Panasonic HDC-SD800K 3 MOS Twin Memory 3D Compatible Camcorder (Black)

by Panasonic

• Advanced 3MOS sensor system
• HYBRID O.I.S image stabilization
• 2D & 3D video capture capability
• SDXC/SDHC/SD Memory Card Recording

Product Details

• Item Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B004I43MJK
• Item model number: HDC-SD800K
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,849 in Camera & Photo (See Top 100 in Camera & Photo)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 4, 2011

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Advanced 3MOS System Advanced 3MOS System The Advanced 3MOS System records beautifully natural images with powerful colors and detailed rendering in both bright and dark scenes. The Noise Reduction technology that goes to work when shooting in dim lighting has evolved even further in 2011 models, allowing them to reduce noise by approximately 45% compared to previous Panasonic models.* The Advanced 3MOS System, which is comprised of the 3MOS Sensor that captures images without color loss, the Leica Dicomar Lens that excels with its large, bright aperture, and the Crystal Engine PRO that increases image resolution, produces colorful, bright, beautiful images in Full-HD quality. * Compared with the HDC-SD700, HDC-TM700, and HDC-HS700.
3MOS Sensor Advanced 3MOS SystemThe 900 Series and SD800 employ the 3MOS Sensor, with its three-sensor configuration. This provides a resolution of 7.59 million effective motion image pixels (2.53 million x 3). The 3MOS Sensor splits the light information captured by the lens into the three primary colors - red, green and blue - and processes each color with its own individual sensor. This reduces light loss compared to the 1MOS sensor, and renders colors, details and gradation all with intricate detail and natural beauty. This superb color reproduction maximizes the inherent quality of Full-HD progressive images.	The three primary colors of red, green and blue are each processed by a separate sensor to achieve truly rich color reproduction.
Leica Dicomar Lens LEICA DicomarThe 900 Series and SD800 use Leica Dicomar lenses, which are renowned for their ability to render sharp images and excellent shading. They also suppress ghosting, flare, and distortion at the image edges. Even in strong sunlight, these superb lenses maintain high contrast and resolution. A bright new F1.5-F2.8 lens with a 46mm filter diameter has been created for the 900 Series and SD800. Efficient light collection allows the new lens to capture bright, clear images even in dim lighting or at high shutter speeds. This high-end lens brings out all the beauty of Full-HD images.
Crystal Engine PRO Crystal Engine Pro The Crystal Engine PRO instantly processes the huge amount of data that goes into Full-HD images, and further enhances Full-HD quality. It produces smooth, high-resolution zoom shots even when the range exceeds the limit for optical zooming. Crystal Engine PRO clearly delineates even the tiniest details of your subject, with extremely natural beauty. In addition, its Noise Reduction (NR) technology has been completely redesigned. The low-frequency noise that occurs when recording in dim lighting has been further minimized. Compared to previous Panasonic models, noise has been reduced by approximately 45%.* And Intelligent Resolution Technology ensures sharp and crisp pictures, resulting in bright and beautifully colored motion images. * Compared with the HDC-SD700, HDC-TM700, and HDC-HS700
Intelligent Resolution Technology Intelligent Resolution TechnologyThe Intelligent Resolution Technology incorporated in the Crystal Engine PRO uses edge detection technology to confirm the edges of objects within the image, then emphasizes the edges for optimal clarity. For example, it brings crisp definition to patterns and the outlines of objects like flowers. Conversely, it reduces noise and enhances the natural smoothness of parts without edges, like the sky. The increased sharpness is especially effective for images with delicate details. This highly advanced technology maximizes the beauty of Full-HD images.
1080/60p Recording (Full-HD 1920 x 1080, 60 Progressive Recording)* Full HD With its transfer rate of 28 Mbps, 1080/60p recording (Full-HD, 1,920 x 1,080, 60 progressive recording)* conveys about twice the information of 1080i (interlace) recording. Whereas interlacing requires two images to produce a complete picture, the progressive method records a single image as a complete picture. Plus, the 60 Progressive Recording of the 900 Series and SD800 produce 60 images per second.** This extremely dense image information creates intricate detail and silky smooth motion. Even when subjects move quickly, afterimages are minimized to create more natural images. The progressive method is most effective when shooting designs where more patterns tend to occur, or when capturing scenes during sports events where the subjects are intensely moving around. Also, the recorded images displayed clearly even when they are made into still images, so it is possible to preserve stunning photos when clipping them from videos. Interlaced Scanning (1080/60i)*** Only half of the image data is reproduced in each picture. Fabric patterns run together, and moiré patterns appears. Interlaced Scanning - Only half of the image data is reproduced in each picture. Interlaced Scanning (1080/60i)*** Only half of the image data is reproduced in each picture. Fabric patterns run together, and moiré patterns appears. Progressive Scanning (1080/60p)* Reproduces all of image data in a single picture. Patterns in fabric are crisp and clear with no color bleeding. * 1080/50p (full-HD, 50 Progressive Recording) in PAL areas. **In NTSC areas. 50 images per second in PAL areas. *** 1080/50i for PAL area.
Intelligent 20x Zoom and HYBRID O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) 20x Intelligent Zoom HYBRID O.I.S.The 900 Series and SD800 feature an Intelligent Zoom function that goes all the way up to 20x. When using Intelligent Zoom, Intelligent Resolution technology lets you shoot at high zoom rates while preserving the image resolution. You get sharp images of highly detailed objects – without the blurry edges. Plus, the 900 Series and SD800 are equipped with HYBRID O.I.S, an image stabilization system that corrects hand-shake blurring by combining the action of its hybrid optical and electrical image stabilization systems. Even when zooming, where hand-shake often occurs, both optical and electrical hand-shake correction make it possible to record beautiful images with approximately 2 times* the hand-shake suppressing effect as conventional models. * Compared with the HDC-SD700, HDC-TM700, and HDC-HS700.
O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) Lock The image-stabilizing effect is increased by pressing and holding the O.I.S. Lock indication on the LCD screen, which maximizes the blur detection sensitivity. This is great for when you want to zoom at a fixed angle, like for bird watching. * Considerable blurring is generated by the shifting of the corrective lens when the camera is panned or tilted.
35mm Wide Angle Lens* 35mm WideThe 35mm wide-angle lens on the 900 Series and SD800 fit more people and more of the background into the frame than a conventional lens. This is especially handy when you want to take a group photo in a small room. * 35mm camera equivalent
5.1-Ch Surround Sound System (HS900/TM900/SD900) & Zoom Mic Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator The 900 Series is equipped with five electret condenser microphones. The center mic helps capture the sound source and distance accurately, so you get a more 3-dimensional effect. The Zoom Mic function improves noise-reducing performance and handles higher zooming power, allowing you to clearly capture target sounds. You get a realistic sound space that's a perfect match with the true-to-life HD images. * Manufactured under license from Dolby Laboratories. "Dolby" and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories.
Wind Noise Canceller The technology of the previous Wind Cut function has evolved to form the Wind Noise Canceller. The new function automatically detects and suppresses only wind noise, to give you natural sounds with lifelike ambience. Also, unlike the previous Wind Cut function, which switched to monaural recording, the Wind Noise Canceller enables stereo recording. This maintains natural sounds when shooting outdoors. Bass Setting (HS900/TM900/SD900) You can adjust the level of low-frequency sound that is included in the audio track while shooting.
Digital Cinema Mode Progressive 1080/24p (NTSC)*/ 1080/25p (PAL)** Set the HD camcorder to Digital Cinema mode to shoot in the progressive 1080/24p (24 pictures per second) format for NTSC area, and in the progressive 1080/25p format for PAL area. Progressive scanning captures clear, vibrant images with intricate detail. You also get faithful images with an appealing film-like quality. Digital Cinema Color*** with VIERA Selecting the Digital Cinema Color mode makes it possible to shoot film-like images that are ideally suited to the Digital Cinema Color of VIERA plasma TVs. Colors recorded in this mode look richer than those recorded using the conventional Panasonic standard. For example, the subtle shades of red and gold in flowers, and the greens of leafy trees are remarkably true to life. * The video captured as 24p using Digital Cinema Mode is converted and recorded as 60i. ** The video captured as 25p using Digital Cinema Mode is converted and recorded as 50i. *** When using a TV that is compatible with "x.v.Color", images that are recorded in Digital Cinema Color mode will have a wider color range than conventional images. The color range varies depending on the TV. x.v.Color is a registered trademark.
Still Picture Recording at 14.2 Megapixels Still Picture Recording mode lets you shoot with a maximum resolution of 14.2 megapixels*. You can also simultaneously record still images and video at 13.3 megapixels**. * For images recorded with a 3:2 aspect ratio. ** For images recorded with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Scene Mode Automatically selects the most suitable shutter speed and aperture for the shooting location and situation. Scene modes: Sports Portrait Low Light (Motion image only) Spot Light Snow Beach Sunset Fireworks Scenery Night Scenery Night Portrait (Still image only)
Soft Skin Mode When this function detects skin tones, it softens the focus in that area. This has a skin beautifying effect, which makes wrinkles and lines appear less noticeable. When turned on, this function makes blemishes and moles look less conspicuous, while preserving resolution in areas of the picture outside of the skin.
Tele-Macro You can shoot macro close-ups while maintaining a distance of 70cm from your subject. In addition, using the zoom at full magnification makes it much easier to capture extreme close-ups without your body or camera casting a shadow on the subject and while keeping the background in soft focus.

Product Description

The Panasonic HDC-SD800 High Definition Camcorder is a high-end HD offering from Panasonic. Right off the bat a few of the camera's most desirable features include: 1920 x 1080/60p recording, an SD/SDHC/SDXC memory card slot, the option to record in 3D and a quality image sensor system. These features alone give you detailed, beautiful images, a plethora of recording space and the ability to shoot fun and unique movies in 3D with an optional lens. Panasonic's proprietary '3MOS' is a 3 sensor CMOS that adds up to 9.15MP (3 x 3.05MP). These sensors work together with another Panasonic technology, Crystal Engine PRO. This engine is a fast processor which writes those gigantic HD files to the HDD or SD card quickly and efficiently. It also allows for high-res zooming when exceeding the optical range. In addition, the engine works to reduce image noise, rendering beautiful, like-like images. These two work together to produce 1080/60p footage. The "p" means progressive; when recording in a progressive frame rate the footage captures is more vibrant and detailed than even "i", or interlaced, HD recording. Of course the sensor and engine wouldn't be able to do their job without a high-quality lens. The SD800 comes with a 35mm Leica Dicomar lens that sports a 3.45-41.4mm focal length, 12x optical zoom range, 46mm filter diameter and a 1.5-2.8 f/stop. Lens can zoom up to 20x using the Intelligent Zoom; and it features a manual ring for more control and creativity with your shooting. Another way in which the camera works to create clean video is with HYBRID O.I.S. (optical image stabilization). This O.I.S. keeps your shots steady when hand-holding the camera. It reduces the effects of hand-shake for an easy-to-view, clean shot. Other useful tools of the camera include a 3.0" touch screen LCD. This screen provides you with options like, "Touch Zoom" and "Touch Shutter". The zoom function allows you to zoom in by dragging your finger across

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Happy With This Camcorder June 28, 2011

By DAVID W SHENK

Amazon Verified Purchase

I had no intention of buying a camcorder over $450, however, after viewing test videos on youtube, I was sold on this one. Video from this camera is STUNNING. Some lower priced camcorders have very decent video as well, but lack something that this one has. I previously had a Canon Elura 90 DV tape standard definition camcorder. I had had it with the tapes and wanted to record family videos in HD, even though we don't yet have an HDTV. We will upgrade at some point, and I want as many videos as possible to look nice.

Some of it's best features include:

* Low light sensitivity - the nemesis of virtually all lower-priced camcorders and many camcorders in general. This one seems to do excellent in low light.
* Image stabilization - WOW! it really works on this camcorder. It uses a hybrid between optical and electronic stabilization and, as some of the test youtube videos show, it really works well. So well that I would consider not using a tripod or monopod much of the time.
* Video quality - it does 1080/60p, but I don't think I'll be using that setting at this point. In it's normal 1080/60i mode, the 'HA' quality setting is 17mbps and looks great. Note: I did test videos at all of the quality settings and had the software dump them to a DVD for viewing on our standard def TV. Couldn't really see a difference, but watching them on the computer monitor, yes there is a difference.
* Included software - I have to say I am pleasantly surprised that the included software is very easy to use, seems to do the basic editing and conversion, and doesn't crash. It will burn to Blueray (don't have one) or downconvert the video and put it on DVD. It will also allow you to edit video and just save it back as .mt2s files. I have a Western Digital media player that will play these files, so I think I will be archiving family video on an external hard drive and watching them on the WD. No disc burning is fine with me. I also still have a standard TV and can watch these files without having to have an HDTV. When we do upgrade, these videos will look great.
* Flash for still photos - I'm shocked. I took some photos of my kids in a completely dark room, and it looks like daytime in the photo. How that tiny flash lights up a room like that I don't know. Even illumination edge to edge. No darkness at all near the edges. I have not yet compared the image quality with an 8MP Canon DSLR I have.

Features I'm neutral on:

* "Wide angle" 35mm - Yes, this is better than a lot of other camcorders, but to me, true wide angle is 28mm or less. You can get an adapter to go wider, but another thing to fool with.
* Battery life - It's still a new camera to me, but battery life does not seem to be as long as one would like. I tried some time-lapse recording, and the battery seemed to be used up almost as fast as if I had been recording the entire time.
* Size - I actually was thinking this camcorder would be a little smaller than it was. It just depends on what you're use to. It really is fairly small.
* Which model is it? - Amazon lists it as a HDC-SD800K, box that came just says HDC-SD800, camera says HDC-SD800, manual with camera says HDC-SD800P. Most videos on youtube are listed as HDC-SD800.

The negatives:

* Batteries - This is a new camera and has a newly designed battery. No generics are available as of this review writing. That means $70+ for a second low capacity Panasonic battery.
* Printed manual - I guess I shouldn't complain, at least it comes with a printed manual. But, unlike the Amazon ad that explains that in Cinema Mode, the camera switches to 1080/24p, the manual seems to be "dumbed down" and says that Cinema Mode gives you that movie or film quality. No other details. There are several areas where the manual could give you something to work with, but for some reason, feel the details would just confuse you. This leaves you searching around in the back of the manual for what a setting really does.
* Amazon lists this as "Twin Memory". It is not. It has one SD card slot. No other memory.

EVERYONE should look at test videos posted on youtube for any camcorder you are considering buying. Watch the videos at 720p or higher. Look in the shadows. Look in areas of motion. Apparently some people are not as picky as I am because comments on a video that looked terrible were "Wow! great looking video!".

Summary - Excellent camera if you can spend the money. You will have to buy at least one more battery at considerable cost. This probably won't be an issue in the future as generics should pop up.

UPDATE 12-12-2011

ACCESSORIES
I'm still very happy with this camcorder. I use it with a Transcend 32 GB Class SDHC 10 Flash Memory Card TS32GSDHC10E and have never had a problem. I use a Lowepro Digital Video Case 30 for Camcorders (Black) if I film the kids at the park or otherwise just need protection for the camera. It is very compact, but literally has room for nothing but the camera. Not even a spare battery. Great for putting on your belt if you're walking around and filming here and there, but don't need to bring everything with you.

I also bought the less-expensive of the two wide angle lens converters from Panasonic. I don't think they sell it on Amazon. Something like this is really a must for most people. If you do any filming in your house or other confined areas, you need it. I initially bought a generic one from the auction site and although it mounted on the camera just fine, when you move the camera around, the optics inside the camera move some to stabilize the image. This movement caused clipping of the edges of the video frame, ie you could see the adapter shading the sides of the image. I would go with Panasonic on this accessory.

The more expensive wide-angle adapter allows you to zoom the entire range while being in focus and goes to 24mm, but is quite a bit bigger, heavier and costly. The less-expensive one can zoom to about X3 and goes to 28mm, but it's more portable and I thought easier to use on a daily basis. I won't cry if it gets damaged.

COMPATIBILITY
There still seem to be issues with camcorders like this that produce .M2T or .M2TS files and what you can do with them. I've used Adobe Premiere Elements in the past for editing. I tried the latest version 10 that supports these files. It will save them back in the native format, but makes the file twice as large for some reason. They are large to begin with. I had it upload to youtube and the result was terrible. I haven't done much youtube stuff, so maybe it's me. The software that comes with the camera does basic editing just fine, just nothing fancy, and keeps the files small when it saves them.

AUTO WHITE BALANCE
My only negative (that really matters) after using the camera for 5 months or so is this. I find that it hunts around for the correct level, going way too cool then back warm again then back to cool, and does this unpredictably. Not all the time, but enough that it is annoying and ruins the video you are currently shooting. This usually only happens when filming inside. I have found that if I'm shooting in daylight, I lock it there and it isn't a problem. It's too bad, but using the white balance in manual mode is recommended.

I did connect this camera up to an HDTV at a friends house. The video quality is outstanding. Others in the room were saying "What type of camera is that?" and "WOW!" I'm willing to live with its few quirks. The end product is beautiful video, and that's the point.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars great almost Pro camera! July 24, 2011

By Daniel Meek

I had been waiting a long time to find a camera with high visual fidelity without all of the consumer oriented junk that comes with most home cameras, and this is it. I will go from the most annoying problems/features, and move up from there.

Color Quality:
The 3 CMOS sensors (3MOS they call it) does an excellent job at color accuracy. However, the auto white balance will occasionally decide that it is time to shake things up and pick some random and incorrect white balance, but this is easily avoided by using one of the presets, or by taping the auto white balance button which will check the white balance, and then lock it at that setting. You may still want to use the auto white balance if you are moving from room to room, or from inside to outside, but in general I would avoid it. I have never seen a 'consumer' grade camera have color accuracy that looks so true to life! Just look up youtube videos of what this camera can do! Same recording setup, so this will do the same quality as the 900 series versions.

Exposure:
The automatic settings for the exposure are a bit slow, and not drastic enough when moving between light and dark areas. In some cases this is a good thing, as when you are in a relatively controlled environment and you don't want it messing with you (which I like), but many home users will be annoyed by this. The camera does support Zebra Striping, but only at 99%+, when you really want it at about 80%. Somewhere between 85-90% the scene is over exposed, and color begins to wash out, or sometimes bleed together. The exposure controls are easy to adjust, and the screen on the camera is of good enough quality to notice the problem, and there are tools like a histogram and a central box with an exposure rating so that you can know exactly what is going on with your scene (in fact there are so many great tools built into the camera that I am not going to get into all of them, but it is a breath of fresh air for those who know how to use them!).

Lens:
This is perhaps the last weak point that I have found on the camera. The lens seems cheap (which is to be expected), and because it is a consumer camera it cannot be replaced. The zoom works great, and has a nice variable speed to it. The problem of it's cheapness comes when things are out of focus and the way out of focus objects look. On a nice lens you can do many creative things with off focus camera work, things out of focus here just look bad. Again, this does not effect things in focus, and they look sharp and wonderful!

Motion:
The standard FPS on this camera is 30FPS, which is quite nice, and makes motion look very good. Most pans look clean and sharp, and when you do move too fast the motion blur is quite natural looking, and minimal instead of being sharp and choppy. I took the camera on a driving test, and did notice that it was difficult to read street signs as you pass them, but things in the center 60% of the screen where perfectly clear and clean. Also, the motion stabilization is astounding! The hybrid stabilization is wonderful, and when you need more there is a menu button to press and hold which basically makes the image stay as still as possible (though the image quality seem to be hurt by this). I have shaky hands and usually use a tripod (which this has the standard hookups for), but I may venture to hold it more because I know that it works so well.

Audio:
While the big brother 900 series cameras come with surround sound, the little SD800K sports stereo. Personally I didn't want surround sound as I believe it to be a gimmick on a camera (how on earth are you supposed to get 5 channels of separation on a device this small? It is impossible!), and I have been pleased with the overall quality and reproduction of sound on the microphone. The wind filter works great, the camera does not try and compress the sound so you get a vibrant hi fidelity sound with relatively quiet noises still audible in loud environments, and the zoom mic feature works as expected. Personally I do most audio in post, but it is nice to know that there is a solid mic system if I needed it.

Screen and Menus:
I love it! My largest hesitation of buying this camera is its reliance on touch, but I really wanted the 3MOS, and just about everyone is on a touch system these days. My fingers are quite fat and callous, and I hate HATE smart phones and laptop touch-pads because they do not listen to my fingers well. This screen allows you to push into the screen a bit, is very responsive, and doesn't feel like I am going to damage or dirty the screen by using it. The menu system took a little bit to figure out, but is already 2nd nature after just one day. Most controls you need while recording are available by just taping the menu, and then right once, and it gives you access to white balance, focus, shutter, and iris. The touch focus is surprisingly effective, no replacement for a true manual focus, but it is not bad. The rest of the menu system is laid out in a logical order, and it is easy to find things. Only complaint is that some of the icons are less than iconic, and I had to look them up in the manual to figure out what they were.

Technical Specs, and other things of interest:
Battery life gets about 1.5 hours as advertised, and there is a large battery (way overpriced at the moment) which can bump it up to about 2.5-3 hours. There is also an equally overpriced external battery charger available.
There are 3 basic shooting modes: IFRAME which is a fully key-framed nearly uncompressed mac standard, but I found to be of poor quality (I believe this is the fault of my memory card, but the compression on the other modes is quite good so it is fine), Standard 1080P at 30FPS with various levels of compression (just stick with HA mode and all will be nice and clean, the lower quality modes degrade quickly), and 1080P 60FPS which my memory cards were surprisingly fast enough for but my computer is not. I will note here that the 1080/60 mode is used and required for 3D recording (30FPS per eye) and you must have a fast enough memory card for this to work properly, but from what I have read the 3D isn't all it is cracked up to be yet. However, 60FPS looks great if you have a device fast enough to play it back! I have a core2duo paired with a 9800GT, and cannot play back 60FPS material smoothly in this format (but it played back beautifully in H264 at 60FPS), but next year when I upgrade the PC all should be well (GT580 here I come!)
There is in fact only one SD card slot. The description says there are 2, and it is simply wrong. Pay a little extra and get fast memory. SD card memory ratings are a little less than reputable, so go to newegg or a similar site and read reviews of actual speeds. For full quality 1080/30 you will want no less than 17MBps. I went with some PNY Professional memory rated at 20, and reviews say it does about 18. I bought 2 32GB cards which is plenty of space for what I do, and it kept up with the 60FPS recording which writes at 24MBps, so I am quite satisfied with it.
The recording format is 1080P 30FPS and runs on a modified AVCHD codec. The software that came with the camera did not recognize this format (and it is supposed to be able to edit footage from this camera lol). My good old Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 was unable to open the file so I download the trial for CS 5.5 and it worked fine, so I guess it is finally time to upgrade. Windows Media Player (whatever version is built into Win7) plays back perfectly, but QuickTime and VLC did not. Even the God-like powers of AVSp (a great program for video cleanup, pre-production, and file/color-space conversion) was thwarted and could not open my clips. When editing in Premiere 5.5 I had no problems with key-framing issues on things like fades or other cues, which is a huge problem with many low end cameras and strange video codecs, so that was a relief.
The AVCHD format was quick and easy to edit with in Premiere 5.5, but as it is modified from the standard it seems to confuse a lot of software. Rendering on my C2D 2.6GHz, 4GB Ram, 9800GT card, took about 7.5 min of rendering time for every minute of video in 1080/30, I went to lunch while rendering the 1080/60 so I do not know how long that took, but suffice to say a Sandy Bridge i5 paired with 8+GB of ram and a GT460+ video card should be used for editing. I am holding out for ivy bridge for my upgrade and will just have to deal with the slow rendering time for now.

In conclusion, while this is the little brother (or perhaps red headed step child) of the 900 series cameras, it has the same video quality and punch as the high end cameras with a much lower price tag, while sacrificing very little. Personally I am a fan of removable media because if the media dies then you replace the media instead of the camera. I believe the surround sound on the upper cameras is a joke, and stereo is just fine. This has the same exact CCD array, and is just as good if paired with fast enough memory. In short, buy this camera, it is great and a dream to work with. If I had the money I might spring for the version with the internal HDD for higher quality iFRAME recording, but that was out of the price range when considering the need for updating the PC and Adobe suite. It is not a pro quality camera in its feature set, but the video quality is comparable, so I would suggest it for those just getting into upper end equipment but do not want to commit $2500+ on a 'professional' camera yet. The lack of accurate auto color balance, and poor auto exposure would make this camera annoying for those who are clueless on how to adjust manual settings.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely Recommended... July 20, 2011

By all_about_soil

This camcorder has too many pros. It is very easy to use first of all. It also has very good image stabilization and picture quality. It works very well in low light which I find as the biggest pitfall for many of the camcorders I have used so far.

The zoom range is very attractive and the image quality still holds even at those "higher" zoom levels. I am making videos of my 2-year-old daughter and we love the performance of this camcorder. Its relatively light-weight makes it easier to use during events (such as graduations, weddings, etc) and/or outdoors.

The battery is the biggest problem with this unit, but if you buy a spare one as I did, you will be good to go. Overall, we love this camera and highly recommend to anybody who is interested in a decent mid-level camcorder.