Panasonic AGHMC70PJU AVCHD 3CCD Flash Memory Professional Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom

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Product Feature

• Shoulder-mount camcorder featuring AVCHD High Profile video codec
• Includes 12X 38.5mm to 462mm (35mm equivalent) Leica Dicomar wide-angle zoom lens
• Features Optical Image Stabilization-Helps ensure stable image recording for ideal HD capture
• 1/4-inch 3-CCD progressive image system with excellent sensitivity
• Records onto standard SD/SDHC cards to assure a fast tapeless production workflow

Product Description

The Panasonic AG-HMC70 Professional 3-CCD AVCHD Shoulder-Mount Camcorder provides entry-level professionals with an easy-to-use, high quality, solid-state HD recording solution. As the first shoulder-mount camcorder in Panasonic's professional AVCHD line-up, the HMC70 utilizes the new AVCHD High Profile video codec, which offers similar image quality to HDV 1080i at about half the bandwidth. This second-generation, affordable HD format offers longer recording times and half the storage requirement of older systems. As easy to use as a digital camera, the HMC70 records onto standard SD/SDHC cards to assure a fast tapeless production workflow. It gives you fast access to content without fast forward or rewinding, and footage is immediately available to editing systems without the ingest delay and additional cost of a playback deck. On a 16GB SDHC memory card, the HMC70 can record over 2.6 hours at 13Mbps, the HMC70's highest quality mode, or up to 6 hours at 6Mbps on the camera's extended recording mode. Professional audio connection including two locking XLR inputs with switches for mic/line, +48V Phantom Power, Auto/Manual level, mic attenuation, and front/rear assignment HD component (Y/Pb/Pr BNC) connection to send live widescreen video to a projector or flat screen display Supported by leading NLE software that allows content to be edited and rendered to almost any format or media Weight - 6 pounds

Panasonic AGHMC70PJU AVCHD 3CCD Flash Memory Professional Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom Review

As the retired chief technology officer for a Fortune 100 company that developed their own digital cine camera, my fundamental interest was in image quality. This 3-CCD, 1440 x 1080i anamorphic 16:9 format camera produces outstanding image quality -- closer to the theoretical limits of performance of 1/4 inch sensors than anything in its price range.

The complex optics (zoom with a telecentric focal length converter ahead of the prism assembly) should be expected to reduce the available contrast ratio because it has so many glass surfaces. Without the sophisticated equipment to measure MTF (modulation transfer function) at home, I measured effective resolution instead, which was 576 lp/pw vs. the theoretical limit of 719 lp/pw in the horizontal axis. This is an indication that all the glass surfaces are, indeed, causing a significant loss of contrast ratio.

Even so, the camera performs very well in almost all respects. Panchromatic dynamic range excedes 6 stops (I cannot reliably measure more than that) vs. a theoretical limit at room temperature of around 9 f-stops given the 4.4 um pixel size (horizontal axis). Color saturation falls off sharply with non-optimum exposure. It measured out at ASA 100 with 0 dB of gain.

It has two XLR inputs.

So far, it warrants about four stars.

Now for the bad part: User features are poor. Perhaps they are adequate for ENG work and action footage, but nowhere near adequate for professional photography. This is like a kiddie toy wrapped around a very high quality lens + sensor package. This mystifies me: Putting a Trabant or Yugo body around a Mercedes engine. Here are the problems:

* The body is a big, mostly-empty box with mold lines showing, in a medium gray color, with labels for connectors and controls being molded in vs. silk-screened (which makes them totally unreadable in most lighting situations)

* No manual focus ring. Manual focus can be attained, but only by running the focus motor through pushbuttons. THIS MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO USE THIS CAMERA FOR FOLLOW-FOCUS SHOTS, and will therefore completely disqualify it for use by anyone that must have this capability.

* No manual iris ring, either. Again, buttons must be used with the menu to set depth of field.

* Gain cannot be set higher than 0 dB when the iris is closed below full-open. This takes away an important variable in depth of field control.

* Iris full-open is not marked. I still don't really know what it is. It's probably around f/1.6 or some odd number like that.

* White balance is available in only one of four pre-select modes.

* There is no optical anti-alias filter, so any pattern with detail approaching half the pixel-limited resolution will generate moire patterns; even weave patterns in clothing.

In summary, this looks like two different design teams were involved. One for the internals and a separate (and thoroughly incompetent one) for the user controls, form factor, and externals.

For my purposes, this is a high-quality hand-held prosumer camera in a kid's toy shell and I cannot really use it for professional work. But, if you need a shoulder-mounted ENG camera for outdoor action photography, this might be just the ticket.

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