I recently purchased the Panasonic HDC-SD9, the worlds smallest and lightest consumer grade High Definition camcorder from what I could find on the Internet, and my god is this thing awesome.
I purchased the HDC-SD9 at for a little less than $550.00 and it’s worth every penny.
The HDC-SD9 is the only High Def Camcorder in it’s price range that I could find which records in true HD (1920×1080p), and the difference in the image is plain to see. In addition to the high quality video you also get 2.1 megapixel digital stills.
The 10x optical zoom may not be the best on the market but I’ve found it adequate to my needs and if necessary the Panasonic HDC-SD9 does include a 700x digital zoom, but hey it’s digital zoom so the quality does go down.
One of the many nice features of the HDC-SD9 is the ISG or Intelligent Shooting Guide (Or in my case Idiot lights). Basically when this feature is turned on if your shooting conditions are less than ideal the camera tells you what action to take to improve the video quality, For example if lighting is low the camera tells you to turn on Low Light Mode. If the subject is backlit the camera warns you to “Turn Auto Contrast”. The warnings can be a little annoying but it does help in ensuring you get the best video.
In my opinion this is probably not the camcorder for you if you intend on doing much in Low Light Conditions. Although Panasonic advertises that the camera operates down to 5 lux I have not been terribly impressed with video quality at low light.
Video’s are stored using SD or SDHC memory cards and depending on the quality settings you use you can get from 40 minutes to 2 hours on a 4 GB memory card (Which is just perfect for burning the resulting video to a standard DVD.
Video files are stored in the AVCHD. format which helps to provide the best quality but Panasonic includes a HD Writer software with the camcorder which can import, convert and burn the videos to standard or high def DVD’s (provided an appropriate dvd writer is present). The software can also simply export to MPEG2 format for playback on any PC. The software for me was simple and intuitive.
The downfalls of the HDC-SD9 are the lack of any accessory shoe or external audio inputs. Since my main reason for buying this was size, video quality and comfort I’m not terribly concerned about those. (Besides this is a family camcorder, not a professional system.)
I’d definitely give this thing a 4.5 out of 5 stars with the only downfalls being the lack of accessory shoe and external audio/mic jacks and the poor low light quality.
click the link below to find out more about the world’s smallest (As of today) Consumer Grade High Definition Camcorder, the Panasonic HDC-SD9.
Thanks
Eric
