Panasonic HDC-HS300 Camcorder Review

by Kaitlyn Chantry and Jeremy Stamas
Published on May 6, 2009 2:17 PM

 
Intro
 Product Tour
Color & Noise Performance Motion & Sharpness Performance
Low Light Performance Compression & Media
Manual Controls Still Features
Handling & Use Playback & Connectivity
Audio & Other Features Sony HDR-XR520V Comparison
Canon HF S100 Comparison Sanyo VPC-HD2000 Comparison
Conclusion Photo Gallery
Specs and Ratings


Introduction

The Panasonic HDC-HS300 (MSRP 1399.99) has just about everything you could want in a high-end consumer camcorder. It features a wide range of manual controls, Panasonic's popular lens ring for making adjustments, a retractable electronic viewfinder, and a special set of automated controls that are designed to work with Panasonic's new touchscreen LCD system. All these features, combined with a 120GB internal hard drive and excellent HD video performance, make the HDC-HS300 a first-class camcorder.

Not everything on the camcorder is perfect, however. Most of the buttons are poorly designed and some are difficult to access while you are shooting. While the touchscreen system is useful for beginners, it may frustrate more advanced users, and the LCD is likely to get covered in greasy fingerprints very quickly. The camcorder also isn't very good for intermediate users, as it implements an all-or-nothing approach to using manual controls. Still, the camcorder performs exceptionally where it counts—video performance—and its overall functionality is very strong. The total picture is very strong, making the HDC-HS300 one of the best camorders of 2009.

Update: The Panasonic HDC-TM300 (a flash memory sister model to the HS300) was ultimately selected as our 2009 Camcorder of the Year. To see why we selected it and read about our other awards, check out the 2009 CamcorderInfo.com Select Awards.
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Section The Good The Bad
Product Tour The "pro" aesthetic might catch your eye... ...but it isn't an overly attractive camcorder
Color & Noise Performance Excellent noise performance and some of the best color accuracy recorded this year Could use a couple more color modes/ adjustment tools
Motion & Sharpness Performance Smooth motion and good sharpness Slightly more artifacting than the Sony or Canon models
Low Light Performance Very good low light sensitivity and decent low light color and noise 24p mode doesn't improve performance very much
Compression & Media 120GB hard drive gives you a lot of storage space Editing software isn't very useful
Manual Controls Lots of manual controls, Intelligent Auto (iA) features are great for beginners Manual controls and iA cannot be used simultaneously
Still Features Lots of image size and aspect ratio options Menu system is a bit confusing, burst feature only available in video mode
Handling & Use Excellent lens ring, electronic viewfinder is good to have Lens ring can only be set to zoom or focus unless you're using the viewfinder
Playback & Connectivity Good port covers, cold accessory shoe will fit most devices DC-input is located inside the battery cavity.
Audio & Other Features Many audio adjustment controls, pre-record and time lapse record are useful features Audio controls look more confusing than they really are, poor mic and headphone jack placement



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