapshot mode lets you shoot a series of short 4-second video clips, then combines them with a pre-recorded music track or your own favorite music track, to create an entertaining movie.

Instant Auto Focus (AF): The HF S100 offers Instant Auto Focus, which uses an external sensor, in combination with Canon's auto focus system, to help significantly decrease the time it takes to focus, even in low light situations. The Focus Assist feature provides a 2x magnification of your subject in the LCD monitor before you start recording. When recording begins, the Focus Assist is canceled.

Face Detection: The camcorder can automatically detect people's faces and use this information to adjust the focus and set the best exposure and color control settings for beautiful videos and photos. When there are a number of people in the picture, one person will be determined to be the main subject. You can also select the main subject manually.

Auto Exposure: Similar to Canon's EOS DSLR cameras, the HF S100 features an Advanced Auto Exposure (AE) System. For those instances when backlit subjects appear too dark or strongly lit subjects appear too bright, you can adjust the exposure manually, or use automatic backlight correction. Programmed AE modes include:

• Programmed AE: the camcorder automatically adjusts the aperture and shutter speed to obtain the optimal exposure for the subject.
• Shutter-Priority AE: the camcorder automatically sets the appropriate aperture value while you set the shutter speed:
  • Video Mode: 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, and 1/2000
  • Photo Mode: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, and 1/500
• Aperture-Priority AE: the camcorder automatically sets the appropriate shutter speed while you set the aperture value. You can choose from the following aperture values: F1.8, F2.0, F2.4, F2.8, F3.4, F4.0, F4.8, F5.6, F6.7 and F8.0.

Special Scene Recording Modes: The HF S100 features the following Preset Scene Recording Modes to match special conditions:

• Portrait: camcorder uses a large aperture, achieving a focus on the subject while blurring other distracting details
• Sports: use this mode to record sports scenes or fast moving events
• Night: use this mode to record in low-light conditions
• Snow: use this mode to record in bright ski resorts, it prevents the subject from being underexposed
• Beach: use this mode to record on a sunny beach, it prevent the subject from being underexposed
• Sunset: use this mode to record sunsets in vibrant colors
• Spotlight: use this mode to record spotlight scenes
• Fireworks: use this mode to record fireworks

White Balance: The camcorder's white balance system helps you accurately reproduce colors under different lighting conditions so that white objects will always look truly white in your recordings. You can choose from the following modes:

• Automatic: the camcorder automatically sets the white balance for natural looking colors
• Daylight: to record outdoors on a bright day
• Shade: to record in shaded places
• Cloudy: to record on a cloudy day
• Tungsten: to recording under tungsten and tungsten-type (3-wavelength) fluorescent lighting
• Fluorescent: to record under warm white, cool white, or warm-white (3-wavelength) fluorescent lighting.
• Fluorescent H: to record under daylight or daylight-type (3-wavelength) fluorescent lighting.
• Custom WB: use the custom white balance setting to make white subjects appear white under colored lighting.

Image Effects: The HF S100 allows you to record with the following saturation and contrast color effects:

• Vivid: emphasizes the contrast and color saturation to record in crisp colors
• Neutral: tones down the contrast and color saturation to record in neutral hues
• Low Sharpening: records subjects with softened outlines
• Soft Skin Detail: softens the details in the skin tone area for a more complimentary appearance
• Custom Effect: allows you to adjust the color depth, brightness, contrast, and sharpness of the image
• Image Effect Off: records with no image enhancing effects

Mini Video Light: You can turn on the camcorder's built-in mini video light to shoot video or take photos in dark places.

Self-Timer: This feature allows the camcorder to start recording after a 10-second countdown. When using the supplied remote control, the self timer is 2 seconds.

Video Camcorder Features

Compatible Media: The HF S100 captures high-definition AVCHD video with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression, and 2-channel Dolby Digital audio onto an SD or SDHC memory card. The camcorder supports SD cards up to 2GB and SDHC memory cards up to 32GB. A 128MB or larger SD card is required for recording video content.

Recording Modes: The camcorder offers five video recording modes: MXP, FXP, XP+, SP and LP. You can capture the following video recording times using these modes:

Pre-Recording: When Pre-Recording is activated, the camcorder starts recording video continuously into a temporary 3-second memory. When you press the Start/Stop button, the scene recorded will have started 3 seconds before you started shooting. This is especially useful when it is difficult to predict when to start recording.

Cinema Mode: You can set the camcorder to record video with a 24 fps progressive frame rate to give your recordings a cinematic look.

Faders: You can select one of the following faders:

• Fade Trigger: When you start recording, the scene gradually fades in from a black screen. When you stop recording, it gradually fades out.
• Wipe: When you start recording, the picture begins as a thin vertical line in the center of the screen which gradually expands sideways until it fills the whole of the screen. When you end a scene, the image is wiped from both sides of the screen.

Wind Screen: The camcorder automatically reduces the background sound of wind when recording outdoors when Wind Screen is turned "On". When an external microphone is connected, the Wind Screen feature is automatically turned off.

Built-in Speaker: The camcorder has a built-in speaker so you can review the soundtrack alongside the picture when you're using the LCD screen to playback a recording. The built-in speaker is monaural.

Playback Functions: The camera uses the following special playback modes: Fast Playback (5x, 15x or 60x) in either direction, Slow Playback (1/8x, 1/4x) in either direction, and Frame-by-Frame Playback (approx 0.5 sec). During these playback modes there is no sound.

Playlists: You can create a playlist to play back only the scenes you prefer and in the order of your choice. Moving or deleting scenes in the playlist will not affect the original recordings.

Digital Still Camera Features

Still Image Recording: The flash memory camcorder is also a high performance digital camera capable of capturing stunning photos onto an SD/SDHC Memory Card (sold separately). You can record in the following still image sizes: Large Wide (LW 16:9) 3264 x 1840, Large (L) 3264 x 2456, Medium Wide (MW 16:9) 1920 x 1080, Medium (M) 1920 x 1440, or Small (S) 640 x 480. There are three Photo Quality (compression) settings for each image size: Super Fine, Fine, and Normal. The number of still images that can be recorded on a memory card are as follows:

*Medium Wide (1920 x 1080) photos are only available for recording in the Movie mode during simultaneous recording.

Automatic Focus Priority: When the focus priority is activated, the camcorder records a still image only after the focus has been adjusted automatically. You select from the following Auto-Focus Priority modes.

• AiAF: depending on the shooting conditions, one or more AF frames out of the nine frames available are automatically selected and the focus is fixed on them
• Center: a single focusing frame appears in the center of the screen and the focus is automatically fixed on it; this is convenient for making sure the focus is exactly where you want it
• Off: select this option if you wish to record a still image as soon as you press Record without Auto-Focus

Digital Effects: You can select from the following digital effects:

• Black and White: makes the image black and white
• Sepia: makes a monochrome image with a brownish tint

Histogram Display: The HF S100 comes with a Histogram Display. The display allows you to see the brightness information of your still images, so you can adjust your exposures as you shoot.

Review: You can select the time to display a still image after it has been recorded to Off, 2 seconds, 4 seconds, 6 seconds, 8 seconds or 10 seconds.

Viewing Still Images: There are 3 ways to view still images: Single image, Slide show (one after the other automatically in order of recording), or Index screen showing six images (or 15 images) at once.

Magnify Playback: During playback still images can be magnified up to 5 times. You can also select the area of the screen to be magnified.

Print and Share Button: Print & Share allows you to simply connect your camcorder directly to select Canon printers or any PictBridge-compatible printer with the supplied USB cable. Then, with a simple touch of the Print & Share button, print directly from your HF S100 without going through a computer. Print & Share also makes it easy to transfer your still images to your computer. Simply connect your HF S100 and your computer, press the Print & Share button and your photos are downloaded to your computer.

PictBridge Printing Capability: PictBridge is a standard that allows you to connect a PictBridge compliant camera directly to a PictBridge compliant printer and make prints, regardless of brand.

Exif Print (Exif 2.2): The Canon HF S100 conforms to "Exif Print", a worldwide standard. Vital camera settings (such as: exposure mode, white balance, exposure time) and scene data are recorded to the image file when it is captured. Printers compatible with "Exif Print" are able to use this information to produce high quality photographs, exactly the way they were intended at the time of capture. This intelligent communication process also allows the printer to correct for poor lighting or mistakes, resulting in photos which can be even better than the originals.

DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) Settings: On the memory card, you can select which image or images you want to print and how many copies you want. This is convenient for printing images all at once on a Canon Direct Print function compliant printer or printing at participating photo labs. You can set print orders for up to 998 still images.

Battery Information

Li-ion Battery Pack: The Canon HF S100 comes supplied with a rechargeable Lithium-ion Battery Pack (BP-807). Optional batteries are available, such as the BP-808, BP-819, or BP-827. The camcorder also comes supplied with an AC power adapter and charger (CA-570 S). The battery recording and playback times are as follows:

Charging Times: The BP-807/808 battery charges in 155 minutes when charging through the camcorder with the supplied AC adapter. The charging time for the optional BP-819 is 275 minutes, while the BP-827 charges is 395 minutes.

Auto Power Off: After 5 minutes without any operation when powered by the battery, the camcorder automatically powers off. Approximately 30 seconds before the camcorder automatically turns itself off, a warning message appears in the display.

Quick Start: When you press the Quick Start button on the side of the camcorder, the camcorder powers up and gets ready to record within approximately 1 second. The Quick Start function helps prevent you from missing out on fleeting opportunities to take a video or picture.

Inputs And Outputs

HDMI Output: The HF S100 features a mini-HDMI (Type C) terminal that offers a high-quality digital connection that combines audio and video in a single convenient cable. The HDMI port is compatible with HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), allowing you in many cases to control the camcorder with the remote control of the connected TV.

Component Output: The camcorder has a proprietary terminal for plugging in the supplied component video cable. Since the component video cable outputs video only, the supplied AV cable should also be used for the audio output.

AV Output: The camcorder features an AV output to playback audio and video on your television using the supplied composite video/stereo audio RCA cable. You can select between a 4:3 aspect ratio or a 16:9 aspect ratio for the video out based on your television's aspect ratio. The AV Output also doubles as a headphone output. The built-in speaker will be muted when headphones or the AV cable are plugged in.

USB 2.0 Connection: The camcorder features a USB 2.0 High Speed terminal for fast transfer of photos.

SD-Card Slot: The HF S100 records still images and video onto SD and SDHC memory cards.

Microphone Input: In addition to the camcorder's built-in microphone, the HF S100 features a 3.5mm microphone input for connecting an external microphone (sold separately).

Software Requirements

Included Software: The Canon HF S100 camcorder comes supplied with four CD-ROM application discs: Digital Video Solution Disk Ver.32.0, PIXELA Application Discs 1 and 2, and the Music Data disc.

Macintosh Note: To open and view video files on a Macintosh computer, an Intel processor and iMovie 7.0 or above are required.

Digital Video Solution Disk Ver. 32.0:

• Zoom Browser EX 6.2 (Windows) and ImageBrowser 6.2 (Macintosh): Allow you to:
  • View and organize downloaded still images
  • Edit downloaded still images: Red-eye correction, color & brightness, sharpness, trimming and inserting texts on images
  • Print still images and contact sheets
  • Add sound to still images

PIXELA Application Disc Ver.1 (2 Discs):

• Disc One:
  • ImageMixer 3 SE Ver.4 Transfer Utility: Software for saving and transferring movies
  • Music Transfer Utility Ver.1: Software for transferring music for Video Snapshot playback to the camcorder
• Disc Two:
  • Video Tools: Software for saving, managing, editing, and playing back movies

Music Data Disc: This CD-ROM contains the music data for Video Snapshot and Slideshow playback.

Computer Configurations: The supplied Pixela ImageMixer 3SE software allows you to set up your computer for a basic configuration or an enhanced configuration. With the basic configuration, you can save movies to the computer and transfer video and music files to the camcorder. With the enhanced configuration, you can also organize and playback movies on the computer, edit movies and create discs. The System Requirements (see chart below) vary according to the configuration you choose. The ImageMixer 3SE software is for Windows OS only.

Windows System Requirements: Requirements for the basic configuration are in regular text. Requirements for the enhanced configuration are in italics.