Excellent entry level DV Cam

Author's Rating:

Pros: Good image quality, compact size, built in light.

Cons: SD card not standard. Poor still images

The Bottom Line: 
Excellent image quality even if the zoom is a little weak. Overall a good entry level DV cam.

Author's Review
Other reviewers have given more technical details so I'll tend to gloss over there. The camera has 10x optical zoom which is a bit weak but about standard for most DV cams. The digital zoom goes to 700x but that is just showboating and has not real practical use as the image at 700x is terrible.

Panasonic states the chip is 680,000 pixels which is quite a bit better than most other DV cams in this price range (JVCs also use this chip). However I can't determine if all the pixels are actually used in video capture (not always the case).

All the controls are fairly easy to access with one hand though I find using two fingers, index and middle for most operations easiest. The camera isn't loaded with many fancy editing options which is fine as you'd most like do most of this on the computer.

The view finder is monochrome and the screen 2.5 inches. There is no S-Video out so its either DV to the computer or AV out to standard composite connectors.

Battery charging is done on an external charger, though you can't power the camera and charge the battery at the same time. The standard battery is about 30-45 mins depending on screen use.

I like the built in light which is surprisingly powerful. You can readily change white balance and exposure speed. There is also limited exposure compensation. There is no "NightShot" like feature to speak of so slowing the exposure speed is really the only option for low light imaging.

You can do still captures either onto the tape or onto a SD card. To be honest I've found the still images terrible even though they are supposed to be ~1 megapixel. I will say this is for inside images and I haven't tried it yet for outside shots in strong lighting.
Note that the SD card is not included in the standard package. You can typically get a deal for a free card after purchase but it still seems to be a bit of a rip.

Still captures to tape can be in standard or progressive mode that offers higher quality. Its a bit confusing to have essentially 3 different still capture modes but they all work from the same snapshot button.

You can hook the camera up to your computer via USB or Firewire (IEEE1394.iLink) and use it as a Webcam. I haven't tried this but it is an interesting feature.

The microphone is quite good and can be configured to minimize wind noise and alter the dynamic range when zooming. How effective this is I can say but I leave the feature enabled.

The include software is fairly basic but functional. The camera works seamlessly under WinXP with either Pinnacle Studio 7 or VideoFactory v1 and v2. It also works with WinXPs built in movie capture software but that is pretty primitive.