Panasonic NV-GS330

i have purchased this camcorder recently and have tried it out for a week .. this camcorder is a shamefully poor one coming from such a big name and it is not all that low cost even a cellphone camera gives better results than this one

Pros: none that i consider writing about

Cons: the battery is placed covering all the connections out of the cam, so you have to keep removing and putting it back, when you remove the battery the cam wont work so you have to be near a power source with the supplied charger to connect, the software just wont install unless you have the permission of bill gates, the autofocus works so slowly that you miss all your shots, the lens is very narrow angled so ou cant get many people into your shot and when your people are at a distance their features are all fuzzed up and out of focus, you cant movies record onto the sd ram and the images are 640x480 at 25fps; of what use is the high speed shutter adjustment and

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Value for money.

Pros: It is having superb picture quality. Image stabilizer also give stable picture even using it without tripod.

Cons: Do not have Lighting and microphone jeck.

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Panasonic GS 330: It's 3 CCD 1/6 inch 800 Kilopixels for each CCD. I am Video Enthusiast looking for Great picture quality with manual controls in consumer segment. I also own Panasonic MD 9000 with 1/4.7 inch 800K single CCD camera. That's why I think I would help you out while selecting Camera.

Here is the Point wise review and my experience with this camera...

1) Handling:

Panasonic has done very poor job on this front. Camera has very average look. It's not so great. Width of camera is bigger than what you expect. It has very small hand strap. So you will find very uncomfortable while holding this camera. You will start feeling a pain after some continuous shooting minutes. But this I realized after purchasing this camera. Now anyway I have to bear this poor handling of Panasonic GS 330.

2) Manual Controls:

This is the worst part of Camera. Panasonic has tried to implement one handed function for this camera. And while doing this they forgot usability/ease of use completed. Panasonic so call Joystick thing in the worst thing I faced in my video carrier. Suppose you want to do manual focus with joystick you need to press joystick left or right. But while doing this camera loses its object from center of frame. It means camera shakes with this. So no use of this. Even Sony DCR HC 28 does a great job of manual focus through it Touch screen user interface.

For all manual controls works through Joystick so forget of doing this while recording. Better you stop recording and do whatever settings you want and then start recording. And one more silly thing is that Auto to Manual and Manual Focus slider switch is placed at very wrong location. At a side where your palm rests. So you need to stop recording and lift your palm and use another hand and do it. This is very uncomfortable. No doubt there are all manual control over camera but with zero usability. I would rate 0 out of 10 for this camera.

All Panasonic series comes with this kind of controls. So Panasonic is a total waste of money by considering this aspect.

I don't know why Panasonic wants to keep area under LCD screen clean. Otherwise these controls would have done perfect job under this location. Anyway you need second hand to stabilize this camera. There is no harm using second hand for these controls. Sony has Touch screen which works very great. But touch screen has some drawbacks but after after comparing with Panasonic Sony's drawback are negligible.

3) No MIC input is another biggest drawback. Recording start stop button has very wrong location. It should come near upper section of thumb. But it comes well below; at the root of thumb. Very painful while starting and stopping recording. Menu button is out of reach of thumb. So you need to do some adjustments to reach menu button. Stop recording, release your hold of camera and use second hand. Very bad.
DV and USB out are behind battery. So you need power source while capturing. This is very bad thing.

Panasonic has done poor job on handling front. I suggest scrap all current running designs of this camera and start a fresh in consumer segment camera.

4) Video quality: This is my first 3 CCD camera so I was expecting little more than my 5 year old MD 9000. GS 330 has 1/4.7 inch CCD. Here is the comparison. I am unable to judge any color difference between these two camera footages. But GS 330 has little more sharpness which needs experienced eyes to recognize. Compared to entry level Sony DCR HC 28. It does little bit better with sharpness and overall resolution but does not justify to it's price. Low light performance is very poor, poor than expected. While this camera was able to retain color information at low light due to 3CCD. But my MD9000 gives better results. I am not satisfied with GS 330 by considering it is latest and has 3CCD. Anyway 3CCDs do not help in low light. MD 9000 has bigger sensor which helps in Low light. MD 9000 is a professional camera so it justifies it's category. But GS 330 directly runs away from it's promises.

5) Still quality: Very very bad. I would not comment on this much. But even your 2 mega pixel camera phone would give you better results. Very noisy and unsharp image. Very high contrast for photos. GS 330 boasts 3.1 still resolution. But it is interpolated resolution. Actually images come near to 2 Mega pixels. There is analysis for Image quality but it would be too lengthy then.
Don't buy this camera by considering still image resolution.

6) Optical Image stabilization is the only good thing on this camera.

Anyway I own this camera now but I am repenting on my decision. I have to live with this now. I would suggest not to buy this camera.

Pros: little bit more sharpness

Cons: Poor handling, wrong placement of all controls, no mic input

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