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Panasonic PV-GS300 Camcorder Reviewby David KenderPublished on Feb 21, 2006 3:00 PM 
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (5.0)
The PV-GS300 (Review, Specs, $469.99) has a clearly marked auto mode switch inside the LCD cavity. In auto mode, your troubles concerning exposure, shutter speed, gain, focus – all things except pointing and hitting record – are over. When in auto mode, certain manual controls and parts of the administrative menu are inaccessible. For instance, you do not have access to shutter speed, iris, or gain, and you cannot select any of the scene modes. A breakdown of the menu structure can be found below in the Manual Control Section.
On the whole, the auto control on the GS300 is very good. The changes in exposure and white balance tend to come gradually, over the course of 3-5 seconds, but the shifts are accurate when they get there. Rarely, in fact, have I seen an auto white balance this good. Rooms with mixed lighting particularly tend to confuse camcorders, but the GS300 found a suitable tone for every subject in a room of mixed lighting.
The aperture range has decreased from last year, and it is smaller than it is on the GS500 (Review, Specs, $1040). The GS250 (Review, Specs, $1299.99), GS400 (Review, Specs, $1099), and GS500 all have an F1.8 – F16 range. The GS300 has a F1.6 – F16 range, which reduces the sensitivity by a 1/3 F-stop. The GS300 has also lost the automatic neutral density filter found on the other three camcorders. A neutral density filter reduces light, which can be helpful in brightly lit environments.
Though the scene modes cannot be accessed when in auto mode, scene modes are essentially “automatic controls,” so we’ll talk about them here. Scene modes are preset exposure options meant to get the best picture out of very specific lighting situations. On this camcorder, they include Sports, Portrait, Low Light, Spotlight, and Surf & Snow. Most of the time, a user with minimal knowledge of manual controls can do a more accurate job than the scene modes. But in a pinch, they work just fine.
There are also a number of other controls that we can consider automatic. These are controls that you can turn on and off, but that is typically the extent of your input. Soft Skin mode searches for “certain” skin tones in the picture and automatically adjusts to reduce blemishes. Be sure to call the manufacturer to find out exactly on which skin tones this feature actually works.
MagicPix is Panasonic’s name for their low light mode. There are actually two modes in MagicPix: standard and 0 Lux MagicPix. In the first mode, the camcorder works off of the existing light in the environment to try and get a picture. In 0 Lux mode, you can flip the LCD outward towards the subject to add some light. Both modes work by slowing down the charge of the CCD to approximately 30x its normal speed. The result is a seriously blurred picture for any moving object. The manual suggests using a tripod. We suggest turning on the light.
Overall Manual Control (7.5)
The GS300 has the manual control options you should expect to see on a $700 camcorder. This should not come as a surprise, because all Panasonics are strong in this category. The GS300 offers control over iris, shutter speed, gain, and focus. The navigation and menu layout are more or less the same through every one of their consumer camcorders this year, MiniDV and DVD alike.
There are two menus, which we dub manual control and administrative. The administrative menu is called up by pressing the Menu button located on the rear of the body. Here you will find most of the controls that you would not need close at hand: recording speed, aspect ratio, clock set, digital zoom on/off, still picture quality, etc. Navigation through this menu is done with the joystick, also located on the rear.
The manual control menu is accessed by pushing in on the joystick. This menu takes up only a small portion of the lower right side of the screen, so you can see changes in the picture immediately. There are a lot of features here, and in order to keep the menu small, it is split up into 4 or 5 “pages.” Pushing down on the joystick scrolls through each page. Page 1 offers Fade on/off and Backlight Compensation. These controls can be turned on or off; they don’t offer any control beyond that. The third option on page 1 is Info. This handy little feature gives you an explanation of what all these tiny icons mean, correcting an annoying aspect of Panasonic camcorders from years past.
Page 2 of the manual control menu offers Soft Skin mode and Tele Macro. Page 3 is MagicPix. Page 4 is Recording check, which plays back the last recorded image for 2-3 seconds, and Black Search, which searches for the next part of unused tape.
Page 5 will not appear unless you are in manual mode. Here you’ll find the real manual controls: white balance, shutter speed, and iris. Each of these controls is also controlled with the joystick and has a wide range of increments to make for a very detailed control.
A screenshot wih the manual control menu in the lower right
There is a Page 6, too, for Focus. It appears when you push down on the auto/manual focus switch located inside the LCD cavity. This is the only “dedicated button” for a manual control on the body.
Maneuvering around in the manual controls is a cinch with the joystick, which is probably the best possible navigation system in the kingdom of consumer camcorders. It has the Sony touch screen LCDs and JVC touch pads easily beat. Canon saw the light too and started installing joysticks on their ZR camcorders this year.
Zoom (7.0)
The zoom control on the GS300 is well placed for the index finger and allows variable speed control depending on finger pressure. I was able to detect about three different zoom speeds. The control device is a sliding switch rather than a raised pivoting toggle switch. The latter tends to afford smoother control. A sliding switch, unfortunately, has a tendency to rock the body of the camcorder, thus upsetting the frame’s balance. The GS300 can reach an optical zoom of 10x and a digital zoom of 700x.
Zoom Power/Ratio (10.0)
The PV-GS300 has an optical zoom of 10x. The digital zoom has a maximum of 700x, but it can be capped at 25x. By comparison, last year’s GS250 is exactly the same, and this year’s GS500 has a 12x optical zoom.
Focus (5.0)
The big loss, a carry over from the GS250, is the absence of a focus ring. It’s a feature that is infinitely handier than a joystick-controlled adjustment, and we’re sorry to see it go.
The manual focus on the GS300 is engaged by pushing down on the auto/manual focus switch located inside the LCD cavity. When engaged, the manual control appears with MF- and MF+ signs. Shift the joystick left and right until the picture is in focus. There are a number of things wrong with this system, and we were really hoping an upper-end Panasonic might have avoided them. Firstly, there is no numerical indicator to tell you where in the focus range you are. Secondly, the resolution on the LCD is not great, nor is it on the viewfinder. But these are the only viewing devices you have to judge the image by. Thirdly, of course, there is no manual focus ring. You will however find such a feature on the GS500.
Exposure (Aperture) (5.5)
When in manual mode, the GS300 does give you aperture control, found on page 5 of the manual control menu. The scale consists of F/1.8 (Open), 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. There is one intermediary step between each full stop. Unlike in the focus adjustment submenu, you cannot push and hold the joystick to scroll through the iris control. You must push the joystick each time. As mentioned above, last year’s GS250 and this year’s GS500 both have one larger aperture setting, F/1.6. This is a great range of options, and the fact that you can make adjustments independent of shutter speed (as opposed to Canon's Aperture and Shutter Priority modes).
Shutter Speed (7.0)
The shutter speeds are located in the same place and controlled in the same way as aperture. Shutter speeds range from 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 of a second. This is an excellent range of options for shutter speed, and easily located via the joystick. Again, this is a much better system that a priority mode, as found on Canon's Optura 60 (Specs, $649.99), which does not allow you to set the shutter speed and aperture independently.
White Balance (7.0)
The white balance has four modes: auto, indoor, outdoor and manual. White balance controls are also located on page 5 of the manual control menu and modified via the joystick. As described in the Automatic Control section above, the automatic white balance is excellent. Manual white balance is just as simple and effective. Simply find your white target, choose manual white balance, and press up on the joystick. It takes 1-2 seconds, then it is set.
Gain (7.0)
Manual gain on the GS300 can only be accessed once the iris is opened fully to F/1.8, which appears as “OPEN” in the text onscreen. If you try to open the iris any further (done by pushing right on the joystick) the gain begins to increase. Gain ranges from 0dB to 18dB. It moves in 1dB increments, though you’ll only ever see every 3rd dB appear on the display: 3dB, 6dB, 9dB… up through 18dB. This level of control in gain is something that you won’t see on any other consumer camcorder.
Other Manual Control (0.0)
There is no other manual control on the PV-GS300.