4. Panasonic HDC SD5: First Impressions

The Panasonic has great ergonomics. It fits the hand easily and comfortably, and the control panel for the menus is located on the rear of the camcorder, which is very handy because it lets you operate most of the controls with one hand. We also like the non-slip handgrip.

The display is high in quality, but we did note that the image was a little colder than on the Canon. The Panasonic delivers beautiful images, but they’re a bit lacking in intensity. The white-balance control comes in very handy here, letting you make corrections when the sensor is a little off in automatic mode. Video can be recorded in high definition only, so you have to use 16:9 format, and recording in MPEG2 format is impossible.

While the layout of the buttons may seem a bit odd at first, operation quickly becomes intuitive, and navigation in the menus is very easy. Auto/Manual/Focus buttons give you quick access to the main functions. Focusing can also be done using a small zoom, but it’s a bit finicky. In Auto mode, focusing is less reactive than on the Canon. The image stabilizer works very well and ensures a stable picture even with the optical zoom (10X) at its maximum.

There are five modes in addition to Automatic (Sports, Portrait, etc.) The Nightshot function is just plain unusable, generating only one image per second. It’s more of a gimmick than anything else. All told, the functions and options are more limited than on the Canon, but the Panasonic still holds its own.