Panasonic’s HDC-HS200 Reviews

Monday, November 2, 2009, 4:09
Digital Camera
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One of the best selling and most reputed HD camcorders is the Panasonic HDC HS200. It sports an excellent combination of speedy performance and astounding image quality. For passionate film makers the HS200 is undeniably the best option in the market today. The only downside is its US$1200 plus price tag. The new model has seen a lot more development, both in terms of price and performance. The imaging system however remained the same; it uses a 1/4in CMOS trio each one at 3.05 megapixels.

This particularly means better HD video quality and good still images at 7.95 megapixels. Compared to the HS300 a few features are missing in this model. For example the internal hard disk is at 80GB where as the HS300 was released lately with 120GB. Despite of that the 80GB is definitely adequate. More than seven hours of video at the highest quality and thousands of top quality images can be stored. The HD operates at 17mBits/sec without any hassle at all.

The touch sensitive LCD panel is the only reliable source to make adjustments to images and videos. The lens ring has not been incorporated in the HS200 which is a dire disadvantage for professional photographers. The options of adjustments however is the same compared to the HS300. The AFAE mode is still available in the auto mode. Apart from that the backlight compensation, macro mode, contrast and night view are also available.

There is a significant improvement on the Intelligent Auto systems allowing the user to make ample amount of adjustments and render the various modes accordingly. Ten different manual scene modes like portrait, sports, outdoors, incandescent etc are exciting to choose from and never seems boring. The shutter varies from 1/50th to /8000th and the iris can be configured autonomously. The microphone allows recording in 5.1 surround sound. The lack of jacks for external microphones or headphones seems to be incredibly annoying.

Despite of the negative factors the HS200 has the same optics and sensors to its successors the HS300 and the TM300. This means that image quality is authentic at the same time performance and build quality is guaranteed. A 10.6 MP mode shoots at 3984 x 2656 pixels which is highly detailed and rather more impressive than the HS300.