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The optical zoom feature acts like a telescope to produce close-up shots with extraordinary clarity so you won't miss a single detail. It also offers variable zoom speeds, so you can adjust your zoom speed from wide angle to full telephoto. In addition, the digital zoom ratio can be increased up to an extraordinary 800x. Now that's close up!Now you can snap off a still shot (VGA) while recording video without having to change recording modes. The video is recorded onto the Mini DV tape and the still image is recorded onto the SD Memory Card. This 2-in-1 capability means you can catch sudden photo opportunities without interrupting a fantastic moving picture scene.The Soft Skin Mode feature detects skin tones and softens the focus in that area of the picture. It helps make blemishes and lines appear less noticeable, while preserving resolution in areas of the picture outside the skin.The joystick makes the camera much simpler to use, letting you control all basic operations with one hand. As you shoot, just watch the image in the monitor and follow the instruction guide. You can handle a number of operations quickly and easily, without even taking your eye off the subject.The Quick Start button helps shoot video on the spur of the moment. While saving battery power, this function lets you capture these moments in a mere 1.3 seconds after pressing the button.
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Small & Light
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| Review Date: December 26, 2005 |
| Reviewer: BGG, New Jersey |
| I was taking excellent video 20 minutes after opening the box.The camera is simple to use and you can compensate for dark scenes quickly by changing a video setting with the cameras joystick.I had no distress copying video from the camera to my computer ( XP ) via the USB connection. The windows movie maker program worked fine.Be aware that Panasonic does not supply a USB cable with its camera. |
Brilliant Camcorder
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| Review Date: November 27, 2005 |
| Reviewer: S. Broderick, Chicago, IL |
| This is an brilliant camcorder, it small, simple to carry around, and has excellent battery life. It even fits into a inexpensive carying case we had our for digital camera. It has a lot of fantastic features and served us well on our vacation. Its been said before, but the only real drawback to this is the instructions. To Claridy: The camcorder can transfer still pics from its SD slot via a USB cable, you will need firewire to transfer it to the computer or use as a webcam - both which work very well. It also has all the necessary cables you will need if you just want to hook it up to your VHS/Home DVD burner via A/V cables and record, or just watch the playback on a TV. It could use an external audio mic output, but we found the internal microphone is quite sensitive and met our needs very well. Overall: Definately recomended |
Fantastic Product
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| Review Date: March 27, 2006 |
| Reviewer: A. Pennington, Arkansas |
| Fantastic product! Fantastic image and zoom. Captures color very well. Sound is excellent. Very compact. Excellent battery life. Still picture quality is ok. Definately recommend this product. |
Fantastic Camera!!!
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| Review Date: October 23, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Julie, United States |
| This is a fantastic camcorder. I've read that people have problems with uploading video to the computer, but I have not tried to do that yet. We bought the camera to film everyday things (holidays, the dog, etc.) and it works much better than I expected. The zoom feature is fantastic--I can't believe how crisp the film is for things that are so far away. I've even used the camera in place of binoculars on our travels because you can see everything on the screen so clearly. We also play back video in the car on our way home from travels and delight in watching it on the mini screen and listening to the audio. The most unexpected benefit of the camera is how simple it is to take pictures from film. We watch what we filmed on TV and just hit the picture button to snap digital photos after the fact. It is fantastic! I really like having the digital camera and camcorder in one; it's one less thing to carry. Again, I can't speak to the computer upload of film, but not everyone wants to do that either. The only drawback to the camera is that it doesn't have a light or flash. But, we haven't found that we really needed it yet, and we have filmed a lot inside and out. I am so pleased with the camcorder!! |
Slightly misleading capabilities, but overall fantastic.
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| Review Date: July 9, 2005 |
| Reviewer: John B. Batzel, Philadelphia area, PA |
This has been an brilliant camera for filming our less-than-a-year ancient daughter, indoors and out. The quality is quite excellent, and the camera is honestly feature-full. But, the one problem we've had is in connecting this camera to our computer. Panasonic does not have a driver up on their web site to let us download video from the camera using USB. We can download still photos, but not video. The most recent drivers don't seem to support this version of the camera.
But, the Firewire(IEEE 1394, DV) connection is recognized by Windows XP immediately and supports the camera quite well. Since we added on Firewire support for our computer, we've been downloading video and editing it easily. With Firewire, the camera also functions as a webcam.
The only thing I wish the camera had was a simple audio-in connector. The only audio the camera records is from its built-in microphone. The higher-end cameras in this line have this feature -- if you're going to record church events and the like and want to hook into the sound system, you'll want a higher end camera.
Overall, we're very pleased with this camera. Just that matter of both the online texts and the manual not being clear that USB will not let you download video, you need Firewire for that. |
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