Panasonic HDC-SX5 Camcorder Review

by Michael Perlman
Published on Oct 17, 2007 4:45 PM

Intro Performance
Format
Auto / Manual Controls
Still Features Handling and Use
Audio / Playback / Connectivity Other Features
Comparisons / Conclusion
  • Photo Gallery
    		•
    Specs and Ratings  


    Picture & Manual Control
    Automatic Control (6.5)
    The automatic controls on the Panasonic HDC-SX5 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $0.00) are mixed in their ability to deal with changing light conditions. The best, or at least the fastest, is Auto exposure. We found the camcorder was likely to expose the image too brightly for our liking, washing out brighter areas. Also, some might find the exposure shifts too quick, as professional cameras have a more gradual shift.

    The worst control was Auto white balance, which rarely displayed the colors as they should look unless shooting in perfect daylight. We found ourselves constantly shifting to Manual white balance, which is fortunately a very simple task that could be done against almost any background.

    The camcorder includes a number of one-touch features for simple image correction. Most are found in the Joystick menu, activated by pushing in on the joystick. They include Intelligent Contrast (described below in Other Manual Controls), Soft Skin mode for skin tone correction, MagicPix low light mode, and Backlight Compensation for shooting subjects against strong backlighting. The camcorder also has the standard array of Scene modes, including Sports, Portrait, Low light, Spotlight, and Surf & Snow.

     
     

    The joystick is well placed,
    but smaller than the last generation models.
       
    Overall Manual Control (6.75)
    The manual control on the HDC-SX5, like most Panasonics, is quite good. The camcorder comes equipped with a full array of aperture, shutter speed, focus, and gain controls, along with a number of one-touch correction tools to help when the lighting is less than ideal. The handling has taken a small setback since last year, as Panasonic shrunk the joystick. It won’t bother a lot of people, but we saw it as an unnecessary change. Fortunately, it remains rear-mounted, allowing for one-handed operation.

    One thing conspicuously lacking on Panasonic camcorders is a simple exposure tool. Nearly every camcorder has an easy to understand feature – usually called “exposure” or “brightness” – that makes the picture brighter or darker. Panasonic instead offers independent shutter and aperture. This is great for the power user, but a lot of users don’t have the knowledge required to make effective use of those tools. Panasonic could take a tip from the competition here.

    Zoom (6.5)
    The Panasonic HDC-SX5 offers a raised toggle switch on top, near the right rear, for controlling zoom. This is virtually identical to the toggle on the HDC-DX1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1119.99). It’s well positioned and the raised profile makes for easy grasping. Getting a slow, even crawl is difficult, as the camcorder does not offer a steady speed from 1x to 10x. Instead, there’s a very slow crawl from 1x to 3x, then faster, and then faster again. At its slowest, it takes about 10 seconds to traverse the span; fastest, it can move in four seconds.

    While zooming, a progress bar appears in the upper right corner, along with a numerical indicator to tell you exactly what the zoom power is. This can be very helpful when setting up a shot, and we thank Panasonic for the thoughtfulness.

    Zoom Power Ratio (10.0)
    The HDC-SX5 features a 10x optical zoom, standard for higher-end camcorders. The digital zoom can be extended to 700x, or capped at a more sensible 25x.

    Focus (5.0)
    Focus is perhaps the most important element to consider if you’re making the switch from standard to high definition. A lightly out of focus face forgiven on your old camcorder will be much sharper with the HDC-SX5. Thus, a good manual focus is vital. The HDC-SX5 has a merely adequate control. To engage manual focus, push down on the Auto/Manual/Focus switch located in the LCD cavity. Shifting focus is done with the joystick. You’ll have to rely on the picture alone to determine whether the focus is correct.

    The camcorder offers one tool, MF Assist, to help in this task. Once activated in the menu, every time you use the joystick to shift the focus, a small window framed in blue appears in the middle of the screen. Within this window is your subject, zoomed to about twice its normal size. While good in theory, we found the tool was generally less useful than expected. First, while the LCD has a high 300,000-pixel resolution, the screen is still small – only 2.7 inches. Second, the zoom window is small relative to the entire screen. Third, it’s a digital zoom, which by definition is a distortion of the image. It’s hard to tell if the focus is correct. We would have much preferred JVC’s peaking tool, which creates a false color on areas of the screen that are in focus. It’s by far the best focus tool we’ve seen on a consumer camcorder to date.


    MF Assist in action

    Exposure & Aperture (5.69)
    The HDC-SX5, like all Panasonics, offers an aperture control independent of shutter speed control. The aperture control is located on the Joystick menu. Settings include Open (f/1.8), f/2.0, f/2.4, f/2.8, f/3.4, f/4.0, f/4.8, f/5.6, f/6.8, f/8.0, f/9.6, f/11, f/14, and f/16. This is the best and most powerful set of aperture settings you can expect to find on any consumer camcorder.

    As mentioned previously, the camcorder lacks a simple exposure tool, which is going to frustrate beginners.


    The Aperture (Iris) tool in action

    Shutter Speed (8.1)
    The shutter speed control is also located on the Joystick menu, and can be adjusted independently of the aperture. Settings include 1/60, 1/100, 1/120, 1/180, 1/250, 1/350, 1/500, 1/750, 1/1000, 1/1500, 1/2000, 1/3000, 1/4000, and 1/8000.


    Shutter Speed in action

    The camcorder also offers an Auto Slow Shutter mode. When activated via the Main menu, it allows the auto shutter to drop down as low as 1/30 rather than the normal 1/60. It also allows you to manually adjust the shutter to 1/30, which should prove helpful in low light shooting.

    White Balance (5.5)
    The white balance settings are located on the Joystick menu. The selection is rather limited compared to some manufacturers. They include: Auto, Outdoor, Indoor, and Manual. A preferable list would have included a few more presets for various color temperatures.


    White Balance in action

    Making a manual adjustment is very simple. Just scroll through the settings until you hit the iconic “white balance icon” and press up on the joystick. The screen goes black for a few seconds, and when the image comes back, voilà … the white balance is corrected.

    Gain (6.0)
    Panasonic is the only camcorder manufacturer to offer manual gain control, which is very useful in moderate low light shooting when you’re trying to find the balance between exposure and noise. It’s important to note that the gain control on Panasonic consumer camcorders does not function the same as on professional camcorders. On these models, the gain can only be accessed once the aperture has been exhausted, meaning it must be open to its fullest extent, f/1.8.

    Gain settings include 0dB, 3dB, 6dB, 9dB,12dB, 15dB, and 18dB. Between each increment is another mystery increment that isn't acknowledged by the on-screen display, but nonetheless has an effect on brightness.

    Other Manual Controls (3.5)
    Intelligent Contrast - The Intelligent Contrast feature is new for this generation of Panasonic camcorders. The manual describes it as a tool “for recording both bright and dark parts clearly at the same time.” Of course, no tool allows a camcorder to exceed its native dynamic range. In practice, we found it to be of limited use. It appears to evaluate the entire exposure range of the frame, then look for areas that are close to blowing out or bottoming out, but still have salvageable information. It then raises or lowers the exposure accordingly to bring that information out more clearly.

    The tool was often good at determining where that salvageable data was. However, it seemed to operate by looking for the greatest amount of information it could correct, and this may not be the information you wanted. For instance, if 15 percent of the image was a uniform area in moderate shadow, but your most important subject was a small, brightly-lit white object, the Intelligent Contrast feature would boost the overall exposure to correct for the shadows, and thus completely blow out the white object. You’ll want to be careful when and how you use this feature.

    Intelligent Contrast off (above), and Intelligent Contrast on (below).
    The setting created a big change in exposure here.

    Intelligent Contrast off (above), and Intelligent Contrast on (below).
    In this shot, the camcorder actually lost detail in the darker areas without gaining anything in the midtones and highlights.  

    Guidelines - The Guidelines tool has three options for drawing artificial lines across the LCD to help set up a shot: a horizontal line across the center, Grid 1 (nine sectors), and Grid 2 (66 sectors). These do not appear on the final recordings.

    Zebra - The Zebra tool creates artificial stripes across areas that are overexposed. Panasonic does not specify what IRE level is the threshold, but it appears to be around 100 IRE. The stripes do not appear on the final recorded video.

    Color Bar - The camcorder can create color bars to help calibrate your monitor.

    Tele Macro - The Tele Macro feature is designed to help shoot small objects up close. When activated, it extends the zoom to 10x.

     

     

     

     



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