Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black)

Product Details

Panasonic HDC-SD60K SD Based Hi-Def Camcorder with 35X Intelligent Zoom (Black) From Panasonic Price: Too low to display & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details http://astore.amazon.com/httpastore.amazon.comdigitalcamera08a01-20/detail/B0035LCZSG Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Ships from and sold by Amazon.com 31 new or used available from $321.99 Average customer review: http://travelaccessoriesstores.blogspot.com/

Product Description

35.7mm Wide Lens & 35X Intelligent Zoom Enjoy the benefits of a wide angle lens without giving up the performance of a long zoom Power OIS Keep Your Images Still with an Advanced Optical Image Stabilizer Intelligent Auto with Face Recognition Confidently record as the camera automatically adjusts settings that recognize familiar faces Black

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36 in Camera & Photo
• Color: Black
• Brand: Panasonic
• Model: HDC-SD60K
• Dimensions: 5.00" h x 8.00" w x 6.00" l, 1.00 pounds
• Display size: 2.7

Features

• 2-11/16" widescreen LCD
• 25X optical zoom lens (digital zoom to 1500X)
• High-definition video resolution: 1920 x 1080
• Optical image stabilization
• Face recognition tracks your subject within the frame (up to 6 registered subjects)

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Editorial Reviews

From the Manufacturer
Compact Camcorder with a 33mm Wide-Angle, 78x Ultra Zoom and More!

Featuring the Intelligent 35x Zoom and Power O.I.S Compact Full-HD Shooting Fun for Everyone

The SD60 Series features a 25x optical zoom and an Intelligent Zoom function that goes all the way up to 35x. When using Intelligent Zoom, Intelligent Resolution technology lets you shoot at high zoom rates while preserving the image resolution. You get sharp images of highly detailed objects -- without the blurry edges. Plus, POWER O.I.S. suppresses even slight hand-shake, which is a must for extreme zooming, because of its high susceptibility to hand-shake.



Captures large groups, even when shooting from up close.
35.7mm Wide Angle Lens*

The 35.7mm wide-angle lens* on the SD 60 Series fits more people and more of the background into the frame than a conventional 44.1mm lens. This is especially handy when you want to take a group photo in a small room. It fits your subjects in even when you shoot from up close, and makes it possible to pick up even small sounds with the mic. It also gives you entirely new ways to enjoy your camcorder, like taking self portraits or capturing sweeping landscapes without losing the sense of scale.

* 35mm camera equivalent

Everthing fits in the frame even when shooting in narrow spaces.	Even if the subject comes up close to the camera, everything fits in the frame.

Recognizes important people's faces and captures them beautifully.
Face Recognition

The Face Recognition function recognizes the faces of registered subjects, and automatically optimizes the focus and exposure for those special people. It continues to track the subject as he or she moves anywhere within the LCD frame, making it ideal for video shooting. It is extremely useful for capturing someone's face in a group. Names can also be registered and displayed on the LCD while shooting. A total of six people can be registered, and the names of up to three people at a time can be displayed in the shooting frame.frame.

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Customer Reviews

A nice camcorder!
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. 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.


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!
Best budget camcorder under $500
I've done a pretty good amount of research on budget hi-def camcorders between $400 and $500 dollars. In my opinion, this is the best camcorder in this price range. I would highly recommend this camcorder to anyone looking to just film family gatherings, vacations, or for filming budget movies. The camcorder has an attractive design, fits in your palm, and is the perfect weight. It takes fantasic video, has a 3 second pre-record function, face tracking, good battery life, a flash & video light, average photos, and dolby digital audio recording. My only complaint is the location of the record button, it is a bit awkward. I was going to go with the Sony cx110 which has mostly the same specs, but decided on this camcorder since it has optical image stabilization (which works flawlessly) instead of an electronic stabilizer. It also has an LED video light and a flash, for photos. It supports SDXC memory cards, which can hold 64GB or more. If you prefer flash memory over using a hard drive, like me, you are better off with this base model and getting a 16/32GB SD card. I bought the 32GB Transcend SDHC card from Amazon and it works perfectly with this product.
Progress for the Dedicated Amateur
I avoided AVCHD a couple of years ago because the compression requires a lot of computer power to edit. The Big Three of video seem to like AVCHD, and it is used all over the place, but in video cameras it is hard to balance what you need to edit it with what consumers are using.

I mostly use a fairly new Toshiba laptop. Windows Media Player will play the clips from this camera, but it will not do it smoothly. You can see what you have, and follow what you have recorded, but it is not a good way to watch. I used a copy of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, the latest, and I can edit the clips fairly easily, and then render them to something like WMV video, at the highest setting. This is acceptable to me, for now.

It's not a great sign when the first two paragraphs of a review are about technical aspects of simply using the clips that are recorded by the camera. But the reality of AVCHD is that it is not simple, and no one should jump in thinking there is some easy solution. Even finding the clips on the card is somewhat awkward. But, the bottom line is you can shoot video clips, pop the SD card in a reader, and then use them with a fairly reasonably priced editor like Vegas, and from there render to a useable format for a lower powered computer, at least one of recent vintage.

The camera itself is very small. Some people do not like the ergonomics but I think they are fine. I did not want to buy a camera without a viewfinder, the eyelevel kind, but the screen is good enough outside, though the sun fades it. I like to set the exposure and lock it. I was surprised that there is no exposure lock, but you can get a fix on the exposure with the Ia mode, then shift to manual and the auto settings are retained. You can then work from there. This works for what I want.

The zoom starts at about 35mm. This is why I bought the camera. I need a certain amount of wide angle. Most cameras start around 45mm. I used to carry an adapter, but the adapters are a pain and they often distort. If you want wide angle for scenics or inside shots to show a wider view, this is a good place to start. Sony has a 28mm camera. It seems to be the trend. Even Flip seems to be going this way.

The autofocus and auto exposure seem to work quite well. The slow zoom is what I want, though you can speed it up. The menus are just fine for my purposes, at least if you spend an hour with the manual. The size of the camera is great. Indoor shots with decent light (like through normal windows) seem to be good. There's a lot of gain as you move to a dark room, but in a room with good light there is no gain up. In the manual mode, the camera tells you what the gain level is, so after you open up past F/2.0, you see gain from 3db and up. This seems technically refined.