- Built-in 30 GB hard disk drive
- 32x optical zoom; O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer)
- Pure Color Engine; MPEG2 engine
- Large 2.7-inch widescreen LCD
- One-Touch Navigation for easy intuitive setting and shooting
Panasonic SDR-H18 30GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 32x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Panasonic SDR-H40 40GB Hard Drive Camcorder with 42x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
- Capture video to hard disk drive; 40 GB storage for up to 36 hours of footage
- 42x optical zoom
- Anti-Shock Shield for hard drive protection
- Panasonic's Advanced Mega OIS technology
- Compatible with SD/SDHC memory cards
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Panasonic HDC-TM10K Hard Drive Full HD Camcorder (Black)
- Captures 1080p HD video
- Super-compact design; weighs only 1/2 pound
- Intelligent Auto mode takes the guess-work out of recording and allows anyone to record picture perfect moments
- 16x Optical Image Stabilized zoom with Active mode anticipates your movement to correct jitters and shakes and allow smooth movement when recording
- Dual Memory options: record to 8 GB built-in memory or the SD/SDHC memory cards (not included)
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Panasonic HDC-HS250-K Hard Drive High Definition Camcorder (Black)
- AVCHD is a standard developed jointly by Sony and Panasonic for HD digital camcorders.
- 120 GB Shock-Mounted Hard Disc Drive: Panasonic SD card/hard-drive camcorders are ideal for travel
- Built-in SD / SDHC Memory Card Drive: SD memory cards are incredibly versatile
- 3MOS Camera System (3 x 3.05 Megapixels): The HS250 features three of Panasonic's new 1/4.1-inch 3050000-pixel MOS sensors.
- Shoot in Lighting as Low as 1.6 Lux: You can shoot clear shots in lighting as low as 1.6 lx. With the 3MOS Sensor
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Panasonic HDC-TM10K Hard Drive Full HD Camcorder (Black)
Mixed bag: know what you're using it for
First the two versions of this camera are identical other than the fact that one has built in memory the other does not. BUT consider how much you're paying for that memory? Could you just buy a larger card with the price difference? Probably. Considering that for the sake of convenience you will probably be recording to cards most of the time (so you can just plug them into the computer) I would probably go for the internal memory-less version.
I ran several tests on the camera for a few days to try out its features. I am not a name-brand fanboy nor am I a dedicated videophile. I'm just going to give you an unbiased impression based upon what my eyes saw:
PROS:
1.)Pretty good daylight recording. Considering what I paid for it I was surprised by the quality. It's not a Canon S10 by any means but I was pleased.
2.)It is unbelievably small and light. Shockingly so. If you are looking for the smallest possible 1080p capable camera to take on a daylight hike I'm thinking this is near the top of the list.
3.)Has a few of the bells and whistles of a larger camera including the ability to swap out memory cards a decent touch-screen menu interface where you can play with the settings (as opposed to some of these cheap-o cameras) a genuine optical zoom and an HDMI output right on the camera. Unlike most I had no problem with the touchscreen.
4.)Quick power-on/off feature works really well battery life was not a problem.
CONS:
1.)You'll notice I mentioned how surprised I was by the camera's performance in daylight? I was equally surprised by the nighttime/indoor performance. As in it was atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. We're talking awful pixelation terrible graininess significant artifacting and block-iness and a general inability to see anything. The onboard light provided little help. I'm not talking about near pitch black rooms I'm talking about normally lit indoor areas. The camera is basically useless for indoor or nighttime recording unless you're using multiple floodlights. I would walk through the house and even our well lit dining room had significant problems.
I chalk this up to the tiny sensor (less than 2 megapixels) and tiny lens. Sure it keeps the weight/size factor miniscule but it really hurts performance. I am not understating this problem at all. I tried to use the manual shuttings (such as they are) to correct the problem but playing with frame rates settings and modes made little to no difference.
2.)No built-in lens protector. Having a dangling lenscap to annoy you defeats some of the purpose of having such a compact easy to whip out camera.
3.)Screen tearing/rolling shudder is a problem on quick pans even more so than other CMOS cameras I've tried. I'm not sure what the issue is but be forewarned.
4.)The cameras awful low light capabilities make most of the individualized settings useless.
5.)If you want to make that final jump from 1080i to 1080p you're limited to the "digital cinema" mode that disables the vast majority of the manual settings. A small nitpick but somewhat annoying.
SUMMARY
Know precisely what you're going to be using this camera for before you buy it. The video quality in daylight for the price is pretty decent the form factor/size is phenomenal and the indoor/low light video quality and options are horrendous. Basically if you're only going to be using it outdoors and size is of paramount important it's worthy of consideration.More detail ...
Panasonic HDC-HS250-K Hard Drive High Definition Camcorder (Black)
Great Camcorder still needs some improvement
I got this camcorder for about two weeks already. It's very easy to start operating it even without reading the manual. The touch screen feature is great! You can basically play on the touch screen and see the difference of the picture quality right on the screen. Here's some of the Pro & Con that I think after playing with this camcorder.
Pro:
-Easy to use
-Great video quality (I hook on my Sony 48 inches 1080p LCD screen the picture looks great!)
-Picture quality is great too if you got enough light when using indoor (outdoor no problem)
-Indoor video recording is pretty good using backlight function if indoor light is not enough.
-Outdoor video quality is excellent
-Digital zooming is great (I can basically zoom in and get so detail that I can see the pore of the person's face right across of the street with 3 traffic lane in between it.)
-LCD touch screen is great (you can flip the screen too! You can also use fingernail to touch the screen if your fingertip is too big the screen don't have any problem recognizing your command.)
Con:
-Not enough battery life (got around 90minutes of recording good thing is that you can see how much time you got left on the LCD screen for recording so you'll know when you need to charge the battery or switch to power cord or new battery.)
-You cannot charge the battery while using power cord!
-The power cord plug on the camcorder is hidden underneath where you put the battery at so you cannot use both battery and power cord at the same time (very bad when you try to record using power cord once you accidentally pull the power cord plug all of the recording stops and it takes long time for camcorder to get back to recording and it also causes temporary hard drive malfunction while the camcorder trying to recover what you just record.)
-You cannot turn on the light that came with the camcorder to do the recording (it's use mostly as flash function when taking picture)
So far that's what I thought playing for two weeks (without reading the manual.)
More detail ...
Panasonic HDC-TM10K Hard Drive Full HD Camcorder (Black)
Mixed bag: know what you're using it for
First the two versions of this camera are identical other than the fact that one has built in memory the other does not. BUT consider how much you're paying for that memory? Could you just buy a larger card with the price difference? Probably. Considering that for the sake of convenience you will probably be recording to cards most of the time (so you can just plug them into the computer) I would probably go for the internal memory-less version.
I ran several tests on the camera for a few days to try out its features. I am not a name-brand fanboy nor am I a dedicated videophile. I'm just going to give you an unbiased impression based upon what my eyes saw:
PROS:
1.)Pretty good daylight recording. Considering what I paid for it I was surprised by the quality. It's not a Canon S10 by any means but I was pleased.
2.)It is unbelievably small and light. Shockingly so. If you are looking for the smallest possible 1080p capable camera to take on a daylight hike I'm thinking this is near the top of the list.
3.)Has a few of the bells and whistles of a larger camera including the ability to swap out memory cards a decent touch-screen menu interface where you can play with the settings (as opposed to some of these cheap-o cameras) a genuine optical zoom and an HDMI output right on the camera. Unlike most I had no problem with the touchscreen.
4.)Quick power-on/off feature works really well battery life was not a problem.
CONS:
1.)You'll notice I mentioned how surprised I was by the camera's performance in daylight? I was equally surprised by the nighttime/indoor performance. As in it was atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. We're talking awful pixelation terrible graininess significant artifacting and block-iness and a general inability to see anything. The onboard light provided little help. I'm not talking about near pitch black rooms I'm talking about normally lit indoor areas. The camera is basically useless for indoor or nighttime recording unless you're using multiple floodlights. I would walk through the house and even our well lit dining room had significant problems.
I chalk this up to the tiny sensor (less than 2 megapixels) and tiny lens. Sure it keeps the weight/size factor miniscule but it really hurts performance. I am not understating this problem at all. I tried to use the manual shuttings (such as they are) to correct the problem but playing with frame rates settings and modes made little to no difference.
2.)No built-in lens protector. Having a dangling lenscap to annoy you defeats some of the purpose of having such a compact easy to whip out camera.
3.)Screen tearing/rolling shudder is a problem on quick pans even more so than other CMOS cameras I've tried. I'm not sure what the issue is but be forewarned.
4.)The cameras awful low light capabilities make most of the individualized settings useless.
5.)If you want to make that final jump from 1080i to 1080p you're limited to the "digital cinema" mode that disables the vast majority of the manual settings. A small nitpick but somewhat annoying.
SUMMARY
Know precisely what you're going to be using this camera for before you buy it. The video quality in daylight for the price is pretty decent the form factor/size is phenomenal and the indoor/low light video quality and options are horrendous. Basically if you're only going to be using it outdoors and size is of paramount important it's worthy of consideration. More detail ...
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