Panasonic SDR-S150 3.1MP 3CCD MPEG2 Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom (2GB Card Included)
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Panasonic SDR-S150 3.1MP 3CCD MPEG2 Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom (2GB Card Included) The SDR-S150, with its 3CCD Camera System, reproduces color in great fidelity by using a separate CCD for reds, greens and blues. It’s the same 3CCD technology used in Panasonic professional broadcast equipment, resulting in 540 lines of breathtaking resolution. You can count on Panasonic 3CCD Digital Camcorders to give you colors that are as rich and vibrant as your life. World-renowned lens-maker LEICA has developed an exquisite, 12-element, multi-coated lens that helps add a high-level of detail and subtlety to your creations. With refinements like a 2-stage neutral density filter for aperture independent adjustment, you’ll appreciate the remarkably crisp, true-to-life color that is a hallmark of Leica Dicomar optics.
The Optical Image Stabilizer helps you obtain clear, beautiful pictures by compensating for any hand movement that occurs as you shoot video. Gyrosensors detect the amount and direction of movement, while a linear motor adjusts the lenses as needed to compensate. You get clear, sharp images in situations where hand-shake is typically a problem, like wide-angle shots or high magnification levels of the zoom.
What does all this mean? You can use this camcorder for recording great video and still images. Using an SD memory card (2GB included) with optional cards available to 4GB, the SDR-S150 is incredibly tiny; easy to carry and use. It’s only (H x W x D) 3.81” x 1.1” x 0.62” - nearly pocket sized! Optical Image Stabilization virtually eliminates normal handshake resulting in sharper videos when camera is handheld Includes rechargeable battery, AC charger, 2GB SD card, USB cable (for PC or Macintosh transfer), A/V cable (for viewing images on TV or recording to VCR or DVD recorder), IR Remote Control Accepts 37mm filter accessories Unit Dimensions (H x W x D) 3.81” x 1.1” x 0.62” / Weight 3.88 lbs
Customer Review: Excellent Low-Priced Standard Definition Flash Camcorder
I’ve owned this camcorder for a couple of months now. I really like it. I paid just under $400 for it. For the price, I can’t imagine a better standard definition flash camcorder.
Pro’s
-Tons of manual controls. They’re fun to play with. I’m just learning videography, and this was exactly what I wanted.
-The “easy” mode works well. So if you don’t want to fuss with the controls, you’ll still like this camera. I find most of the menus easy to navigate.
-Really nice image quality when viewed on my 22-inch monitor. I was surprised when I viewed my first footage — the color was pretty much perfect (vivid but natural, not hypersaturated), no noise under decent lighting, auto focus worked perfectly. The motion was very natural looking.
-Works with my 16gb SDHC card. So I can store about 15 hours worth of highest-quality video at one time.
-The still-photo mode is also fun and includes tons of manual controls. You shouldn’t buy this just for the still camera, but it’s a nice extra.
Con’s
-Some of the controls are less intuitive. In particular, the four-way macro/ backlighting control is sort of confusing (to me, not necessarily to you).
-Neither photos nor videos look all that great in low light. Even the special low-light video capture is not terribly effective (though still fun to play with). But I did not deduct any points here because I believe that you don’t get good low-light images at this price point — no exceptions. If you want really good low-light images from a flash-based camcorder, then you have to move up to a higher price range.
-The design is slightly awkward. There’s really no way to maintain a comfortable, relaxed grip on the body. (Contrast w/ the body of the Samsung SC-MX10 and HMX-10, which allows the camcorder to rest more naturally in your grip). But I’m really nitpicking here because the grip’s really not a problem in real-world use (just not ideal).
-Neither the camcorder nor the editing software are Vista-compatible out of the box. You can get them to work with Vista, but it is a bit of a pain. It involves separately downloading a series of drivers and firmware upgrades. The whole process took about 2 hours.
-Panasonic’s US website is 99% worthless if you’re looking for support for the s150. I had to Google around until I found the upgrades on the Panasonic global website.
-The editing software is of marginal quality.
Conclusion
-I’m very happy with the camcorder itself. All the problems I mentioned are really minor and don’t even come close to outweighing the camcorder’s many virtues. The biggest problem I had was getting it to work with Vista. But I think it was worth the minor hassle.
Customer Review: Best pocket size camcorder
I needed a camera that fits in my handbag to carry around everywhere I go. This was my primary priority, second was image quality and the third was to be able to record on a memory based media. And this camera is the best you can get considering all these factors. It is not the smallest camcorder in the world but small enough to fit your coats pocket, very easy to use, just pop the lcd screen and lens cover slide open and you are ready to shoot. There is an auto everything and manual switch where you can override all or some auto functions. I rarely use manual overrides, because not only auto shooting does a decent job but also manual functions are very deep in the menu system that makes it hard to control, and this is one of my few complaints about SDR-150. I wish there was a few quick access manual adjustment buttons.
Image quality is surprisingly good, 3CCDs are really make a huge difference, accurate vivid color rendition, no visible compression artifacts etc. very very good. Another cool function is the Image stabilization system “OIS” works really good. It is hard not to shake this camera in your hand, it is not shoulder mounted, and your grip is even weaker then the old big DV camcorders. There is a finger grip that comes with the package that you can screw on the tripod mount, this way you can also use your ring finger instead of only index and middle finger for additional grip.
For the recording and editing SD cards, or any memory based recording system is the future of camcorders, long gone the days of magnetic media tapes, dv, dvd, hard drive all kind of rotating mechanisms, motors, gears, pulleys, belts etc. which makes the camcorder heavy, big, unreliable, vulnerable to dust, water, shake, vibration, heat and cold. These systems also need bigger batteries because they need lots of energy to drive the mechanisms. Another drawback of some older systems that you have to transfer your files to your editing application in real time. 1 hour video will transfer exactly in 1 hour. With this camcorder you can transfer hours of video in minutes. Editing software is altough not very advanced pretty decent, simple and easy to use. It can also output to DVD.
After I bought this camcorder, we have been using it almost everyday, every other camcorder we had owned before was stored in a bag somewhere at home occasionally used. With this camcorder, we have recorded more than our entire collection in just a few months. Yes there are certainly better camcorders out in the market, but you just can’t carry them with you all the time.
Highly recommended !
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