Panasonic VDR-M53 Camcorder Review

Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (6.5)
The Panasonic VDR-M53 features automatic controls over exposure, focus, and white balance, and also includes an Auto mode which locks these features in their respective automatic settings. The button for auto mode is under the LCD screen. In auto mode, white balance and the camcorder’s Program AE settings are locked. In order to get out of the full auto mode, the user can press the auto button again, or press either the focus or exposure button.

As far as automatic performance goes, the VDR-M53 is okay. While focus and exposure adjustments aren’t as accurate as on many Sony camcorders, they do pretty well at the camcorder’s widest angle. At full telephoto things are different, though understandably so. The focus lags tremendously as it searches for itself, and exposure has a hard time adjusting as well. White balances adjustments are surprisingly quick and accurate.

Overall Manual Control (3.0)
There are not many real upgrades on the manual controls found on the Panasonic VDR-M53. If anything this camcorder represents an effort by Panasonic to strip down its DVD camcorders from last year, in order to compete cost-wise with the many cheaper DVD camcorders released this year.

While manual control hasn’t been stripped down, it has remained very static. It has the same basic manual controls of focus, white balance, and a bundled iris and shutter speed control, labeled ‘exposure’. Both focus and exposure are located and operated by cumbersome devices and really shouldn’t be relied upon for anything. White balance is probably the most useful manual control offered.

Zoom (7.0)
The zoom control on the VDR-M53 isn’t too bad compared to some of the zoom toggles found on Panasonic’s MiniDV camcorders, though it’s still very mediocre. The good news is that its placement is perfect, directly underneath the user’s index finger. It also has little crenelations which make control a bit easier, though the device isn’t exactly the smoothest toggle on the market today.

Zoom Power/Ratio(24.0)
The VDR-M53 has an optical zoom of 24x— pretty impressive, though in line with the trend among DVD camcorders of lower-end camcorders having higher optical zooms. There are also digital zoom options of 60x and 800x.

Focus (3.5)
Manual focus is controlled by way of a button under the LCD screen. Once pressed, this button shows an “MP” icon on the LCD screen, and the volume buttons, also under the LCD screen, can be used to adjust focus. There is no other visualization of this process other than the image on the LCD screen, which makes manual focus more of a hassle to use than any other control on this camcorder.

Exposure (Aperture) (4.0)
Exposure is operated in a similar way to focus on the VDR-M53, except adjustments are made along a +/- meter. While this meter offers a way to visualize the changes that the user makes, it’s still not the best, and certainly a far inferior option to the independent shutter speed and aperture controls on nearly every MiniDV Panasonic camcorder.

Shutter Speed (0.0)
There are no manual shutter speed controls on the VDR-M53.

White Balance (6.5)
Perhaps the most useful manual function on the VDR-M53, white balance is accessible using the camcorder’s menu system. With this placement, the control is squirreled away and relatively hard to get to. That said, white balance shouldn’t necessarily have to be used on the fly, making this out-of-the-way positioning understandable. Along with manual set and auto functions, users can also select from indoor and outdoor presets, which place limits on the camcorder’s automatic white balance’s window of performance.

Gain (0.0)
There is no manual gain control on the VDR-M53.

Other Manual Control (0.0)
There are no other manual controls on the VDR-M53.