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Panasonic SDR-SW20 Camcorder Reviewby Michael PerlmanPublished on Apr 23, 2008 1:53 PM 
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (5.0)
The Panasonic SDR-SW20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $0.00) will probably see a lot of use in Auto mode if it’s used by active outdoors people and vacationers. Therefore, it’s critical that the automatic responses be good. In short, they will suffice, but there are some caveats.
The auto exposure mode is incredibly fast. There’s no smooth, gradual lag times here. Panasonic may have been considering that underwater footage is generally all over the place – up into the sun, towards a person, then back down into the dark water – every few seconds. (This is the tragic but predictable curse of home video that induces nausea in so many viewers). The auto exposure has no trouble keeping up. However, the SDR-SW20 has a limited dynamic range. Shots with both strong light and dark shadow will suffer from a loss of detail in one or the other, depending on which is more prominent. To avoid this, try and make sure your subject is evenly lit.
The auto focus is also good, and can keep up with frantic footage as long as the lighting is decent. In darker areas, the focus can take a while to adjust. The auto white balance was definitely the poorest area. Indoor fluorescent lighting, which accounts for most offices and businesses, was a persistent problem. We had to make a manual adjustment before we were satisfied. Outdoor shooting looked fine under most circumstances.
The Manual Control menu, activated by pushing in on the button in the middle of the directional pad, offers a number of one-touch corrections for your video that don’t require much special camera knowledge. Backlight Compensation brightens the image when your subject is standing in front of a strong backlight. Soft Skin detects skin tones and reduces detail in blemishes and wrinkles. The MagicPix mode is a low light setting that allows you to capture detail in the darkest of settings. (Warning, MagicPix allows the shutter to go extremely slow, which creates serious blurring). For a less drastic low light setting, use Auto Slow Shutter, located in the Admin menu.
The SDR-SW20 also has a standard array of Scene Modes, including Sports, Portrait, Low Light, Spotlight, and Surf & Snow. Yes, that’s a third low light mode you’ve spotted there. The Low Light Scene Mode appears to be a little more powerful than Auto Slow Shutter, but not as strong as MagicPix. In the next menu redesign, Panasonic would do well to group these all together.
Overall Manual Control (4.25)
For a camcorder of this size and price, the level of manual control offered is really amazing. This is something that Panasonic has always excelled at in this price range. When in manual mode, you have focus, zoom, white balance, independent aperture & shutter, and gain. There are also a number of one-touch controls, including scene modes, described above.
Because waterproofing and minimal protrusions were such a point of focus in the design, the SDR-SW20 is not a handling champ. Nearly all interface controls are hidden away in the LCD cavity. The buttons are small and hard to feel out with your finger. The four-directional navigational pad (which we refer as the d-pad). For its purpose as an underwater camera, the buttons could have been larger, but they are spaced apart far enough to make them easy to press. Also, the high contrast white-on-black text is also useful.
Zoom (4.75)
The zoom rocker on the Panasonic SDR-SW20 is located on top of the body towards the rear. It’s very small, even for the compact size of the camcorder. This is not a great control for tight, controlled zooms. When zooming, the LCD displays both a progress bar to tell you where in the zoom range you are, as well as the actual numeric value of the zoom.
Zoom Power Ratio (10.0)
The SDR-SW20 can achieve up to a 10x optical zoom and a 700x digital zoom. We recommend NOT breaking beyond the 10x barrier because on a camcorder with such low resolution, your recorded clips will just be a pixilated fiasco—especially underwater, where you need all the resolution you can get. Think of how difficult it will be to swim and zoom at the same time, anyway.
Focus (4.0)
The focus control on the Panasonic SDR-SW20 is not great, but it’s there if you need it. To engage, make sure the camcorder is in manual mode, then push the Manual AF/MF button. An icon appears in the lower right-hand corner of the LCD prompting you to push the d-pad left and right. Unlike Panasonic’s HD camcorders, there is no focus assist mode to help you. You’ll have to rely entirely on the image you see on that 2.7-inch, 123,000-pixel LCD.
Exposure & Aperture (5.64)
Panasonic camcorders offer control of the aperture (referred to as “Iris” by the manufacturer) that can be adjusted independently of shutter speed. This is a great and powerful tool for advanced users. Unfortunately, they routinely omit a simpler exposure tool – a basic “make it brighter/make it darker” setting – that does not require a familiarity with camera terminology. As is it, beginners will likely have to consult the manual to understand how the aperture controls function.
The aperture control is located in the Manual Control menu, which is accessed by pushing on the button in the center of the d-pad. Aperture settings include: f/2.8 (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. In between each of these settings is a one-half increment. This is a huge range of settings and should meet the needs of demanding shooters. No other manufacturer offers this much choice.
Shutter Speed (7.6)
The shutter speed is located in the Manual Control menu right next to the aperture controls. Shutter speed can be set independently of aperture, allowing you to get tight control of your shot. 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.
If the Auto Slow Shutter option is engaged (via the Admin menu), the option for a new slowest speed of 1/30 becomes available. In all, this is a great range of settings. As with aperture, Panasonic offers the highest degree of control in this area.
White Balance (6.5)
The white balance controls are also located in the Manual Control menu. Settings here include Auto, Indoor, Outdoor, Manual, and an unusual fifth category, Underwater. The first four are standard on all Panasonic camcorders. Making a manual adjustment is easy. Just point the camcorder are your white or neutral grey target, scroll over to the Manual setting (represented by the icon of a rectangle over two triangles), and push up. You’ll know if the setting didn’t stick because the icon will keep blinking. If it works, the icon becomes solid.
The underwater option for white balance is not actually present in the menu. It is the default white balance setting if you put the camcorder in Underwater mode via the dedicated button in the LCD cavity. The manual gives no information as to what the change is. As far as we can see, it warms the image considerably, likely to compensate for strong sunlight.
Gain (6.0)
Panasonic is the only manufacturer to offer gain in the consumer range of camcorders. To activate, the camcorder must first have exhausted the aperture options. This means the aperture has to be open all the way to f/1.8. After that, you push the zoom in increments of +3dB, +6dB, +9dB, +12dB, +dB15, and +18dB. In between each of these settings is a one-half increment.
Other Manual Controls (2.0)
Guidelines - The guidelines feature sections the frame on the LCD into four vertical sections to assist the shooter with the rule of thirds. The lines that appear on screen do not get recorded to your final video.