Customer Reviews:
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 No manual focus August 13, 2007
7 out of 17 found this review helpful
Just want to clarify that this particular model only has auto focus. You cannot manually move the lens to focus. This could be a drawback to some, but we've been using an older VHS camera for a long time that had no manual focus and it worked just fine. Other than that, Panasonic is rated one of the best in terms of picture quality. I can't give it a 5, since I haven't used this particular model yet. I have purchased it through eBay, though, and will make an additional comment in the future.
Very good value June 5, 2007
87 out of 88 found this review helpful
First, for anyone wondering this camcorder is exactly the same as the PV-GS85. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the difference between the two, and according to a Panasonic customer rep, the only difference is that the 85 has a USB cable in the box while the 83 has a blank tape instead. So if your looking for the best value, look for a 83 on ebay, you'll find you can get one new for about $150 less than a 85.
Features (7/10):
The best feature on the camcorder is the OIS, a feature rarely seen on budget camcorders. With OIS you can use the full 32x optical zoom reasonably well and have a fairly steady shot. The night mode is completely useless. Anything shot in this mode is a waste, it is a orange/yellow color and looks as though frames are missing, anything that moves faster than a snail will come out as a whitish blur. The camcorder does have a small LED light that works decently well at about 5 feet or less. There are no film effect features such as pixelize, stretch, B/W, sepia etc that are common on most camcorders. This was not a huge issue to me as you can add these things later on your computer. The Backlight feature works quite well. One nice feature it has is the Blank Search Function that finds a blank spot on the tape so you can start recording without risk of erasing stuff already there.
Design (6/10):
I found that when holding the camera in one hand, your thumb does not naturally rest on the record button. Its a bit of a pain (literally) to hold your hand in the position required to have your thumb ready to press the button. I have big hands, someone with smaller hands probably will not have this problem. Another minor gripe, the button for the LED light and the Menu button are right next to each other and the same size. This makes it difficult to find the Light button in the dark, which is when you would be needing it. The position of the zoom switch is right between my index and middle fingers, making it awkward to zoom.
Picture Quality (8/10):
I thought the picture quality was pretty good for a camera this price. I have had many different camcorders over the years, VHS, VHS-C, 8mm, Digital8, and MiniDV. This camcorder is superior to all but the VHS one (a $6000 model at the time of purchase). Filming outside produced a very rich, accurate color tone, it looked on film the same way it looked to my eye. The same can be said for well-lit indoor filming, even with uneven lighting or with people directly next to lamps I thought it looked very clear and sharp. In lowlight quality obviously goes down, although image noise and graininess were not that bad; much better than my other camcorders. The camcorder struggles to focus in low light, I tried using the LED light in the total dark from about 6 feet away, and while the image was visible, the camera couldn't focus it. The picture taking mode is fairly useless IMO. Images are saved to a SD card, the quality is about that of a cell phone camera. One nice thing, you can film and take a picture at the same time. You can record audio in both 12bit and 16bit (you should use 16bit if you're going to be putting your video on DVD), the quality seemed pretty good. Voices sounded accurate. Basically, videos sound like it sounded to your own ear, complete with some background noise. The zoom switch can make a clicking sound if you're not careful when you release it, this will likely be picked up on film.
Overall, this is a very good value for a camcorder, mainly because of the 32x optical zoom and the OIS. Picture quality was more than satisfactory for a budget model, particularly for outdoor filming. If you need something to film your kids, document your roadtrip or just have fun with, this is a good choice. It does not have a ton of features, but the average consumer will likely be satisfied with it.
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