Panasonic MiniDV Camcorders

tsinc80697

tsinc80697

tsinc80697

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Been looking into getting a camcroder recently as i need one for university.
After reading through a few reviews it seems that the GS300 or GS500 are decent for their price, shame i cant get hold of the GS400 for the same price though!

Does anyone know if the extra £100 is worth it going from the GS300 to GS500?
I would be using the camera in day and night time, so a decent low light camcorder is needed.

Are there better cameras for the same price or less? As i have been put off the Sony camcorders slightly due to the touch screen LCDs which i find irritating.

Thanks for any help :)


ps.
Is there any difference between different miniDV tapes ? Is one brand better than another and can you tell any difference in a £2 tape than a more expensive?
 
Cant help much with the camera as I am Sony man (not tried to touch screens, but they sound annoying!)

I think there is a difference in miniDV tapes yes. I have had 2 JVC miniDV tapes eaten (though I think it was the crap machines at my uni) but saying that the Sony miniDV tapes are a much better quality it seems - I have also had none sony's start to break up when recording over (could be a camera problem though)

So overall I would say go for Sony miniDV when you can - but if not be carefull with the tape :D

Pack of 10 sonys shouldnt set you back more than £13
 
Been looking through that site all day, all you get out of it is that the 500 is not as good as the 400, but obviously as theres around a £600 difference.

Just wanted to know anyones opinions if they own one and if its worth the difference, ill look into getting some Sony miniDV tapes at around that price then, thanks :)
 
Hmm, going by their review, the only reason the 400 is better is because of all the manual control and professional features of it, in terms of video quality the 500 is about the same. So at the end of the day it depends if you want the manual control and a few pro features.

Also going by the site, the 500 sounds quite a bit better than the 300, so I'd personally go for the 500, you're probably better off going to a shop though and having a play with the two and then you can decide if the extra money is worth it.
 
Yeah gonna pop down Jessops tomorrow, they prob have the 300 in stock, but the 500 it says it only stocks in the warehouse, so i might have to phone up and say i'm interested ;)
 
I've got the 500. I shot over 12 hours of video with it in the USA. The quality is excellent. One major bennefit (for me at least) the 500 has over the 300 is that it has full resolution widescreen, where as the 300 uses a cropped image from the sensors and then stretches it.

From what I've heard, the 500 has slightly better video quality than the 400. I always shoot video with it in manual mode. It's easy to adjust the exposure by changing the Iris (aperture). Another good feature is that the fold-out screen is 16:9 ratio and quite large.

For tapes. I used standard Panasonic tapes. I've gone through about 20 since I got the camcorder a few months ago and none have had any problems. I haven't even had to clean the tape heads yet.

Remember that once you pick a brand of tapes, you should stick with that brand to help prevent messing up the heads.

One thing I do not like about the 500 is that a lot of functions and featres are deep within the menus. For example, the optical stabaliser is on a second level menu. So if you're going from a tripod to handheld, you have to navigate the menus which gets annoying after a while. Also, the 500 does not have AV in.

Overall though, I really recommend the 500. It's the perfect size and weight... very comfortable to use. Battery life is excellent, especially when compared to the latest Sony MiniDV camcorders.

I used to have a Canon MVX150i which was a £800 Camcorder 3 years ago. The GS500 is definately superior. It produces lovely colour, not overly saturated and the lens is very sharp.
 
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Cheers nomore, i'll probably be ordering the camera on monday then, just need to get a tripod and tapes with it aswell.
Found 2 nice sites to order it off, one was selling it for £533.99 but it turns out their stock is based in Hong Kong which would be a pain to return if needed, so the cheapest ive found the GS500 for is £594.95.
Just got to find a decent Tripod to go with it, hopefully ill be able to pop into Jessops or somewhere to have a look at it tomorrow :)
 
I got mine from a British website. It cost £640 incl. postage. Official UK PAL version. The price you've found is very good IMO.
 
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tsinc80697 said:
took the plunge and ordered one, £610 with 5 tapes delivered.
Just gotta find a nice tripod, Velbon ones seem in my price range ^_^
Click to expand...

I recommend the Velbon DV-7000. It's a fluid head so you can get nice smooth pans and tilts... but it is big and heavy. It costs about £80.
 
The gs400 is hard to get hold of, they seem to crop up in random shops for random prices, was after one but the normal price is waaaaaay to high for me at the moment!

Ill have a look into the panasonic tapes being better for this camcorder, dont want to screw it up obv! Never heard anything like that before though.
 
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