Overview:
The new Panasonic HDC-HS300 features a quite large touchscreen display and a viewfinder. The camcorder is made of high quality, durable materials and has god performance. The built-in 120 HDD will assure that you do not need to take memory cards and you should always have enough space to record your movies. However, the battery life is merely average and so for longer clips you will have to record plugged in.

Panasonic HDC-HS300 pros:
+ 120 GB hard disc drive
+ Full HD 1920 x 1080 recording
+ 2.7 inch touchscreen display and a viewfinder
+ Easy to use
+ Very good handling
+ 12x optical zoom
+ 9 megapixel still images
+ Manual ring
+ Excellent HD pictures and sound

Panasonic HDC-HS300 cons:
- Average battery life
- Light wind affects 5.1ch built-in mic on top
- Rather high price

The design:
Panasonic HDC-HS300 measures 70 x 73 x 141 mm and weighs 460 grams. The front of the Panasonic camcorder features the 12x Leica lens and the lend ring, flash (for still photos) and the AF assist lamp. The left side of the Panasonic HDC-HS300 houses LCD chamber with plenty of buttons and ports: optical image stabilization on/off, playback controls, USB port, AV-out port, whereas the right side houses the hand strap. At the top of the Panasonic HDC-HS300 you will find the accessory shoe, zoom toggle, still photo button, intelligent auto mode and the 5.1 channel built-in microphone ( which can easily get obscured by fingers, thus distorting the audio). At the bottom of Panasonic HDC-HS300 is the tripod mount.

Performance:
The Panasonic HDC-HS300 renders very accurate colors in bright light. Also noise levels in good light are reasonable thus making the Panasonic HDC-HS300 quite a good overall performer in bright light. When you add to it that the camcorder has tro frame tares: 60i and 24p and that the Panasonic HDC-HS300 produces sharp image the general impression is really good. In lower light the camcorder scores.. almost equally well. The colors are rendered well and the noise is not too intrusive.
The Panasonic HDC-HS300 has a few shooting modes to choose from so no matter the weather conditions you should be able to shoot videos easily. The automatic white balance does a good job and so does the Intelligent Auto mode which will be suitable for beginners. So the image quality is really superb in most conditions and on the rare occasions when it is not superb it is at least very good. With 12x optical zoom you can make videos of even very distant subjects and thanks to the number next to the zoom bar on the screen you can easily repeat the shot.

Still photos:
Panasonic HDC-HS300 can take still photos in up to 3984 x 2656 (9 megapixels) when in still mode and 3 megapixel photos while recording a video. The camera has a bunch of options for still images, like: self-times, red-eye reduction, shooting modes. The photos are generally sharp, with plenty of detail and good color reproductions.

Menus / ease of use:
Although the Panasonic HDC-HS300 offers a wide range of manual options the camcorder remains fairly easy to use. The menus sometimes seem a bit too long, but navigating through them is generally easy. The Intelligent Auto mode (which works just like in the Panasonic HDC-SD20) follows faces and takes care of the white balance, scene mode, image stabilization making the camcorder perfect for beginners.
Selected Panasonic HDC-HS300 features and specifications:
IMAGE SENSOR

• Image Sensor    1/4.1″ MOS x 3
• Total Pixels      9.15 megapixels　（3.05 megapixels x 3）
• Effective Pixels
• Motion Image    6.21 megapixels （2.07 megapixels x 3）[16:9]
• Still Image    7.95 megapixels （2.65 megapixels x 3 ） [3:2] / 7.53 megapixels （2.51 megapixels x 3） [16:9] / 6.96 megapixels （2.32 megapixels x 3 ） [4:3]

LENS SECTION

• Lens Brand     Leica Dicomar Lens
• F Value    F1.8(WIDE)/2.8(TELE)
• Optical Zoom     12x
• Digital Zoom     30x- 700x
• Focal Length    4-48mm
• Filter Diameter   43mm
• 35mm Film camera Equivalent
• 44.9-539mm (16:9) [Motion Image] / 41.3-496mm (3:2), 40.8-490mm (16:9), 45.0-540mm (4:3) [Still Image]

CAMERA SECTION

• Standard illumination    1400 lx
• Minimum Illumination    1.6 lx (1/25 Low Light Mode) / 1 lx (Colour Night View Mode)
• Image Stabilizer    Advanced O.I.S. [Optical Image Stabilizer]
• Focus     Auto / Manual
• White Balance    Auto / Indoor1 / Indoor2 / Sunny / Cloudy / White set
• Shutter Speed    Motion Image
• [50i] Auto Slow Shutter ON : 1/25-1/8000 , video flash: 1/25-1/500 OFF : 1/50-1/8000, video flash: 1/50-1/500 [25P] Auto Slow Shutter ON : 1/25-1/8000 , video flash: 1/25-1/500 OFF : 1/50-1/8000, video flash: 1/50-1/500
• Still Image     1/2-1/2000, video flash: 1/2-1/500
• Iris     Auto / Manual
• Backlight Compensation     Yes

MONITOR

• EVF
• Monitor(LCD)     2.7 Wide LCD ( 230,400 pixels)

STILL IMAGE SECTION

• Recording Format     JPEG
• Rcording Image Size
• Creating still picture from motion picture
• 2.1 megapixels (1920 x 1080) [16:9]
• Simultaneous Recording
• 8.3 megapixels (3840 x 2160) , 2.1 megapixels (1920×1080) [16:9]
• Still Picture
• 10.6 megapixels （3984 x 2656), 7.0 megapixels (3264 x 2176), 4.5 megapixels (2592 x 1728) [3:2] / 10.0 megapixels （4224 x 2376), 6.0 megapixels (3328 x 1872), 3.5 megapixels (2560 x 1440) [16:9] / 9.0 megapixels （3520 x 2640), 8.0 megapixels (3264 x 2448), 5.0 megapixels (2560 x 1920), 0.3 megapixels (640 x 480) [4:3]
• Flash
• DPOF
• Max. 999 images
• Pict Bridge

RECORDING SECTION

• Signal System  1080 / 50i
• Recording Format
• MPEG4-AVC/H.264 (AVCHD standard compliant)
• Recording Mode
• HA (17Mbps / VBR) , (1920 x 1080) / HG (13Mbps / VBR) , (1920 x 1080) / HX (9Mbps / VBR) , (1920 x 1080) / HE (6Mbps / VBR) , (1440 x 1080)
• Playback Mode
• HA (17Mbps / VBR) , (1920 x 1080) / HG (13Mbps / VBR) , (1920 x 1080) / HX (9Mbps / VBR) , (1920 x 1080) / HE (6Mbps / VBR) , (1440 x 1080)
• Audio Recording System
• Dolby Digital (5.1ch) Microphone 5.1ch Surround, Zoom and Focus Microphone
• Speaker
• Dynamic type
• Media Remaining Indication
• INTERFACE, AV, Out, HDMI
• Microphones (stereo mini)
• Headphones (stereo mini)
• USB
• 2.0 Hi-Speed
• Video component

OTHERS

• Accessory Shoe
• Yes (Cold)
• STANDARD ACCESSORIES
• AC Adaptor, AC Cable, DC Cable, Rechargeable Battery Pack min. 1250 mAh / Lithium-Ion, Video Component Cable, AV Cable, IR Remote, USB Cable
• Included Software, HD Writer AE 1.0

GENERAL

• Media
• HDD (120GB), SD/SDHC Memory Card
• On-Screen Display Language
• English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Netherlandic, Turkish, Swedish
• Power Supply – DC7.2V / 9.3V
• Power Consumption (W) – 7.8

Other recently reviewed camcorders:

Panasonic HDC-SD20

Overview:
Panasonic HDC-SD20 has a very nice feature called Intelligent Auto mode perfect for beginners. The camcorder also features optical image stabilization system, 16x optical zoom, good color performance, touch screen interface and much, much more.

Panasonic HDC-SD20 pros:
+ Good color performance
+ 16x optical zoom
+ Low noise levels
+ Plenty of manual settings (if not in auto mode)
+ Overall good video quality

Panasonic HDC-SD20 cons:
- Poor focus performance in low lighting conditions
- Rather high noise in low light
- Microphone at the top might easily get obscured by fingers
- Average battery performance

The design:
The Panasonic HDC-SD20 measures 64 x 127 x 67 mm and weighs 272 grams. The front of the camcorder features, of course, the Leica lens, Led light and flash for taking still photos. The right side of the camcorder features only a thin, comfy hand strap, whereas the left side houses the screen chamber and within it the USB and SDHC ports (with covers), and a Fe buttons controlling manual mode, LED light, image stabilization, menu. The back of Panasonic HDC-SD20 features the battery pack, record on/off button, and mode switch for video and stills. At the top of the camcorder you can see the 5.1 microphone, zoom toggle, pre-record button and Intelligent Auto mode button. The bottom of Panasonic HDC-SD20 houses oly the tripod mount and the battery release switch.

Performance:
The Panasonic HDC-SD20 is a very good performer in most respects. The camcorder renders very good color and thanks to some options you can manually adjust color depth. Should that not be enough you can also choose one of the Soft Skin modes to make your life even easier. The Panasonic HDC-SD20 has also very good noise performance, in that it has little noise in most lighting conditions. Yet, the camcorder has surprisingly bad sharpness and in fact worse than any of its competitors released in 2009, like Canon Vixia HF S100, Panasonic HDC-HS300, or Sony HDR-XR520V, but still it performs better that any standard definition camcorder.
The Panasonic HDC-SD20 uses the AVCHD coded which is already quite usual for high definition camcorders. The highest quality setting in this camcorder will allow you to record movies at 17Mbps.

Still photos:
The Panasonic HDC-SD20 can also take 2.1 megapixel pictures. The camcorder comes with a standard set of features for stills like self-times, red-eye reduction and burst mode. Yet, the 2.1 megapixel photos look just average and so we cannot advise their use for various purposes as they seem only useable as an e-mail attachment, but not for print.

Menus / ease of use:
The Panasonic HDC-SD20 is very easy to use as it features a great auto mode which blocks access to any settings in the menus so that you cannot spoil anything and can focus on making movies. It that is not enough, however, the Panasonic HDC-SD20 has also the Intelligent Auto mode which not only makes all necessary adjustments to the image, but also detects faces, selects appropriate scene mode, and contrast.
However, the Auto modes black access to the menus and so if you do want to change something you have to switch the the manual mode. So you cannot change merely the white balance in auto mode – you have to set everything manually.
All in all, he Panasonic HDC-SD20 is a good camcorder for either amateurs who would rely in the auto mode, or for people well-acquainted with all the features. The semi-professionals might have to spend much time learning all the features. But still, the Panasonic HDC-SD20 is worth its price.
Selected Panasonic HDC-SD20 features and specifications: