Panasonic VDR-D200 Camcorder Review

The automatic / manual switch is located in the LCD cavity.

Switching the VDR-D200 into Auto Mode is easy.  You simply open up the LCD, look for the control switch, and move it to the Auto position.  As with other Panasonic consumer camcorders, the VDR-D200 performed well in Auto Mode, but there were a few weak points. When zooming or panning across a complex scene, or a scene with low contrast, the camcorder took a few seconds to make adjustments to contrast, color and focus. This resulted in level and focal breathing while the camcorder searched for the proper setting.  Even so, the camcorder did not always get focus right, and tended to select the brightest part of the image as its perceived subject.  This is a typical area of difficulty for any camcorder in Auto Mode, but we’ve observed that Sonys are often slightly more adept at making accurate adjustments. The zoom is also on the slow side, but otherwise performed well with its nicely designed zoom toggle. 

Overall Manual Control (7.0)

The Manual Control Menu is used to adjust the picture while shooting, but it also accesses some presets.  Unlike the completely text-based Administrative Menu, the Manual Control Menu is icon-based. The menu is reached by depressing the center of the joystick, which causes a small disc-shaped menu to pop up in the lower right corner of the display. “1/2” appears in the center of the menu disk, indicating that you are on page 1 of 2. On the first page, you’ll find icons for Soft Skin mode, Fade and Backlight compensation.  These options are available when shooting in both Manual and Auto Modes.  When shooting in Manual Mode, pressing the center of the joystick again, brings up page 2. There you’ll find the meaty manual controls: white balance, shutter speed, aperture, and gain.

This animated gifs show the main menu and its first two sub-menus.

Zoom (7.0)

The zoom toggle on the Panasonic VDR-D200 has a slider type design, meaning the control is pushed back and forth in a groove on the top of the camcorder body.  The toggle itself is not a bad control, but I prefer the rocker switch design found on many Sony camcorders, which I find to be more responsive. The slider is pressure responsive with a variable zoom speed, so pressing the slider further along its track in either direction increases the speed of the zoom. When constant pressure is placed on the zoom toggle, and the slider is held in one spot in its track, the zoom speed remains constant.  The 30x optical zoom has a very smooth action, and with this camcorder it’s possible to slowly ease up on the zoom to land gently at a stopping point.  It’s a refined control that yields good results with practice.  The placement of the toggle puts it within easy and comfortable reach of the right index finger when hand-holding the camcorder.

Zoom Power/Ratio (30.0)
The VDR-D200 has a 30x optical zoom placing in the company of only a few DVD camcorders that offer optical zooms in the 30x or above range. This powerful zoom is made possible by the camcorder’s relatively small 1/6” CCD. Nonetheless, a 30x optical zoom makes this camcorder a good choice for users who like to get close to the action.

This camcorder also has a digital zoom that ranges up to the absurdly high magnification of 1000x. Because digital zooms do not function optically but instead magnify the pixels available at a camcorder’s optical zoom maximum, they degrade image quality very quickly. Even doubling the optical zoom max, to 60x on this camcorder, results in noticeable blurring of the image. Luckily, the VDR-D200 enables digital zoom to be disabled or capped at 50x in the Advanced submenu of the Administrative menu. While we understand the attraction of digital mega-zooms, they offer little in the way of true utility, and should be viewed as the marketing gimmicks they are.

Focus (5.0)
Manual control over focus on the VDR-D200 is engaged by pressing the switch in the LCD cavity down when the camcorder is in Manual mode.  When the switch has been pressed down, a schematic appears in the manual control menu with a minus sign on the left and a plus sign on the right, and the letters MF appear in the upper left side of the screen.  Pressing the joystick left or right shifts the focal distance of the lens closer or farther, respectively.  There is no numerical or visual scale to indicate where in the focal range you are – a feature that would allow users to achieve accurate focus more quickly.

Compared to the manual focus adjustments of most other consumer camcorders, the joystick works well.  It’s superior to the touch screen interface for focus adjustments found on comparable Sonys, but it does have its limitations.  It moves quickly through its focal range, with the result that it is very easy to overshoot your focus point.  I managed to get this adjustment to work by gently tapping the joystick left or right, but a pressure sensitive adjustment like the zoom toggle would improve the usability of this control. A focus ring would be better still, but they are rare on consumer camcorders. They are only found on Panasonics at the top of the MiniDV line.

Exposure (Aperture) (6.0)
The manual controls for aperture, gain, shutter speed, and white balance are combined under a shared interface on the Panasonic VDR-D200.  This makes the controls very efficient due to their proximity to one another in the menu, but using them successfully is a tricky process that requires some practice.  In addition, aperture and gain settings are linked on a continuum and are not independent controls, so that when the iris is o pen, the next step along the scale activates the camcorder’s gain function.  The only major drawback to this arrangement is that it takes a while to traverse the camcorder’s entire aperture/gain range.

The aperture settings on the VDR-D200 are accessed from page 2 of the Manual Control menu by pressing the joystick down until aperture or gain is highlighted on the left side of the LCD.  Aperture options available are OPEN (f/1.8), 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, with smaller steps between each full stop.  This adds up to a considerable aperture adjustment range, though as mentioned above, traversing the entire range takes a while.  Pressing and holding the joystick does not cause the camcorder to move through the range as one might expect, instead forcing you to press left or right to move through each step.  It’s annoying to be sure, but a small price to pay for such an excellent manual control on a consumer camcorder.

Gain works in exactly the same way as the aperture control, and kicks in once you have passed the open iris setting by pressing the joystick towards the plus sign (right). Gain options range from 0dB to 18dB, and like aperture, each full step is separated by two incremental steps.  It is worth noting that aperture and gain are not independent adjustments, but are treated as a single continuum from f16 to Open iris with 18dB gain.  These features are independent on higher-end camcorders allowing for even greater image control, but most consumer camcorder users tend to use aperture and gain on a continuum anyway.  

Shutter Speed (7.0)

Manual shutter speed control is available from page 2 of the manual control menu, and is selected by moving the joystick down until a shutter speed setting such as 1/60 is highlighted on the left side of the LCD.  Once shutter speed is highlighted, moving the joystick left or right enables you to traverse through VDR-D200’s options: 1/60, 1/100, 1/120, 1/160, 1/250, 1/350, 1/500, 1/750, 1/1000, 1/1500, 1/2000, 1/3000, 1/4000, and 1/8000 of a second. As with the camcorder’s other manual image controls, the joystick must be pressed once to move from step to step, so changing the shutter speed setting from 1/60 to 1/500 requires pressing the joystick right, three times. 

White Balance (7.0)

White balance options on the VDR-D200 are fairly limited, and include auto, indoor, outdoor and manual. The preset options are available from the manual control menu’s page 2. When the camcorder is in manual mode, white balance is accessed by pressing the joystick down until the white balance selection is highlighted.  If you are accessing white balance for the first time, “AWB” appears on top of the manual control list lining left side of the LCD.  Moving the joystick left or right moves through the four white balance options. 

Setting the white balance manually is a quick and simple process.  When you first select the manual white balance icon, it flashes in the left hand list to indicate that it has not been set.  Pressing the joystick up sets white balance, and when the icon stops flashing, the control has been set.  A second white balance icon appears at the top of the round manual control menu as a reminder that the joystick is pressed upwards to set white balance manually.  We found the manual white balance worked very well – it sets quickly and produces excellent color.

Gain (7.0)

As noted in the aperture paragraph, gain controls are placed on a continuous scale with aperture, accessed from page 2 in the manual control menu.  To access gain control, you depress the center of the joystick twice in manual mode, then press down until an F-stop or gain setting is highlighted in the list on the left side of the LCD.  F-stop measurements appear below shutter speed, and gain measurements appear below F-stop in the list.

If the F-stop setting does not read OPEN, you’ll need to press the joystick right until the iris is open.  Continuing to press the joystick right causes the gain indication to become highlighted, and allows you to traverse the range of gain options from 0dB to 18dB. As the gain value is increased, noise in the image increases and color fidelity worsens, which is a typical by-product of gain boost on a video image.  As noted above in the discussion of exposure, it takes a long time to traverse the full range of the camcorder’s exposure/gain scale because the joystick must be tapped once to step through each increment.  In terms of image control, however, the wide range of exposure and gain options on this and other Panasonics is better than that offered by any other maker of consumer camcorders.

Other Manual Control (0.0)

There are no other manual control features offered on the Panasonic VDR-D200.