Panasonic PV-GS180 Camcorder Review

Ease of Use (6.0)
All Panasonics are easy to use, after you’ve crested the initial learning curve. The time it takes you to do that will vary depending on your level of “techno-comfort.” Do you fear setting the time on your VCR, or do you dive right in? The obstacle in Panasonic camcorders is learning the icons in the manual control menu and other places. The esoteric symbols – a flower, a radioactive cornstalk (turns out this is the windscreen symbol) – might require that you consult the manual before your first big shoot.

Once you’ve mastered the icons, it handles like a dream. I’m reminded each time I use a Panasonic that their joystick operation really is the best in the business. It’s fast, effective, large enough to get a grip on, and can be used for one-handed operation. The Sony touch screen has a lot of these qualities, but leaving greasy fingerprints all over the LCD is a drag. It also means that Sony camcorders require two hands. Canon offers either a jog dial or joystick, depending on the model, and the joysticks are nearly as good as the Panasonics. JVC also uses joysticks on some of theirs, but like Canon, they put them on the outer edge of their LCD panels, rather than located on the back of the camcorder, as Panasonic does.

The PV-GS180 is a camcorder that has a considerable number of features packed into a small package. Despite its wealth of manual control options and ports, Panasonic’s engineers have managed to keep the camcorder’s handling generally intuitive and comfortable. This is a small camcorder, measuring 71mm (2.8 inches) wide x 73mm (2.9 inches) tall x 123mm (4.9 inches) long, and the barrel-like shape fits easily in the palm during hand-held shooting. Amazingly, Panasonic has designed the camcorder’s main inferface to be usable with one hand thanks to the integrated Joystick/Mode Switch.

I did find a few aspects of the camcorder’s design frustrating during hand-held shooting. The handstrap is not angled down towards the lens as on many camcorders, which forced me to cock my hand slightly backwards to keep my shooting axis parallel to the ground. Over time, this will add to hand and wrist strain. In addition, the zoom toggle was not positioned directly under my index finger, but fell in-between my index and middle finger if I also positioned my hand so my thumb could access the joystick. It should be noted that this problem is a curse of abundance. No consumer camcorder manufacturer makes so many controls accessible to one hand, but that hand will work hard if you plan on exploiting them all.

The joystick on the camcorder’s rear is the main interface device, and it works surprisingly well. The optimal interface solution is to place manual controls on a camcorder’s exterior, enabling one-button access. Prosumer camcorders with their larger bodies can accommodate myriad external buttons and switches for white balance, exposure, and other important manual controls. Consumer camcorders are much smaller, and manufacturers have therefore consolidated controls in menus, and assigned multiple functions to buttons and toggles. No interface solution is perfect: Sony’s touchscreens tend to buildup finger grease, and cannot be accessed with the LCD closed, JVC’s Everio touchpads are small and difficult to operate, and many camcorder interfaces are placed out of sight in the LCD cavity. We prefer Panasonic’s rear-mountedjoystick because it is easy to operate with one digit, its location is convenient for the user, and it works relatively well as a multifunction controller. For example, the joystick is used to adjust focus manually and works much better than touchscreens or touchpads in this capacity (though a true focus ring, found only on the PV-GS500 would be better still.)

Panasonic has developed a streamlined menu layout that keeps handling relatively intuitive, and its broken into an Administrative text-based section and an icon-based Manual section. The Administrative Menu is reached by pressing the Menu Button, located on the camcorder’s rear when the camcorder is not actively recording. Reaching this button, with only my shooting hand, was a stretch for me, but navigation within the menu is fast and easy using the quad-directional joystick, and its middle select function. The Manual Menu is reached by pressing the center of the joystick while in Record Mode, and appears in the lower right corner of the LCD screen. It’s also easy to move through, but the icons themselves require that you memorize their respective functions – they are not intuitive. Making the most of the PV-GS180’s manual controls thus involves a steeper learning curve than most other camcorders, but its worth the effort.

Portability (5.0)
The PV-GS180 is a small camcorder to be sure, but its not an ultra compact which makes it too big to comfortably fit in a pocket but easy to toss into a purse or day pack. It weighs in at 410 g, or .91 lb. Ounce for ounce, few camcorders on the market offer so many manual control features in such a small package.

LCD/Viewfinder (5.5)
The LCD screen on the PV-GS180 is measures 2.5-inches and has a modest resolution of 113,000 pixels, which is not a high pixel count considering some camcorders offer over 200,000 pixels on their LCD displays. Pixel count is not necessarily indicative of apparent image quality, and this camcorder’s LCD presents a very sharp and bright picture that looks better than Sony LCDs with a similar pixel count. Unfortunately, Panasonic screens do suffer considerably from solarization when their screens are viewed at even a slight angle. In addition, the 4:3 aspect ratio of this screen cannot accommodate widescreen mode without modifying the image. In widescreen mode, the entire image is letterboxed and in cinema mode, the image is cropped and zoomed. We’re not sure why Panasonic elected not to include the same 2.7” 16:9 screen that appears on the PV-GS300 and PV-GS500 on this camcorder, and its certainly a liability when it comes to framing shots. The LCD includes a Power LCD button that increases the LCD’s brightness, located in the LCD cavity. The user manual reports that Power LCD mode doubles the LCD’s brightness but will reduce battery life.

We have lamented the terrible quality of electronic color viewfinders on consumer camcorders, and manufacturers seem to treat them as vestigial organs given that LCD screens are much easier to use. Yet viewfinders are preferable in situations such as environments where a large illuminated LCD screen may be disruptive, on a very bright day, or when maximizing battery life is vital. For this reason, we believe camcorders deserve better viewfinders.

With this in mind, the PV-GS180’s viewfinder is quite poor – but is still better than most consumer camcorder viewfinders for a few reasons. By pressing your eye gently against the eyepiece, it is possible to block out ambient light from the sides which is useful when evaluating shots in bright sunlight. Many eyepieces don’t allow this because the shape of the eyepiece simply precludes light leakage. In addition, the joystick-based menu is available while using the viewfinder, a convenience that isn’t available in camcorders like the Sony HC-46 which utilizes a touchscreen menu interface. The viewfinder’s dioptric adjustment is just forward of the eyepiece. The PV-GS180’s viewfinder is not comfortable, it extends but does not pivot upward to provide a better viewing angle, but it is still better than many others on the market.

Battery Life (8.2)
The PV-GS180 ships with the CRG-DU06 battery. This is the same battery that comes with the PV-GS59. The more powerful DU12 battery ships with the PV-GS300. We tested the DU06 battery for endurance in continuous shooting. With the LCD open and no manual controls or zoom engaged, the PV-GS180 lasted for 82 minutes and 37 seconds (1 hour, 22 minutes, and 37 seconds). This is an average length of time for a MiniDV camcorder in this price range.