Panasonic PV-GS500

It has been a long 18 months since Panasonic released one of the best 3 CCD consumer camcorders of all time... the GS400. The video enthusiast community has been eagerly awaiting its successor, hoping that somehow Panasonic would work its miracle again with unexpected, expanded features on the next model. Well, the time has come and Panasonic has released the new model, the PV-GS500. But unfortunately for the enthusiast, the GS500 is only a shadow of its older brother. It is missing certain GS400 features like a headphone jack, A/V conversion and pass-through, frame mode, a 3.5" LCD, picture adjust, zebras, program automatic exposure modes, and now only has a focus ring instead of a multi-manual ring. Some of the user convenience features such as external buttons to select functions like ProCinema mode are now relegated to the menus.

On the bright side, the PV-GS500 does retain a lot of the top features that made the GS400 so popular, such as 1/4.7 inch CCDs, ProCinema and widescreen modes, audio level adjust, DV and USB 2.0 high speed ports, 4 megapixel stills, and 1.2 megapixel stills during video recording. New features on the GS500 include the highly regarded joystick menu controls, a widescreen 2.7-in. LCD, and a new AGS mode that is supposed to keep inexperienced shooters from wasting battery and tape by failing to pause the recording. To reduce user confusion, Panasonic has removed the fake cinema mode and now identifies the optical stabilization as OIS on the LCD/EVF. Finally, the GS500 is more compact and lighter than the GS400, which will please consumers who are looking for a lot of prosumer features in a more compact body. Panasonic has also sweetened the deal by lowering the retail price for the GS500 to $999.