Canon’s New XC10: Yeah, It’s Been Done Before

When Canon announced the new XC10 camera some people around the internet got quite excited.

I must admit I wasn’t excited at all.

With the hype of 4K recording being the next best thing putting a high megapixel camera in a video camera sounds like a great idea, but really when you think about its been done before.

For those who don’t remember let me reintroduce you to the 10 year old JVC GZMC500, a High-Quality MPEG-2 Video Recording Camera with a (wait for it) 5MP still camera and a 10x optical zoom! Now 10 years ago this was the best quality you could get, so fast forward a decade and the concept of the Canon XC10 doesn’t seem ‘so new’. Instead I see this camera with much better specs and a manual zoom when compared against the JVC.

Also, I think the design of the Canon based on the press images isn’t the best video camera design, it just reminds me of the Nikon Coolpix 4500 – hmmm…what were they thinking?

Now aside from my bickering I’m sure the Canon XC10 records some fantastic 4K footage. With a new on board feature users have the option of saving still frames from 4K footage as 8 megapixel jpegs. That’s pretty exciting right? They’ve also added a tilting touch LCD screen for almost any angle recording, which I’m sure will be a welcome feature for many.

I see the Canon XC10 being in the hands of many travellers as the size of the zoom combined with the 4K recording quality seems to be a good fit for the market. What do you think? Would you end up getting one of these for yourself or a family member?