Panasonic SDR-S26 Flash Memory Camcorder with SD Card Slot – Black with features a powerful 70x optical zoom combined with an advanced optical image stabilization system that corrects hand-shake around 4,000 times per second.
You can’t always be close to what you are shooting, so the new Panasonic 70x High Optical Zoom brings subjects closer than ever before. It gives you the power you need to take dramatic close-ups or get remarkable shots. But with long-distance zoom shots, even a tiny bit of hand shake has a huge effect on picture quality.
That’s where optical image stabilization comes in. Panasonic’s Advanced O.I.S. shifts a corrective lens as you shoot to help eliminate the effects of hand shake, so you get clear, sharp shots even at high zoom levels.
Advanced O.I.S. ensures beautiful shots even with high-power zooming. Using the Advanced O.I.S technology, gyrosensors detect hand-shake and the lens unit shifts to continuously adjust the optical axis, so that videos are perfectly sharp and blur-free. Just lean back and enjoy capturing videos in their full natural beauty for the most clear and amazingly beautiful videos – even when shooting long-distance zoom shots. The known typical hand-shake effect is no longer a concern.
Helpful consumer’s review
I’ve had it for two days now and the picture quality is perfectly acceptable in a non hd way.
It replaces my 6 year old canon mvx150i that has finally filmed its last film. The panny is far better quality and because it is sd card and not tape there is no motor noise on the recordings.
I opted for a standard dvd quality camcorder simply beacause it keeps things simple for now. hd files would fill a dvd very quickly and pc’s tend to struggle with such large files. When this runs out of life I’m sure I will upgrade to a hd one when blu ray recorders will be cheaper and more reliable and feature on all pc’s. The software is very easy to use, quite basic but once you have uploaded to a pc via usb you can easily cut bits out add fade and various effects etc.
Pros:
The zoom is very good but you will need a tripod to use it to it’s full extent, OIS works very well (cameras without an image stabilizer aren’t worth having), the iA (intelligent auto) mode is superb and adjusts lighting etc for different occasions such as people or landscapes, THIS CAMMY IS SMALL just 11cm long, 6cm high and 6cm deep so fits in any pocket, it starts up in less than a second and it will start recording 3 seconds before you do! so you won’t miss that important beginning, suprisingly good quality filming with artificial light.
Cons:
Not great at low natural light (it becomes grainy with noise) but most camcorders do. The lense cap isn’t automatic and will annoy some people.
