I was thrilled with how small this camera is. It fits in your hand as if it were a half full 12 oz. can of soda. It's very light, but the fortunately the image stabilization makes it shoot like it was a heavier camera.I ran into an issue with iMovie '07 (part of Apple's iLife '08) that caused the screen to stretch wider, making people look fat. This will likely be resolved soon by Apple, and for now I've taken to using the 1440 X 1080 resolution which imports just fine.
I've also fitted a 37mm mount size aftermarket wide angle lens which really helps for shooting indoors. Some have complained that the video is a bit more grainy while indoors and in darker conditions than the HD1, but I can't complain.
So far, the battery life seems to run an hour and 10 minutes, which is better than the 55 minutes it's rated for.
This camera does not include an SD card, so you'll want to pick up a 4GB (40 minutes) or 8 GB (80 minutes) card. I got the class 6 version of those SDHC cards for a faster transfer. I think I might stick with the 4 GB size in the future so I can easily burn the files to a blank DVD which holds 4.7 GB. Also, make sure you have a card reader that supports SDHC. It also doesn't include an HDMI cable, so pick one of those up if you have a TV capable of HDMI. Belkin makes the least expensive cable at $20.
And finally, if you're a Mac user, you should know that only the Intel Macs (that have been out since January of '06) support the AVCHD editing.
Some have complained about the low light grain that this camera tends to have. I've noticed it as well, and apparently the HD1 is slightly better indoors. But this wasn't a huge issue for me.
The only thing that would make this camera perfect for me would be an external mic input.
I personally love this camera, there are only a few, mute things about this camera that I miss.
Pros:
It's small and very light weight; almost too light. I *almost* found myself wishing it were a little heavier to make it easier to hold the camera steady. But it's great like it is.
The picture quality is great. Having had a progressive scan camcorder before, I notice the interlacing, but it's no where near as bad as the MiniDV camcorder I had before that did interlacing. There is a slight grain to the picture in low light, but this is to be expected, and after reading several reviews about how "horrible" the low light was, I thought it was great. It wasn't near as bad for me as people were making it out to be, but that's a subjective thing. (I viewed this on both a 720 and 1080 screen)
Audio is good, it doesn't make me too loud (since I'm holding the camera and the mic is right next to me) and I can clearly hear thing that are farther out.
Battery life is great. I can easily get over an hour, and it seems to indicate it can do more than that, though I haven't put that to the test yet and the manual says I can only get a maximum of 1 hour and 25 minutes (55 minutes actual). So we'll see.
I kind of like that the battery and SD card are tucked away underneath. I don't agree with a previous review that the door and hinge are made cheaply. It seems standard to me.
I love the SD card recording media. No more tapes! No more mini-DVDs! No more having to hook up your hard drive based camcorder to the computer to copy files!
Cons:
I imagine I'll miss that there's no external mic input. But I bought this anticipating to use it as a point-and-shoot camcorder. I'm just starting a family and wanted to capture everything, and this will do it. I don't plan on making any little movies with it. (I'll probably continue to use my progressive scan camera for that)
The field of view is narrow. I don't know if this is just how camcorders are these days, or if I'm just used to my Kodak digital camera that has a wide-view mode. I ended up buying a 0.5x and 0.7x lens to put on it, and this helps be get "the big picture" so I can capture more of what's going on in a scene.
I don't know where to get an extra battery. Do the SD1 batteries work with this? Where do I buy them? The manual gives me model numbers of 3 different batteries, but finding a place to buy them is though; and the ones I do find are $100+!
It doesn't remember my last shooting preferences. Sometimes I turn on the back light or another feature. But if I turn the camera off for a moment and back on, I have to go turn that feature on again.
Recommendations:
Buy bigger capacity memory cards. I bought 2 2GB, and I'm filling them up faster than I can copy them to my computer. I ordered a 16GB one which should help a lot. Another reviewer mentioned that it's good to get 4GB ones so you can easily copy them to a DVD, that sounds like a good idea.
Get a wide angle lens. I really didn't like how narrow the view was, whether this is normal or not. (though with my 0.7x lens, I can only zoom in 2x before everything becomes out of focus and there's no fixing it. Just a warning!)
Check out the back light compensation for low light shooting. It helps a lot!
Check out the contrast compensation feature! I love this! It makes shadows lighter without making everything else saturated and ugly. Very cool!
Other Thoughts:
I have a new iMac with iMovie08. The importing does take a bit, and a lot of disk space. Editing is good, and after an export the quality is good (if you have your settings right).
I'm anxious about the first video editor that natively supports AVCHD, cause it is frustrating that I can't just "shoot and edit" anything. I have to shoot, copy, transcode, edit and then export. Too much of a process to make lots of family movies to give to close family. (Maybe that's a good thing for them, eh? hehe)
This camera is exactly what I was looking for except for the AVCHD (and mic input), but hopefully the future will prove the format to not be a problem anymore.I had been waiting for my SD5 to ship from Amazon, but I saw the camera at Circuit City in stock and $50 less so I decided to just get it there.
The camera feels great in your hands. It is small and light, but even in my large hands it feels stable. I like that the battery is now inside of the camera and not attached to the back. This lets the center of gravity sit right there on your hand.
The LCD screen looks good, though a little pixelated in darker rooms.
I brought the camera out yesterday to go for a walk with my infant son. Even while walking and trying to film my son the image was quite stable.
One piece of warning, if you use this camera with a Mac be sure to have a large internal drive or get an external one. With the new iMovie 08, it works with the AVCHD wonderfully but when it imports it converts it to AIC. The video still looks great and they are easy to work with, but they files are quite big. If you import at the Large setting, you lose very little in image and one hour of video is about 13GB. If you import at full resolution you're looking at 40GB per hour. Wow.
For my own workflow, I import with Large to save the space. I then put the source AVCHD files on a DVD so I have the option of importing them later at the full resolution. This allows me to reuse my SD cards but still have the original footage.
Overall, very nice camera. The Menu options are easy to work with and the final video is just great.To summarize my overall thoughts about the Panasonic HDC-SD5, for regular outdoor video shooting, the SD5 is excellent! I will skip discussing its still image cabilities because it simply was not designed with that in mind, trust me.
Now, the first question the HDC-SD5 raised for me was "is it better than the one it replaced, the HDC-SD1?" Half a year ago I used the predecessor HDC-SD1 for a few weeks and loved it, and after a few weeks now with the SD5 I find that it is a slightly better camera under good lighting conditions and slightly worse under lowe lighting conditions. On the plus side it is about $200 cheaper, has the same battery life, is lighter, smaller, and yet no less handy to operate. Now, the "$200 cheaper" might raise a flag, and clearly some of the lower cost comes from certain cheaper features. For starters, the new smaller chasis is endowed with a smaller lens, down from 43 mm to 38 mm, smaller image sensors, down to 1/3 inch from 1/2, and the SD1's amazing 5.1 audio microphones have been replaced with simpler stereo ones in the SD5. In general, I say thanks for translating these changes into the greater affordability of the SD5. The bonus with this camera is the Full HD 1920 (on the new, smaller sensors) vs. former 1440 horizontal resolution (on the older, larger sensors).
Outdoors, the SD5's recordings are marginally sharper than the SD1's, with equally beautifully rendered colors. Basically, it took my 70" 1080i screen to be able to discern the extra resolution, and was the main reason I returned the SD1 and waited for the SD5 to come out. I could not tell the cameras apart when played back on smaller screens. Shadows and bright areas are handled as well and manual settings are available to allow you to adapt more precisely to your scene's lighting.
The only drawback to the SD5 is the reduced amount of light that the smaller 38 mm lens allows to enter the camera. The image generated from the combination of a smaller lens, smaller sensors, and increased processing wizardry, falls short of the SD1's low light capabilities. Indoor shooting is grainier and the colors look faded compared to the SD1. That's important to keep in mind for capturing birthdays and holiday get togethers. Add some lighting if you can. Luckily, white balance is very good in auto or manual mode, so if you do have to work with indoor lighting you can get back to very good colors and resolution even indoors.
For those of you following the Panasonic HDS-SD? evolution closely, I have to note that it is too bad the HDC-SD3 never made it to the USA. It was identical to the SD1, except for the better 1920 vs. 1440 resolution, and was the camera I really wanted to buy.
At the end of the day the HDC-SD5 still has the excellence to be an entry level wannabe director's camera, and if like a good director you also address an indoor scene's lighthing needs properly, you will be rewarded. Outdoors, it's a wonderful, easy, point-and-shoot experience with amazing image stabilization that results in excellent video.Panasonic got a lot of things right with this camera. It has a fantastic form factor--small, light, and very comfortable to hold and use. It's ready to point and shoot, and for folks with more video experience, there's good options for manual control of white balance, iris, shutter, gain, etc. Auto-focus is quick, zoom control is easy to keep smooth, and image stabilization is exceptional.
I already have high-end prosumer DV cameras, but wanted something light and convenient for informal shots of my new son. The SD5 has fit the bill perfectly. My only complaint is Panasonic's decision to ditch the external mic jack. Ugh! Otherwise, I've been nothing but happy with this camera. I've read some reviewers comment about grain that appears in low-light images. It's endemic to small sensor chips trying to take small amounts of light to produce high-detail video. As small cameras go, I think the SD5 is average to good at low-light, and well above average when it comes to focus, image stabilization, and color reproduction.
Editing wise, I use a Mac, and I'm able to easily pull in the AVCHD video to both iMovie 08 and Final Cut Express 4 for editing.
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