Customer Reviews

Panasonic SDR-SW21 Shock & Waterproof Camcorder (Green)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I took this white water rafting, and it held up like a champ. It doesn't shoot very crisp video, and considering the bright sun, conditions were pretty ideal, but the results were far from. The thing is though, that doesn't really matter. If you want to shoot decent video, buy a decent video camera. This thing, on the other hand, is waterproof! And extremely so! I don't know if you've ever been white water rafting, but it can get pretty brutal, and after getting completely submerged more than once, and bounced around a few times as well, the unit still looks and performs as good as new. I'm very, very impressed with its build quality. I give 4 stars because I'm not very impressed with its image quality.

If you need something you can abuse, this is your camera; it'll take it. If you need something which will produce impressive video, buy something else. And be careful with it.

This is by far one of the biggest rip-offs in cameras today. The guts inside this camera were high tech in the year 1999. Video is serviceable at best and the stills it takes aren't even 1MP. For god sakes cell phones take better pictures then this thing. The original iphone takes better stills.

If you just want this for video then get one of the many better underwater video cameras out there. There are plenty of good ones to choose from and they are all cheaper then this piece of junk.

Just to show you how bad it is [...]refused to do a review of the camera because it was so bad and way overpriced. They said it didn't even deserve to be reviewed, and after playing with one myself I have to agree. Its sad because panasonic makes so decent cameras, but they gave the engineers the day off on this one....avoid at all costs!!!!

I worked under water once. I took it again and it drowned!!! Not a good camera for underwater, considering I didnt go under 5 feet.

I bought this camera last year and returned it several days later because the video quality was so poor. If you were moving at all while you were shooting, the video it produced was blurry to the point where it make your eyes water to watch it. The shape also made it awkward to hold. The Sanyo VPC-E1 and VPC-E2 take much better video, but the VPC-E1 I owned crapped out after 13 months and the VPC-E2 crapped out after 4 months. I have owned several waterproof Olympus Stylus cameras and they are a bit more durable, but the video quality isn't great - the colors are a bit dull, but they do a better job with motion than this Panasonic! The Panasonic video does have nice color, and the video quality is good if you stand very still or use a tripod...but come on, who can do that all the time? Canon, Fuji and Pentax also make decent waterproof cameras, so consider them as well, however, they are oriented toward still pics, but can take reasonable video. In my opinion, NONE of the companies make a truly durable, truly waterproof, digital video camera...yet.

I just bought this camcorder and read a number of reviews on it. Mostly good, but some not so good. So when I bought it I made sure I could return it if it didn't meet my expectations. Well, I was presently surprised and estatic when all my audio and video needs were met with this great, compact camcorder. Yes, I can slip it in my pocket. Picture quality was great, with zoom the stabilization worked well, night shots where not a problem (some reviews noted an issue), and audio quality was fine. I especially liked the fact that when I took still pictures I didn't get blurred pictured (without a flash). I do wish the view finder were alittle bigger without making the camera bigger.
I have not put this camera under water yet, which still scares me abit.
All in all, I happily recommend this camera.

I was excited to have bought this item as I have a Lumix series camera which I have had for almost 3 years now and cannot be any happier with it. I bought this because of it handy size and the fact it was waterproof and dustproof and looked tough. Before I used this item, I read all the reviews and then I wanted to see for myself what this was all about. Here goes:

Video function: At the highest setting, video was horrible, it was dark and almost pixel like. It was taken indoors with lots of light coming in from outside as it was a sunny day. The picture looked like a typical rainy day; cloudy, dark and no colors popping out whatsoever. I will not even mention the performance during low light, as it is almost non-existent. It looks like your typical video from a webcam.

Camera function: Out of focus, grainy, and dark. As someone else mentioned, it was like using a cell phone camera....so true.

At this point I packed everything up and couldn't wait the next day to return.

As far as its water integrity. I did not bother to check, as its performance under normal conditions were horrible. Even if it did live up to it waterproof capabilities, you would still have to live with the rest of its shortcomings, which is everything else. Like another review mentioned, Panasonic fell asleep on this product.

I only can give it three stars and not lower, since I did not get to check its "water" performance and battery life. I know people consider these two areas when deciding to buy this product. I myself stopped at the substandard video and pictures.

Very satisfied with the usability of this camcorder. Reliable and rugged with a great picture.