New Canon S10 and Sony 520

While both are entry level camcorders shooting interbased HD at 1920x1080, I was privy to seeing a footage comparison shot underwater yesterday. Both cams were shooting in auto white balance and exposure. There was a tremendous difference in the color of the Canon as opposed to the Sony. The Sony produced very green footage, typical of California but the Canon was night and day above the Sony with strong colors and truer resolution. I was really surprised at the difference. I would like to have seen a comparison of their low light and manual white balance results. I have been told that Light & Motion will be producing a housing for the Canon as well as the Sony. This will be very good news for many and I was happy to hear that L & M is starting to open up to lines of cams other than Sony. This is a real positive in my book.
Steve

sharksdelight:

While both are entry level camcorders shooting interbased HD at 1920x1080...

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What is "interbased HD"? I've not heard that term before...

sharksdelight:

I have been told that Light & Motion will be producing a housing for the Canon as well as the Sony. This will be very good news for many and I was happy to hear that L & M is starting to open up to lines of cams other than Sony. This is a real positive in my book.
Steve

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So what you're hearing is that L&M is going to start producing mechanically controlled housings?

They don't mention it in their latest product intro:
Announcing the 2009 Light & Motion Underwater Line!

Hope you're right, it would be good to have another high-end mechanical choice besides Gates.

First things first, I probably should have used the technologically correct term, inter framed. There are 2 different major AVCHD type cams, the intra framed is far superior and can be found on the high end cams, each frame is its own image. On the lower end of things, and what most entry level to intermediate users of card based cams use, is AVCHD interframed footage where, I believe, there is one full frame for each 15.

Light and Motion is not going mechanical, but, at least for the Canon housing being built, there will be a simple two step means to manually white balance and a mechanical button for the on/off switch. While I still wish they would produce housings for the hi end cams, I applaud them for looking at models other than Sony and for having a tremendous improvement in their quality control over the last few years. They have also come out with Fathoms lens for their housings, one of the best LED light systems around and their new monitor back kicks ass. You can achieve critical focus with it and I haven't seen any other manufacturer's monitors enable to do that.