Canon VIXIA HF G70 4K UHD Camcorder

I purchased the G70 in December of 2022. The camera has a lot going for it such as the bright and sharp viewing screen and sharp zoom even wide open. I like the exposure compensation adjustment knob just below the lens, very handy. The build quality is great and the image stabilization set to dynamic is good.

Outside in bright daylight, the image is bright and sharp with saturated colors and great skin tones. My first outing was at a horse parade and the video looked fantastic. Things seemed promising.

So what are the downfalls in my opinion? The low light capability is not good. Push the gain over 4 and the image starts to go soft. At a gain of 10, it’s mush and falls short of my 6 year old Canon 80d @1080p.
In my YouTube studio, I have to push my Godox 60W in a softbox to full power. At 4 feet the exposure with fill is F 1.8 at a gain of 4, it looks good and 7 is soft but any less and the quality takes a serious dive.
I set the focus manually because objects in the background can dance or twitch. I am in focus but the background jitter drives me crazy.

I knew the low light capabilities would not be the best but I expected more. What exactly is considered low light? This seems hard to define.

Outdoors it’s a win but indoors you better have great lighting and some skill. I hope this helps someone.

**Update 2023**
I had the opportunity to film a high school basketball game in a gym that was well-lit with LED lighting. The image quality was very good and the zoom was smooth and sharp.

One other thing I noticed is there is no warning that the audio is peaking. The audio meter does not show green, yellow, or red on the meter. The camera does have face detection but the surrounding box is gray and difficult to see. Too bad Cannon, this is a missed opportunity that would not add to the cost. I hope a firmware update will offer the features.

Update 2024, random thoughts.

* Switching to 1080p removes the bumping or twitch that sometimes occurs in the background with autofocus in 4k.
* The autofocus is always spot on.
* The lens is sharp even when zoomed to the maximum setting and the image stabilizing works well when set to dynamic!
* I wish there was a histogram but the G70 handles exposure well for 8-bit color.

Needed a replacement camera looked at every one available for the same range of money. Cannon did not disappoint. For applications inside a vehicle I took the bulky lens cover off. Great video. Would recommend

I am loving the camera!! I don’t know why so many people are against camcorders?? I was using a cannon M50 previously. Good camera, lots of YouTubers use the M50 but it has its flaws. One you have to constantly manually adjust for light, fps, aperture and other adjustments which can screw up video quality if you are off a bit on settings or are not super knowledgeable with all the settings. The camcorder is just point and shot. It adjust all the setting it’s self perfectly, it focuses on you and the zoom is insane!!
Another benefit to the camcorder over the M50 is it beeps letting you know it shut off or beeps to let you know battery is getting low or mermory card is getting full. The M50 did not beep when it stopped so I would keep working thinking it is filming when it wasn’t.
The only thing I could state could be improved is the “gimbal” function. I still have to edited out camera shake but the M50 had no gimbal function at all so can’t really complain compare them on that function.

And luckily, I was able to return them to purchase this camera and it is absolutely amazing for the price she can’t go wrong. I wouldn’t waste my money on the products because you get a lot less than quality and you won’t use all that extra goodies they give you.

I recommend it for small projects