Panasonic PV-GS250 3.1MP 3CCD MiniDV Camcorder w/10x Optical Zoom

I did my research, and bought this camcorder based on video quality and features.

Most reviews give this camcorder the highest marks on video quality in good light. It often gets comments about the quality in low light, but from my experience in normal indoor lighting at nighttime, the quality was not very grainy, but was bright with very good color reproduction. The focus is very good, and quick as the scene changes.

I wasn't planning to use the still camera, but the quality is acceptable for times when you need a shot and nothing else is available. This has the best quality still shot than any other camcorder I've seen, and my results are better than some of the sample shots I've seen online.

I transfer my video to DVD using Ulead DVD Workshop, and the quality I ultimately get for the end result is extremely good. I shoot in widescreen mode, which does a very good job. It might be nice to have a 16:9 LCD screen, but the 4:3 LDC does well.

Pros:

* Excellent (the best) video quality. Detail is sharp, and the color is accurate. No grain, except in low light and even that is better than most camcorders. My previous camcorder was terribly grainy, the PV-GS250 is far better in comparisson.

* I like the controls, features and ease of use. It is light, and fits my hand well with all the buttons in easy reach.

* Excellent video quality.

* The Optical Image Stabilization works well, and helps to produce better quality video (sharper) than EIS systems.

* Excellent video quality.

* It's nice having the still camera for times when I don't want to lug my digital still camera around.

* Did I mention, excellent video quality.

Cons:

* Outdoor nighttime shooting doesn't give you many options. Using standard mode produces dark video, the magid-pix is too few frames per second so you have ghosts floating across the scene instead of people. It would be nice to be able to manually set the shutter speed below 60 to produce more fps than the magic-pix but still have light video. Also, it would be nice to be able to add more gain for the nighttime video (yes this would add graininess, but it would be nice to have this option available).

* It would be nice to have the option to produce progressive scan 30fps video.

I think this will be a camcorder that I will be using for years to come. I don't see a need to buy and HD camcorder yet, as I will only downconvert it to NTSC for DVD playback. Low end HD camcorders are now still about 3 times the cost of this one. The detail I get from the pv-gs250 on my 55 inch hi-def set is incredible (much better than standard def broadcast, satellite) and about the quality of some of the best DVDs. It doesn't compare to hi-def broadcasts, but I suspect the low end HD camcorders are no comparisson either.

Excellent picture quality in good lighting. The colors are bright & vivid with good contrast. I was pleased with picture quality on indoor shots as long as there was reasonable lighting. It exceeded my expectations based on the reviewer's comments about low light issues. I don't expect to shoot in the dark anyway. The Optical Image Stabilization worked very well. The camcorder was much easier to handle than I expected with it being so small. You can take a snap shot while shooting video. The snapshot shutter button is right next to the zoom slider so it is convenient to do both at the same time without shaking the video. Controls are well placed and easy to use. It has many excellent features but it takes a little time to learn to use them, especially since the manual is so poor. Panasonic would do their customers, and themselves, a great service by hiring an expert to develop their end user manuals. My product came through OneCall and the service was excellent. I highly recommend this camcorder.

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After reading numerous camcorder reviews I decided that this one was the best value despite the fact that it costs somewhat more than I was planning to spend. However, I had some trepidation after reading the "Mac Users beware" review below, but as some other Mac users with 10.4 seemed to be using this camcorder with no complaints, I decided to go ahead and buy it.

The camcorder seems to work fine with my computer running OS X 10.4.2. To download movies a firewire cable (4 pin to 6 pin), which is not included with the camera, must be used. I can also get still photos just fine, but the special USB cable included with the camera must be used for that purpose.

To summarize: for video editing with iMovie, use a Firewire cable and set the camera to video playback mode. For downloading still photos from the SD card, use the USB cable and set the camera to "PC" mode.

As far as the camera goes, the video function is excellent. As for the still photos, I was hoping for 3 megapixel performance but when recording at 2048x1512 size, when viewing at 100% there is extreme mottling/graininess. The 1600x1200 looks good in the bright portions, still with perceptible mottling in the shadows. The 1280x960 size looks pretty sharp. This was based on some indoor photos using flash; I haven't repeated this yet in bright sunlight. Even so, I just want to point out that a real 3 megapixel camera would have better performance in a typical indoor/flash situation, so the "3.1 MEGA PIXEL Still Picture Recording" blurb printed on the body is somewhat misleading. However, I'm still giving five stars because I can't see dinging a camcorder for still picture performance, if you really need it you will use a digital camera. The fact is, I can count on pretty sharp 1280x960 photos and in some cases that will be enough to allow me to leave the still camera at home (and keep in mind you get 10x zoom with optical image stabilization with those photos).

Controls are designed for mostly one-handed operation, which is great! (...at least if you are right handed.) If you want to use the manual features, they are easy and fast to access.

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This has turned out to be a pretty good unit. I have filmed a wedding with it and taken many stills at night and in daylight. The stills come out well if you have plenty of light. They don't work as well in low light. The flash works well for the stills. The SD card seems to need a reader to download the photos all at once, unless I missed something (very possible) in the manual.

The camcorder has excellent quality, as long as you have minimal lighting. When it gets to real low light, it is not such a great performer. I was not expecting it to work well in real low light. It works excellent in outdoors and in moderate light.

It is essential that you have a tripod when using for any important projects.

I bought Adobe Essentials (cheaper at Costco than at other stores -$79) and it works well with this camcorder. You can exceed your imagination with this software. I recommend it too.

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Recently read that people were haveing problems with their camcorder and their MAC. I don't know if they have just updated something or I just tried something that no one else tried, but I was able to get mine to work. What I had to do is to put the camera in video play mode, then using FireWire and the DV connector hooked it up and and it communicated. Great camcorder.