Hello frens,
Been a long long time since I wrote a review on this portal, all of a sudden I was as good as absconding from this site for about 7 months now. So writing a review after a long time. I dont know how many of my good old frens are still reading all the articles. Hope you all guys are reading this :-)
Recently I bought my first HANDYCAM (I always had a dream of having a very good still camera and a handycam -- since photography is my passion) .
Panasonic PV GS 150:
Well let me tell you a small story about what happend in one of the store when I went to enquire about this model (This story is very much relevent for this review as there are not many CONSUMERS in this world who know much about 3CCD cameras!!! )
Well, I happen to visit one of the Good Electronics goods shop here in Bangalore to check with this camera(I had researched on few cameras for more than a month before zeroing on this one).
I asked the owner that I am looking for Panasonic Handy cams.
This guy was laughing at me saying that ’’ what sir, you are looking for a panasonic camera when people are looking out for Sony, Cannon and JVC’s and let me tell you there are wonderful cameras and wonderful models, panasonic does not have a good handycam, you can try in some small shops.... bla.. bla... bla’’
Before he could continue, I told this guy , seriously ’’ BOSS, cut the crap and let me know if you deal with panasonic ’’3CCD cameras’’ or not’’ .
I dont know what happend to him, he told ’’ let me talk to the owner of this shop and get back to u’’ .
He went and came back in 5 min with a 72 MM smile on his face and apologized me for his behaviour and told ’’ Sir, we do not have it right now but I could get you one if you order it’’.
Since I had already researched on its price in Indian Market, so just asked him about its price
’’He told it costs 56, 000 Rs + VAT (12%)’’
To know more about 3CCDs just google it and you would get the details
Panasonic is the first company which has come up with the 3CCD technology in the consumer handycam models. All these days, the 3 CCD technology was a previllage for LIVE Telecast cameras and the Movie Cameras! Hence it’s so costly here in India.
I was in a dilemma whether to buy it, which costs close to 65, 000 or buy a second hand Maruti 800 by investing another10-20 k!!!! :-) :-) :-) :-) Never mind, I was never in with the decision of buying this camera here in India as it costs so much. Since I had found that I could get the same camera at around $ 550 .
Fortunately, one of my fren was returning from US, so I ordered it online from here through my Credit Card and gave the shipping address of my fren. He received it and he brought it here to India. And that is how I got it!
PS: Here in grey market this camera costs you around 35k if you are ready to take the risk of buying a handycam without gurantee!
So thats how I got the camera.
Here is the details about this wonderful little GEM!
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Video
As the Normal Handy has 1 CCD this PV-GS150 has three CCDs(Charged Coupled Devices -- used for receiving the light from the outside world). Each CCD measure 1/6” and 800K gross pixels (that’s 400K effective for video and 530K for still images).
In the bright sunlight or a bright sunny day, this camera is UNBEATABLE unless compared with its peers of the same company(ex. PV GS 250), take my word. Most camcorders perform their best in such environments, with lower-end camcorders showing some losses in color saturation and accuracy. The PV-GS150 performs well. After all, it has three CCDs; a high quality of video is to be expected. But what matters more is the subtle differences between camcorder performances in low light conditions.
If you want a crispy image and a rich color on your video at a comparitively lower cost, then THIS is the camera for you. I can bet on that!
You can find the complete specs of this camera on any of the review websites like CNET or camcorderinfo.com , so there is no point in me explaining all those things again! However I shall write the zist of that probably!
Optical Zoom: 10X
Digital Zoom: 700X
It has a 2.3MP still camera which would come with 10x zoom so obviously you could expect better result (but I suggest you, not to look for still camera features when you are buying Handycam, you have lot of digi cameras which you could buy for taking still pictures!)
It has got both manual and Auto options for its handling, if you are not that much familiar with shutter speeds, apertures and their effect on the outcome of the video then use the AUTO option.
It has got an inbuilt flash. For still camera you could use upto 1 GB of memory card( I bought 1 GB SD Card) and with which you could take upto 8000 Pics of Highest resolution.
Low light performance
This is the litmus test for any Camcorder. Under the normal light condition(Indoors) this works perfectly fine unless you want to shoot somethings in real darkness! If you are that kind of a shooter then go for Sony which has a night mode shooting which uses IR for that.
Under very low light, the performance degrades, but which Video camera gives you good performance under bad light ??
Battery life
Recording video to tape with the LCD screen open, with a fully charged CGR-DU12 battery pack you can shoot upto 110 mins without any problems. If you use flash to capture snaps then the battery would drain out quickly.
It has got all the automatic features that any other Handy would have like Macro, different types of shooting mode (Panaroma, daylight, cloudy etc) but it has got some real cool options like ......
Wind Cut
This feature reduces wind noise when recording with the camcorder’s built-in stereo microphone.
Image Stabilization
The PV-GS150 offers Electronic Image Stabilization, which works great when the zoom isn’t engaged. However, at full optical zoom, it has a bit of trouble keeping a handheld image stable.
RapidFire Photoshot
As the burst mode for still picture capture while in still mode, this feature allows the user to capture up pictures at an interval of a 0.5 seconds. You can keep your finger on the shutter and it would keep taking pictures until the memory is full!!!
QuickStart
This function allows the camcorder to be swiftly turned on (in 1.7 sec). This is swifter than normal and readies it for recording to either tape or card, depending on the camcorder’s mode selection. But it seems that this take lot of toll on the battery charge, which ultimately means that you’re draining battery power and will have less overall recording time than if you just turned the thing off completely.
Zoom Mic
The zoom mic function is accessed in the camcorder’s menu system and adjusts audio capture based on the camcorder’s zoom engagement. This is nice feature, though it probably makes only a slight difference with a 10x optical zoom camcorder
Thats about my Handycam.... I am enjoying my weekend trips with my Nikon SLR and my Panasonic PV GS 150. Both are making my life BRIGHTER and BETTER!!
I am LOVIN it!!!!
If you need full specs of this camera, as I told you could just GOOGLE it. You would get it.........
I am going away for another weekend destination as tomorrow being good friday I have a holiday......
Chalo guys.... keep rocking on the MS site.I hope to return to this site soon and keep in touch with all you guys (New ones and the my good old buddies on MS)
Keep ROCKING!!!!
Amith :-)