Forums / Cameras / Camera Decision

I have a panasonic GS-400. They don't make it anymore, but in my opinion it is the very best of consumer DV cameras. Consumer DV seems to have gotten worse lately because of HD. This camera is kind of the last of the good DV cameras. If you compare the specs of the GS-400 vs the GS-500 you'll see what I mean.

The best thing about the GS-400 is the focus/zoom/iris ring. It makes manual focus and zoom quit easy.
In general all of the panasonic 3ccd cameras have good image quality.

The music video on my profile called "Libra Armor" was shot with as GS-400

Just out of curiosity...does anyone know:
what cameras The Office uses for their car scenes?
I know the main cameras are Sony HDW F900.
But the car scenes are smaller cameras w/ lower pixel count.

How about a Canon HV30?

The hv20/30 is great. Sometimes it looks as good as the XHA1. Some might say better for certain things. Why would you want to go back to DV?

I have the GS-320 good camera !!!! im not a pro thou... But coming from an average joe i like it..... im selling it now... has the stickers and everything ... it's like new... i didnt use it much . But overall i really liked it .... Oh.. yeah i got me a HDR-SR12 now so...thats why ima sayin bye bye to the GS...

I currently have that model camcorder. I like it a lot but I am about to replace it with the HV30 from Canon. The PV-GS320 is a really nice camera and if you check my videos (Foamin the Funnel in Idaho) you can see how how well this cam works. I take these DV files and edit them in their format. After I am done with the editing I render them as HD 1280X720 and 30p and 60i. This is not a HD camcorder but when I render them as SD Mpg2's they look bad on my 1920X1200 monitor that has HDMI. I find outputting the files to the WMV HD settings I get the best results. I really can't tell the Mpg2 HDV files and the WMV apart.

I am sure for the price of 300.00 and less you will find it to be good. The CCD's are 1/6" and it does somewhat ok indoors. Outdoors is where it really does its best job, even on cloudy days.

Hope this helps you out.

Be sure you and ask yourself if you see yourself producing HD in the next year. I asked myself that question and it has now been 11 months and I am going HD. Other sites don't offer HD but now that I have found this site there is now way I am going to waste my time on shooting SD videos anymore.

More videos with the PV-GS320 on youtube under user rdw283.

Well I got the HV30 on Monday and I can see you get what you pay for. The HV30 by Canon is way better than the PV-GS320 on every level. I still think that for 279.99 at most places you will be happy with it. The Canon retails for 999.99 and a local store aka onecall.com has it for 799.99 so I picked it up and I am very please with everything about it. I'm not going to sell my Panasonic as of now. I still like it enough to keep it. There are a lot of things I can still do in Standard Def and for that this camera is perfect.

Things I found to being better on the HV30 that most people care about.

1. True widescreen on the HV30. you will see more on the sides than with the Panasonic camera.

2. Glass is 1000 time better on the HV30. I could never get really sharp looking shots with the Panasonic. This includes the stills on their highest settings so I know it is a lens problem.

3. OIS is outstanding on the HV30. I can hand hold shots and look away and it still holds true on my subject. The Panasonic's OIS is just not as good. Even when I was trying to keep it as still as I could it still would jerk around a little. The HV30 when it is too much for it to handle it slowly glides into the next position the panasonic would jerk fast to the next position.

4. Stills are nice and I mean nice for a camcorder. The Panasonics were noisy even in daylight and when you kicked it into still mode only it would produce too much contrast. I found it better to leave that function alone all together.

5. Zoom features on the HV30 are impressive, there are 3 ways to set it; Slow, Slower & normal. This makes your zooms look like you know what you were doing! The Panasonic just has the normal mode and I felt that it is ok but not the greatest.

6. Shots at dusk. Both cameras preform well at this you do get more detail with the HV30 but it is minimal once it is on a SDTV. On a HDTV or a computer is where you really see the change and you'll see that since the Panasonic uses 1/6 CCD it not as good. If you like shooting sunsets or twilight video the Canon is way better.

I hope this adds help to your question on if it is a good camera to get. Depending on your budget and your intended use for the camera the PV-GS320 would be fine but if your picky you may want to think about the 400 dollar difference even if it takes you a littl longer to save up for.

One problem I did have with the HV30. It is very picky about the chipset on the firewire it uses. Vista x64 and XP x64 both installed the device just fine but no capture software would pick it up. Once I istalled it with a better firewire card it worked fine.

Chipsets I found not working with the HV30.

VIA

Agere