Panasonic SDR-H200 30GB 3CCD Hard Disk Drive/SD Palmcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Reviews

Great Camera.. The only problem is that you have to detach the battery before connecting to the PC. The software that came with the camera is OK.

Buy Panasonic SDR-H200 30GB 3CCD Hard Disk Drive/SD Palmcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom!

Panasonic HDC-HS9 AVCHD 3CCD 60GB Hard Drive High Definition Hybrid Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Reviews

This has one of the best picture qualities ever with the three CCD's on it. I love using it and have recorded numerous shots just with the one 60 Gig hard drive on it even though you can add a memory chip to it. The battery last a long time as well. I would have added a mic input to it though then it would have been perfect for the novice film maker. However, the sound quality of the camera is great. I would buy this product again. Also, they have great customer service.

Buy Panasonic HDC-HS9 AVCHD 3CCD 60GB Hard Drive High Definition Hybrid Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom!

Panasonic SDR-H60 60 GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 50x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Reviews

Great Camcorder, easy to use!
This camcorder is great, it is my first dive into the consumer video world and so far I am pretty impressed. The zoom is killer, the ease of use is great. I am a tech so I did not feel the need to install the built in software since I feel that the bundled software stinks, that goes for most consumer products. I filmed a couple of videos, plugged the camera into my pc, and voila! There they were, ready for me to watch and/or edit using any software I wished to use. This process took approximately 10 seconds. For those wondering my setup consists of Windows Vista Ultimate with Service Pack 1, but I imagine if I plugged it into xp or the other versions of vista, I would get similar results. The editing software I used is Adobe Premiere elements 4.0, although I am confident that if I plugged the videos into the built in video maker, I would not run into any problems as the format is pretty standard.

I only write this review because I feel some of these low ratings are unwarranted. The camera itself is great, and although the picture quality could use some improvement (then again I have not played with all the settings yet) I think this is a great camera for a lower budget, the only real improvement I could see by going to another camera is if a High Definition camera is purchased.

Hope this review helps.

Buy Panasonic SDR-H60 60 GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 50x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

Panasonic SDR-H40 40GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Reviews

The first video I took with my SDR-H40 camcorder was of a small conference inside a moderately illuminated, windowless hangar. Since I was new to the camcorder, it was set to auto-white balance. The video came out fine, and better than I expected. When it was accidentally unplugged I was glad to see that it automatically fixed the video file in just a few seconds. Outdoor video is excellent, as is it's optical stabilization. Panasonic uses a larger image chip than many manufacturers do in this price range.

My only disappointment was that it doesn't have a very wide angle lens. Personally, I'd be willing to trade the long 42x telephoto for a decent wide angle shot. Unfortunately, this problem is widespread among most camcorder manufacturers.

What I like is the simplicity of operation, it's excellent video, it's large hard drive capacity which gives many hours of use, it's ability to also record on SD & high capacity SD cards, it's small size (you could fit three of them inside my old 8mm camcorder,) optical stabilization, and value. The software gets the job done, though it isn't feature-rich. That's fine with me, and preferable to software with a steep learning curve and lots of features that I'll probably never use.

Buy Panasonic SDR-H40 40GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom