This is a replacement for my 10 year old Panasonic camcorder so the first thing I noticed is this thing is SMALL, but they are all pretty small compared to my old camcorder. Without going into too much detail I'll just note the things I found much better than I expected and the couple things I am a little disappointed in. I don't have experience with any other new camcorders so I can't say this one is better or worse than any of the other new models.Pleasantly surprised:
The image stabilization feature is very very good.
The video picture quality is impressive.
The battery lasts longer than it is suppose to (manual says 50 minutes but I get double that).
The software that comes with it is certainly good enough for me and is easy to use. It allows you to arrange your clips into a video and write it to a standard DVD in standard definition, to a standard DVD in high definition or to a blu-ray disc. You can delete portions of clips, add transitions between clips, add text to a clip (first clip only) and build a menu screen.
Things that are a bit of a disappointment:
The automatic white balance isn't the greatest. Within a single lighting environment and a single shot the auto white balance will vary from a little too yellow, to a little too blue to just right. I've given up on auto white balance and now use manual white balance. Manual mode is a bit of a hassle but worth it to avoid the white balance swings the automatic setting produces.
The wind cut filter can't be turned off in auto mode. This isn't a big deal to me now that I use manual mode (because of my white balance complaint) but if I did want to use auto mode there are times you need to have the wind cut filter off or the sound will get totally messed up (like when an audience is clapping along to a song).
Low light recording is fairly noisy. It isn't horrible. I decided it is acceptable for my use but my 10 year old camcorder did better in low light.
Everything else about the camcorder is about what I expected. It's easy to use, nice zoom range, still camera mode can't compete with a real still camera but that shouldn't come as a big surprise. Overall a very nice camcorder for the money. Is it the best camcorder for the money? I have no idea, but I can say I'm happy with it and it is capable of producing very nice video with just a little effort as long a there is sufficient light.
UPDATE one month later: I've had the camcorder for over a month and have shot 10+ hours of video with it. I'm still impressed with this little camcorder. It can produce some beautiful video. I'd give it 5 stars if the white balance worked a little better. I still stand by my original comments.
One software feature I discovered and like a lot is the ability to capture a still photo from the video. I'm sure all video software has this feature but it is new to me. With the still capture feature you can get a 3.6 inch x 6.4 inch 300dpi jpg from the video. The software allows you to look at the video frame by frame so you can capture a still picture at just the right moment. This is very nice for making small snapshot photos, particularly of fast action subjects. One maddening thing about most still cameras is shutter lag (the delay from the time you push the button to the time the picture is taken). Many times great shots are missed because of that delay but by capturing still images from the video you can always get the shot at just the right moment! It's a fun feature.
UPDATE #2 2 months later: I've shot over 20 hours of video with this camcorder now and I'm still very happy with it. I purchased a sandisk 16GB card (holds about 2 hours of video) and I'm keeping an eye out for a Vw-VBK360 extra battery for use on vacations. The Vw-VBK180 battery that comes with the camera lasts at least 100 minutes of actual use yet is only suppose to last 50 minutes. I don't know why I'm getting so much time out of it! I do shut off the camera between shots (by closing the viewing door) but doesn't everybody? Seems like a natural thing to do.
I still use manual mode for white balance. I'm much happier with the results using manual white balance rather than automatic white balance. The auto white balance in my old camcorder as well as the white balance in my daughter's little Flip camcorder works fine but not in this new camcorder. It's my only real complaint.
I did a little test to compare my old camcorder with the new camcorder in low light conditions. The new camcorder produces a fairly noisy video in relatively low light but my old camcorder produces a pretty nice video under the same low light conditions. I'm not talking very dark living room, in the evening, lit with 2 floor lamps. But I found a flaw in my test! What I discovered is both camcorders produce fairly good video in STANDARD DEFINITION (note: the new camcorder only records in HD but the software provided with the camcorder allows you to convert it to standard definition). It is only in HIGH DEFINITION that the video from the new camcorder is noisy. Since my old camcorder only records in standard definition it wasn't fair for me to compare my old camcorder standard definition video with my new camcorder high definition video. So for what it's worth, my new and old camcorders produce about the same quality standard definition video in low light conditions. Maybe you have to step up to a more expensive camcorder to get low noise, high definition video.
I've got to say, even though low light standard definition video looks better than low light high definition video, once you've viewed high definition video in normal lighting conditions you'll never want to go back to standard definition ever again. The difference is remarkable!
UPDATE #3 3 months later: I continue to use this camcorder a lot and am still very happy with it. There are a few things I'd change if I could but nothing too serious. Manual focus is painful but I've only used that once. Getting to the backlight compensation mode is quite painful and I wish there was a button on the camcorder that put the camcorder in backlight mode like my old camcorder has but again, not the end of the world.
I just responded to a very good question in the COMMENTS SECTION about manually setting the white balance that I didn't mention earlier that is very important: When you manually set the white balance the setting DOES stay at whatever you set it at when you turn off the camcorder. In other words, the white balance setting you select "sticks", which is a very good thing! If I had to manually reset the white balance setting every time I shut the camcorder off I would not have kept this camcorder. Fortunately that is not the case. You can set the white balance to whatever you need and you only need to change the setting when your lighting conditions change.
UPDATE #4 4 months later: I've only used the camcorder a couple of hours this past month and don't have anything new to add. This will be my last update to my review unless I discover something noteworthy. All, in all, it's a very nice camcorder!
Addendum to update #4 On 11/5/10 I broke my camcorder. It was entirely my fault. I hit the outer edge/end of the LCD screen quite hard on a hard object and the screen is now blank. The camcorder still works but the LCD screen is history. Can't blame the camcorder though. To give you an idea of what I really think of the HDC-SD60K, I'm replacing my broken HDC-SD60K with a new HDC-SD60K. I just ordered it from Amazon (again) and was pleasantly surprised to learn the price has dropped 25% from what I paid a little over 4 months ago! It's a nice camcorder and I thought is was a good buy when I bought it 4 months ago but at it's current price it's a no-brainer!
Kudos to Amazon! I ordered another HDC-SD60K camcorder (to replace the one I broke on 11/5) on Saturday 11/6 and it was delivered Friday 11/12 and that was using the super saver free shipping option!!!
I thought I'd see if the automatic white balance works any better in my new HDC-SD60K camcorder compared to what I'd experience in my old HDC-SD60K. You never know, maybe my old one was defective or maybe Panasonic tweaked the HDC-SD60K in the past 4 months to improve the way the auto white balance works. So I shot some video in IA mode, inside and out. Nope. No different than my original HDC-SD60. The picture changes tint within a single shot when panning or zooming as the camcorder continually adjusts the automatic white balance filter based on what is in the image at any particular moment. Oh well, I've gotten use to manual mode anyway and the results are far better.
UPDATE #5 6 months later: I just purchased a Pioneer BDR-206 blu-ray burner for my computer (from Amazon of course!) and can now report the software that comes with this camcorder works nicely burning blu-ray discs. Going with blu-ray also makes life a little easier. I take quite a bit of video and I wasn't keeping up with burning DVDs of all the video I'd taken. Being able to put about 2-1/2 hours of video on a single blu-ray disc sure is a lot easier then making a bunch of HD DVDs!
Over 500 people have found my review helpful! That's great! I see I missed the boat for 3 people though. Sorry. If there is something specific you need to know you're welcome to ask me in the COMMENT section. I certainly am no expert but I'll try to answer any questions I can.
UPDATE #6 8 months later: I'm still using this camcorder a lot! A couple people have discovered a problem with this camcorder that I was unaware of. When recording in a quiet environment the noise the autofocus motor makes is clearly recorded on your video. I tested it myself with my camcorder and it is true. Maybe like me, most people video things where the sounds they record overwhelm the auto-focus motor noise. Except for the test video I made in a quiet environment to confirm the existence of this problem I have not noticed the autofocus motor noise in any of my videos but buyer beware there is a motor noise when the camcorder focuses and it does get recorded!
UPDATE #7 It's now April. I've lost count of the months! Since I mostly use this camcorder to record my daughter who is a member of a fiddle group I decided it'd be interesting to have a second camcorder on a tripod recording at a different angle than what I'm recording with the camcorder I'm handholding. So I did some experimenting with my broken camcorder, the one with the blank lcd screen (see addendum to update #4) and discovered if I connect a tv to the camcorder I can use the tv as a view screen! So I purchased a 7" portable lcd tv from Amazon for $50 and now I can splice together shots from the two camcorders making a pretty interesting video! Granted, the camcorder with the broken lcd screen is not the easiest thing to use, you have to know where to tap the blank lcd screen to set the white balance for example, but it works! Bottom line, I'm still having fun! If you search on YouTube for "Fayette Opera House" and look for the video of Orange Blossom Special you'll find one of my early attempts using two of these hdc-sd60k camcorders and splicing the video together. I just use the software that came with the camcorder. Nothing fancy and fairly easy to do. Anyway, these are nice camcorders, even though they are "last years models" now.
UPDATE #8 A little over a year. Use the camcorder at least once a week recording the fiddle group my daughter is in. I use the camcorder inside, under all kinds of lighting conditions as well as outside. I tried turning the automatic gain control off to see how that affected sound. It is suppose to give a more "natural" sound and if you know how AGC works it makes sense that it could produce better sound, not that I have complaints with the sound with AGC on except I get clipping once in a while usually when an audience is applauding. I've only tried it once and it wasn't good! Need to experiment with that some more. It's remarkable a camcorder in this price range offers this level of sound control. Other than the terrible automatic white balance (I carry a white piece of typing paper wherever I go to set the white balance manually, which works great) I'm still VERY happy with this camcorder after using it a lot for a little over a year. No regrets with this purchase!
UPDATE #9 17 months later. Still use it a lot and it's still going strong. No problems at all (other than the auto white balance, but manual works great). There have been occasions when I wish it had an external microphone jack but other than that, I have no regrets at all! Even the camcorder with the broken LCD screen works great (I use a $50 external LCD screen connected to the camcorder as the view screen) as a tripod only camcorder. Happy!
UPDATE #10 22 months later. Still works great. No problems at all. Over 200 videos on youtube of the fiddler group my daughter is in all taken with this camcorder. Only wish it had a jack for a external mic so I could get the sound directly from the soundboard but for the normal user, taking video of their family, I don't think an external mic is necessary. Still very happy!
UPDATE #11 30 months later!!! Still going strong but now I've gotten a bit fancier. I'm still using both my camcorders but now, when I'm recording the fiddle group my daughter is in I record the sound separately using a Tascam DR-07MKII and I do all my editing in Adobe Premiere Elements 10. The sound for concerts is significantly better with the Tascam and syncing the sound with the video is easy. Elements 10 is awesome! If you want to see a sample search youtube for "Fiddlers ReStrung 2012 Bowl of Bula Holiday Hometown Concert" and you'll see/hear a video using two HDC-SD60K's with sound from the DR-07MKII. Don't get me wrong, the sound recorded from the camcorder is certainly good enough for everyday use but for music a separate recorder is worth the extra effort. As far as the camcorders go, no problems at all in 2-1/2 years of heavier use than a typical person would use a camcorder. I highly recommend Premiere Elements 10 for its ease of use and features too. Very very happy!!!
I hope you found this information useful. I'd like to thank the people who took the time to write camcorder reviews when I was researching them. It's very helpful to get insights from end-users. I'm glad I bought the camcorder that I did and I'm even happier that I decided to upgrade from my standard definition camcorder to an eye-popping high definition camcorder!
Buy Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black) Now
I've had this camera for a couple of months now, and I am pleasantly surprised by it. I've never owned an HD camera, and this is my first new camera purchase in about 15 years or so. I've been using my phone camera for most pictures or borrowing my wife or daughter's digital still camera for the occasional need. This camera is many times better than my Droid phone camera mainly because of the versatility. That is, the phone camera isn't great for video, or zoom and slow motion playback or low light situations. I scrubbed Amazon for quite a while before purchasing, reading all the reviews I could find on other cameras looking in this price range down to about 1/2 the price of this camera. Although this one didn't have many reviews, and wasn't cheap, it was well-liked by those who purchased it, and now I know why. It has a bunch of advanced features which I haven't used but I will detail the ones I have used.The camera fits in my pocket reasonably comfortably, it's slightly larger than my wallet. It's a touch wider than my hand when I hold it but comfortably fits in the palm of my hand. The controls are easy to use once you get used to them. There are 3 modes, playback, video and still. The still pictures are quite impressive. I sold a car on eBay and the pictures were huge and very crisp on my computer. They were amongst the largest pictures on eBay after I posted them, larger than most of the car dealers selling anyway. I believe it's 4.3 megapixel, but not all megapixels are created the same. I think this 4.3 quality is better than a 4 megapixel camera phone.
The video quality is exceptional. Oddly, on playback using my TV this camera seems to have better video quality than most of the HD programming I watch on Dish Network. I'm not sure how that can be possible, but it is better. I can see every hair on my daughter's head and every blade of grass when I watch a playback. During video recording, there is a box that appears around faces, apparently it's recognizing and focusing on those faces.
I've used this camera in several challenging situations and found it to be very good. I've used it low light for example, and it has a built-in light that comes on automatically. We were at a restaurant recently which was dark, and I recorded video for a few seconds and the image was somewhat dark, but the light automatically came on for both the video mode and still picture mode (flashed). The people whom you are recording might find the light annoying (in video mode as it stays on), but as the cameraman the playback image looks great you can turn off the light manually, easily.
The zoom is pretty incredible. I was recently at Brewer's baseball game, from the 1st base line I was able to zoom in on the center fielder to fill the frame, he was about 500-600 ft away from where I was sitting. Zooming out, I turned the camera back on myself and my son for a nice wide angle shot at arms length. During playback on my TV, I could even see the thin stripes on the center fielder's shirt. The stabilization (anti-shake) mode (OIS) allowed me to see the players on playback with no noticeable shaking or movement on my part. With the OIS turned off, I could not hold the camera steady enough for the long range zoom shots. You don't need a tripod to steady the camera but I've used a tripod and it works well with this camera.
The battery life is pretty good about 3 hours of use or so playback and at least an hour or more in record mode reduce. I'm thinking about getting the larger battery as although it might heavier, it would be nice to have the extra battery life and a spare battery.
I also recorded my golf swing using the high-speed record mode. Although I couldn't get the super-slow motion playback that you see on TV golf, but I was able to stop the club head fairly well for my purposes anyway. I could see my driver shaft was bending quite a bit which was a surprise. I was also able to see the club shaft angle fairly well during playback. The controls for playback in slow motion are a little clumsy but not too bad once you get used to it (press the pause button, then hold down the FF or Rewind buttons).
I plan to use the camera for recording my daughter's lacrosse games this school year. I expect from what I've seen that it will work well for that purpose as well.
The biggest complaint that I have is that still pictures have a problem with red-eye when using the flash. Even when the person isn't looking directly at the camera, the center of the eyes are red. It's an annoying problem that I can't seem to fix. Other than that I've been pretty happy with the camera's usability and quality.
Accessories:
The camera comes with a detailed user-manual, a charger, 2 connector cables, and a CD disk containing software for IBM-compatible computers. However, just plugging it into my Mac computer worked fine with without any additional software.
The two cables included: a USB cable for connecting to your computer, and cable to attach to your TV for playback. The cable for playback is one of those 6-connector types (red, green blue, video as well as yellow (video), and red/white audio). Unfortunately, it's only about 5' long. Although the video quality was quite good with the included cable, I went for the additional HDMI mini-cable as I wanted to see the quality difference which frankly is hard for me to tell the difference, but the accessory cable below is much longer (nearly 10' instead of the 5' cable that comes with the camera) therefore I recommend it.
I purchased a cable (Panasonic Mini HDMI Cable, 9.8 Ft) and a memory card (SanDisk Ultra 32GB SDHC Card (SDSDRH-032G-A11) both of which I recommend. The memory card was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but works quite well. There may be be cheaper memory cards available that work as well, not sure.
cable:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A5LW1U/ref=oss_product
memory card:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00194101O/ref=oss_product)
I would recommend purchasing a case, which I've yet to do, but will add that to the review once I find a good one.I first purchased the Sony HDR-CX110, in the same price/feature class as this Panasonic. If you are considering each camera, here's what I can tell you. Be forewarned that I have only had today to play with the Panasonic, and I have only used each model in Automatic mode. I will post updates if I discover anything significant:
SONY HDR-CX110:
Wins:
+Size the Sony is much smaller, easily fitting into my cargo/tactical pants pockets;
+Image quality the Sony has much better [on fully auto mode] color and contrast;
+Both an HD and an SD camcorder Can make AVCHD or MPG, in-camera!;
+10mm Threaded Filter compatible The Sony has a manual lens cap, and a filter thread on the outside of this. While you won't be able to protect your filter with the cap, you can at least keep your lens protected;
+Manual Lens Cap User preference, but I like having fewer "automatic" moving parts to break-down.
Looses:
-Image Stabilization not strong enough for my hand held video needs I believe the IS on this model is digital only you can spend a couple hundred $ more for the CX300, which has Optical IS, you might find better IS [out of my price range];
-Artifacts I noticed several blocks in my video test. I don't know if this was from the digital image stabilization trying to figure out how to handle lake water on a windy day, or something else. I did not notice this in the Panasonic, but have only done limited testing.
Panasonic HDC-SD60:
Wins:
+Lighting Panasonic SD60 has built-in video light and still flash these will probably be of limited use, in only close quarters, but there if you need it. In preliminary testing, these both worked fairly well;
+Image Stabilization in this model is optical, and includes two modes regular, for simple hand-held video, and "active" for filming while moving. Both worked well, much better than the Sony, but will not completely eliminate camera shake.
Looses:
-Size While still quite small, this camera is large when compared to the Sony [longer and heavier]. I probably won't be carrying it in my cargo/tactical pants;
-Automatic Scene Mode It takes much too long for the camera to adjust to lighting conditions, and it cannot seem to find the right color temperature for indoor lighting I have not played with manual mode, yet, but many reviewers write that the manual mode is much better;
-No SD mode only writes AVCHD files;
-Automatic Lens Cap User preference, but this seems to be another piece to breakdown;
-No Filter Threads Can this really cost much to implement? I can't install a polarizer, UV or any other filter to enhance my video or to protect the lens.
Conclusion:
I tried the Sony first, because of the ability to change it from an HD to an SD camcorder at the push of a button Writing either AVCHD, or Standard-Def .MPG files, when appropriate. After I discovered that the Sony IS was limited in its ability, I returned the Sony for the Panasonic. The Panasonic's IS is much better, but the Sony does seem to have much better image quality [Automatic modes tested, only!].
Overall, I'd choose the Sony, but only if using a tripod most of the time. I'll keep the Panasonic for hand-held videoing.
Want Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black) Discount?
I just tested this camcorder for a full day and was pleasantly surprised. I bought a Canon HFS100 last year and liked the video quality but was disappointed with its stabilization, wind noise, and limited optical zoom. Even though the HDC-SD60K was half the price of the Canon, I really could not tell the difference in video quality between the two cameras on my HD TV. In some respects such as color accuracy, I think the Panasonic was better. I really liked the 25X optical zoom and the excellent stabilization, even at full zoom. The wind noise cancel feature seemed to work well too. For the price, I am amazed by the video quality.
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