Panasonic SDR-SW20

Still Features (3.5)
The SDR-SW20 does have a dedicated still shooting mode, unlike the HD models we’ve seen from the company this year. Unfortunately, it can only capture images at 640 x 480 (VGA), which is at the bottom end of the spectrum compared to most other camcorders. Though the SDR-SW20’s specialty is underwater video, Panasonic could have fattened up the camcorder’s Photo mode options. After all, 640 x 480 is only 0.3-megapixels. The average point and shoot camera can capture about 23 times that resolution. Images on the SDR-SW20 can be saved in High or Standard quality, and up to 27,150 images can be saved on a 4GB SD/SDHC card. Other options consist of a 10 second Self Timer and Shutter Sound effect.

The SDR-SW20’s Photo menu can be accessed by pressing the Menu button while in Photo mode. The Photo Manual Control menu contains the following options:

Photo Manual Control Menu
Page 1	Self Timer, BLC, Information
Page 2	Soft Skin Mode
Page 3	Iris, White Balance, Shutter Speed
Page 4	Focus

The main menu (Admin menu) can be accessed by pressing the Menu button while in Photo mode. The Admin menu contains the following options:

Photo Administrative Menu
Basic	Scene Mode, Guide Lines, Picture Quality, Clock Set, Set World Time
Advanced	Shutter Effect, Auto Slow Shutter
Setup	Display, Date/Time, Date Format, Format Card, Quick Start, Power Save, Audio Recording, Beep Sound, Power LCD, LCD Set, External Display, Initial Set, Demo Mode
Language	Auto, English, Espanol, Francais

 In Photo Playback mode, the Photo menu contains the following items:

Photo Playback Menu
Picture Setup	Lock Set, DPOF Set
Setup	Display, Date/Time, Date Format, Format Card, Power Save, Beep Sound, Power LCD, LCD Set, TV Aspect, External Display
Language	English, Espanol, Francais

Photo playback mode in action	The Photo playback menu

Still Performance (6.59)
The still performance of the Panasonic SDR-SW20 was tested by shooting an X-Rite Color Checker chart at an even, bright light, then exporting the stills to Imatest imaging software in order to determine color accuracy, noise, and saturation.

The SDR-SW20 produced a color error of 6.98, according to Imatest. This score is actually a little better than most of Panasonic’s HD camcorders, ironically. Of course, the HD camcorders produce a still resolution almost seven times higher, making them more preferable overall. The noise from the SW20 was about 0.89%, a good, low number. Despite this, the images look undeniably noisy, which we’ll have to chalk up to low resolution. The saturation measured 94.46.

Overall, the 640 x 480 stills produced by the Panasonic SDR-SW20 are simple too small to be of use to most people.

Still Resolution (1.5)
The still resolution of the Panasonic SDR-SW20 was tested by shooting an Applied Image ISO 12233 resolution chart at an even, bright light, then sending those stills over to Imatest imaging software. At best, the camcorder was able to produce a horizontal resolution of 335.2 line widths per picture height (lw/ph) – with a 2.88% clipping and -7.24% undersharpening. The vertical resolution measured 291.6 lw/ph – with a 5.16% clipping and a -6.75% undersharpening.

The clipping in both these scores was quite high, which could cause some errors in the accuracies of the score. However, they match up closely with older, similar Panasonic camcorders. Clipping occurs when (in this case) a percentage of the black pixels bottomed out, falling below RGB values of zero. We see this frequently in camcorders taking still pictures, but usually not this bad. When testing, we shoot across a range of exposure levels, and this was the best the camcorder could do.