Overview:
If the recent festive season has provided you with lots of home movie opportunities that you would have liked to capture for posterity, then perhaps it’s time to invest in a camcorder. The Panasonic HDC HS100EBK is a full HD camcorder that records direct to a memory card or to the built in 60 GB HDD. So will it provide you with the quality you need to capture your kids’ first ever Christmas? Let’s take a look.
Review:
The Panasonic HDC HS100EBK is an impressive looking camcorder. To start with, it’s on the compact side so won’t bulk you down when you take it abroad for holidays. It’s also very light to hold.
There are no tapes in sight as it records direct to SD Card or to the built in 60 GB HDD. So how much footage of your trip to the Italian Riviera can you capture? Well, insert a 32-GB SDHC Memory Card and you will end up with around 12 hours of recorded video clips. This combined with the 60-GB hard disk (which can hold around 23 hours) gives the HDC-HS100 a total capacity of around 35 hours of full-HD recording.
You can then copy recorded video images from the SD Memory Card to the hard disk, or vice versa. There is also an HDMI port, which allows you to view all your films directly on a compatible TV set.
The Tri-CMOS sensor on this model integrates three 2.1megapixel sensors for quality colour and light reproduction. Compared with a conventional 1MOS, Panasonic’s new 3MOS system captures more vibrant, truer colours. It also provides greater detail and richer gradation. The MOS sensor's light-receiving area is about double that of a CCD sensor, providing for higher sensitivity.
The HDC-SD100’s sensor also has a sensitivity of 2 lux, which makes it particularly effective in low light conditions, and great to capture some night life partying for the glories of YouTube or Facebook.
If you plan to capture a lot of action in your movies, the optical stabiliser (O.I.S.) on this model will allow you to be extremely precise with all your images.
While this camcorder features the latest in technology, it still allows you to be a bit of an old school director by providing a manual ring to provide you a bit more creative freedom in your image production. It provides for 30x – 700x digital zoom so you don’t always need to brave the crowds to get the perfect shot.
This model also offers a precise, responsive fingertip control over five key settings: zoom, focus, iris, shutter speed, and white balance.
The HDC-HS100 also has the manual functions of automatic scene-mode selection, intelligent contrast control and face recognition mode. This makes the HDC-HS100 a camcorder with high-performance that is still extremely easy to use.
The HDC-HS100 also has iA (intelligent Auto) function which automatically activates several shooting functions on your behalf. These include Advanced O.I.S., which eliminates 95% hand-shake and will correct blurring; Face Detection, which adjusts the exposure so faces are captured precisely; and Intelligent Contrast Control, to help keep proper contrast.
Also included is the Intelligent Scene Selector, which will determine your shooting conditions and will automatically select the scene setting that will provide optimal results. Scene settings include: Face, Scenery, Low light and Spot Light.
If you don’t fancy carrying around a range of gadgets, this camcorder can also be used to take high quality digital photos. In photo mode, you can store images of up to 1920 x 1080 pixels in 16:9 format on the HDC-HS100’s memory card.
Despite all of this tech talk, this camcorder is designed to be very easy to use. If you want to simply press a button on the camcorder to film directly to disc, and to be able to simply delete shots that you don’t want then this camera is perfect. Panasonic have made it extremely user-friendly to disc copy.
Currently priced at around £680 from major retailers, you can afford to capture those priceless moments without the price.
The Gaj-It Verdict:
Design: 9/10
Usability: 8/10
Features: 8/10
Value: 9/10
We Say:
The Panasonic HDC-HS100EBK is a high quality camcorder that is extremely easy to use which is what every holiday maker needs. Its full range of assistance means that you won’t be able to help equalling the talents of Spielberg whether you like it or not.
One thought on “Review: Panasonic HDC-HS100EBK Camcorder”
Thanks for this post.The Panasonic HDC-HS100EBK is a high quality camcorder that is extremely easy to use thats why i like its functionality most.
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