Description

Panasonic HDC-SD60K HD Camcorder Features

35.7mm Wide Lens & 35X Intelligent Zoom Enjoy the benefits of a wide angle lens without giving up the performance of a long zoom Power OIS Keep Your Images Still with an Advanced Optical Image Stabilizer Intelligent Auto with Face Recognition Confidently record as the camera automatically adjusts settings that recognize familiar faces

Customer Reviews

 Nice Vid Cam, Nice Price - Aug 30, 2010

Panasonic has packed a lot of useful features into this lightweight package. The controls are pretty intuitive but read the manual first to make use of some features that are not so apparent.

Quality of the videos is very good, the zoom is ridiculous (!) and stills taken out of video action scenes are also very good. I ended up using this camera for video and snap shots on my recent vacation and was very pleased with the results.

For well under $500 this Hi Def video camera is tough to beat

 small & capable - Aug 28, 2010

a very small camcorder with powerful zoom and OIS. high video quality during outdoor and decent indoor lighting. haven't really tested dim light imaging yet. so far, very happy with it.

 Do the job - Aug 20, 2010

The camera is small and light and the quality under normal light is great. On darker places is below average. It connects directly with a Mac or with a PC. The software it brings is very basic.The picture setting is average.

 Great camcorder!! - Aug 11, 2010

I've had this for a week and I'm very impressed. The video quality is outstanding. The pictures from the camera are good, but not as good as my everyday camera. I bought a 16 GB memory card and it can hold about two hours of video. The software is acceptable, and it is very easy to download onto my computer. The battery life is about two hours, which is fine for me. This camera is very easy to use. I bought this for about $400 on Amazon and I think I got a great deal. My only complaint is that it did not include a mini-HDMI cable. It includes a component cable, which shows fine HD, but HDMI is so much easier to use. So I bought a mini-HDMI cale on Amazon for 99 cents(plus shipping) and it works great. Overall, I am very happy with this camera.

 All-around camera - Aug 08, 2010

I've had this camera for a couple of months now, and I am pleasantly surprised by it. I've never owned an HD camera, and this is my first new camera purchase in about 15 years or so. I've been using my phone camera for most pictures or borrowing my wife or daughter's digital still camera for the occasional need. This camera is many times better than my Droid phone camera mainly because of the versatility. That is, the phone camera isn't great for video, or zoom and slow motion playback or low light situations. I scrubbed Amazon for quite a while before purchasing, reading all the reviews I could find on other cameras looking in this price range down to about 1/2 the price of this camera. Although this one didn't have many reviews, and wasn't cheap, it was well-liked by those who purchased it, and now I know why. It has a bunch of advanced features which I haven't used but I will detail the ones I have used.

The camera fits in my pocket reasonably comfortably, it's slightly larger than my wallet. It's a touch wider than my hand when I hold it but comfortably fits in the palm of my hand. The controls are easy to use once you get used to them. There are 3 modes, playback, video and still. The still pictures are quite impressive. I sold a car on eBay and the pictures were huge and very crisp on my computer. They were amongst the largest pictures on eBay after I posted them, larger than most of the car dealers selling anyway. I believe it's 4.3 megapixel, but not all megapixels are created the same. I think this 4.3 quality is better than a 4 megapixel camera phone.

The video quality is exceptional. Oddly, on playback using my TV this camera seems to have better video quality than most of the HD programming I watch on Dish Network. I'm not sure how that can be possible, but it is better. I can see every hair on my daughter's head and every blade of grass when I watch a playback. During video recording, there is a box that appears around faces, apparently it's recognizing and focusing on those faces.

I've used this camera in several challenging situations and found it to be very good. I've used it low light for example, and it has a built-in light that comes on automatically. We were at a restaurant recently which was dark, and I recorded video for a few seconds and the image was somewhat dark, but the light automatically came on for both the video mode and still picture mode (flashed). The people whom you are recording might find the light annoying (in video mode as it stays on), but as the cameraman the playback image looks great - you can turn off the light manually, easily.

The zoom is pretty incredible. I was recently at Brewer's baseball game, from the 1st base line I was able to zoom in on the center fielder to fill the frame, he was about 500-600 ft away from where I was sitting. Zooming out, I turned the camera back on myself and my son for a nice wide angle shot at arms length. During playback on my TV, I could even see the thin stripes on the center fielder's shirt. The stabilization (anti-shake) mode (OIS) allowed me to see the players on playback with no noticeable shaking or movement on my part. With the OIS turned off, I could not hold the camera steady enough for the long range zoom shots. You don't need a tripod to steady the camera but I've used a tripod and it works well with this camera.

The battery life is pretty good about 3 hours of use or so playback and at least an hour or more in record mode reduce. I'm thinking about getting the larger battery as although it might heavier, it would be nice to have the extra battery life and a spare battery.

I also recorded my golf swing using the high-speed record mode. Although I couldn't get the super-slow motion playback that you see on TV golf, but I was able to stop the club head fairly well for my purposes anyway. I could see my driver shaft was bending quite a bit which was a surprise. I was also able to see the club shaft angle fairly well during playback. The controls for playback in slow motion are a little clumsy but not too bad once you get used to it (press the pause button, then hold down the FF or Rewind buttons).

I plan to use the camera for recording my daughter's lacrosse games this school year. I expect from what I've seen that it will work well for that purpose as well.

The biggest complaint that I have is that still pictures have a problem with red-eye when using the flash. Even when the person isn't looking directly at the camera, the center of the eyes are red. It's an annoying problem that I can't seem to fix. Other than that I've been pretty happy with the camera's usability and quality.

Accessories:

The camera comes with a detailed user-manual, a charger, 2 connector cables, and a CD disk containing software for IBM-compatible computers. However, just plugging it into my Mac computer worked fine with without any additional software.

The two cables included: a USB cable for connecting to your computer, and cable to attach to your TV for playback. The cable for playback is one of those 6-connector types (red, green blue, video as well as yellow (video), and red/white audio). Unfortunately, it's only about 5' long. Although the video quality was quite good with the included cable, I went for the additional HDMI mini-cable as I wanted to see the quality difference - which frankly is hard for me to tell the difference, but the accessory cable below is much longer (nearly 10' instead of the 5' cable that comes with the camera) therefore I recommend it.

I purchased a cable (Panasonic Mini HDMI Cable, 9.8 Ft) and a memory card (SanDisk Ultra 32GB SDHC Card (SDSDRH-032G-A11) - both of which I recommend. The memory card was a bit more than I wanted to pay, but works quite well. There may be be cheaper memory cards available that work as well, not sure.

cable:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001A5LW1U/ref=oss_product
memory card:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00194101O/ref=oss_product)

I would recommend purchasing a case, which I've yet to do, but will add that to the review once I find a good one.

 A nice camcorder! - Jul 01, 2010

This is a replacement for my 10 year old Panasonic camcorder so the first thing I noticed is this thing is SMALL, but they are all pretty small compared to my old camcorder. Without going into too much detail I'll just note the things I found much better than I expected and the couple things I am a little disappointed in. I don't have experience with any other new camcorders so I can't say this one is better or worse than any of the other new models.

Pleasantly surprised:
- The image stabilization feature is very very good.
- The video picture quality is impressive.
- The battery lasts longer than it is suppose to (manual says 50 minutes but I get double that).
- The software that comes with it is certainly good enough for me and is easy to use. It allows you to arrange your clips into a video and write it to a standard DVD in standard definition, to a standard DVD in high definition or to a blu-ray disc. You can delete portions of clips, add transitions between clips, add text to a clip (first clip only) and build a menu screen.

Things that are a bit of a disappointment:
- The automatic white balance isn't the greatest. Within a single lighting environment and a single shot the auto white balance will vary from a little too yellow, to a little too blue to just right. I've given up on auto white balance and now use manual white balance. Manual mode is a bit of a hassle but worth it to avoid the white balance swings the automatic setting produces.
- The wind cut filter can't be turned off in auto mode. This isn't a big deal to me now that I use manual mode (because of my white balance complaint) but if I did want to use auto mode there are times you need to have the wind cut filter off or the sound will get totally messed up (like when an audience is clapping along to a song).
- Low light recording is fairly noisy. It isn't horrible. I decided it is acceptable for my use but my 10 year old camcorder did better in low light.

Everything else about the camcorder is about what I expected. It's easy to use, nice zoom range, still camera mode can't compete with a real still camera but that shouldn't come as a big surprise. Overall a very nice camcorder for the money. Is it the best camcorder for the money? I have no idea, but I can say I'm happy with it and it is capable of producing very nice video with just a little effort as long a there is sufficient light.


UPDATE - one month later: I've had the camcorder for over a month and have shot 10+ hours of video with it. I'm still impressed with this little camcorder. It can produce some beautiful video. I'd give it 5 stars if the white balance worked a little better. I still stand by my original comments.

One software feature I discovered and like a lot is the ability to capture a still photo from the video. I'm sure all video software has this feature but it is new to me. With the still capture feature you can get a 3.6 inch x 6.4 inch 300dpi jpg from the video. The software allows you to look at the video frame by frame so you can capture a still picture at just the right moment. This is very nice for making small snapshot photos, particularly of fast action subjects. One maddening thing about most still cameras is shutter lag (the delay from the time you push the button to the time the picture is taken). Many times great shots are missed because of that delay but by capturing still images from the video you can always get the shot at just the right moment! It's a fun feature.


UPDATE #2 - 2 months later: I've shot over 20 hours of video with this camcorder now and I'm still very happy with it. I purchased a sandisk 16GB card (holds about 2 hours of video) and I'm keeping an eye out for a Vw-VBK360 extra battery for use on vacations. The Vw-VBK180 battery that comes with the camera lasts at least 100 minutes of actual use yet is only suppose to last 50 minutes. I don't know why I'm getting so much time out of it! I do shut off the camera between shots (by closing the viewing door) but doesn't everybody? Seems like a natural thing to do.

I still use manual mode for white balance. I'm much happier with the results using manual white balance rather than automatic white balance. The auto white balance in my old camcorder as well as the white balance in my daughter's little Flip camcorder works fine but not in this new camcorder. It's my only real complaint.

I did a little test to compare my old camcorder with the new camcorder in low light conditions. The new camcorder produces a fairly noisy video in relatively low light but my old camcorder produces a pretty nice video under the same low light conditions. I'm not talking very dark - living room, in the evening, lit with 2 floor lamps. But I found a flaw in my test! What I discovered is both camcorders produce fairly good video in STANDARD DEFINITION. It is only in HIGH DEFINITION that the video from the new camcorder is noisy. Since my old camcorder only records in standard definition it wasn't fair for me to compare my old camcorder standard definition video with my new camcorder high definition video. So for what it's worth, my new and old camcorders produce about the same quality standard definition video in low light conditions. Maybe you have to step up to a more expensive camcorder to get low noise, high definition video.

I've got to say, even though low light standard definition video looks better than low light high definition video, once you've viewed high definition video in normal lighting conditions you'll never want to go back to standard definition ever again. The difference is remarkable!

I hope you found this information useful. I'd like to thank the people who took the time to write camcorder reviews when I was researching them. It's very helpful to get insights from end-users. I'm glad I bought the camcorder that I did and I'm even happier that I decided to upgrade from my standard definition camcorder to an eye-popping high definition camcorder!

 Best budget camcorder under $500 - Jun 25, 2010

I've done a pretty good amount of research on budget hi-def camcorders between $400 and $500 dollars. In my opinion, this is the best camcorder in this price range. I would highly recommend this camcorder to anyone looking to just film family gatherings, vacations, or for filming budget movies. The camcorder has an attractive design, fits in your palm, and is the perfect weight. It takes fantasic video, has a 3 second pre-record function, face tracking, good battery life, a flash & video light, average photos, and dolby digital audio recording. My only complaint is the location of the record button, it is a bit awkward. I was going to go with the Sony cx110 which has mostly the same specs, but decided on this camcorder since it has optical image stabilization (which works flawlessly) instead of an electronic stabilizer. It also has an LED video light and a flash, for photos. It supports SDXC memory cards, which can hold 64GB or more. If you prefer flash memory over using a hard drive, like me, you are better off with this base model and getting a 16/32GB SD card. I bought the 32GB Transcend SDHC card from Amazon and it works perfectly with this product.

 Progress for the Dedicated Amateur - May 29, 2010

I avoided AVCHD a couple of years ago because the compression requires a lot of computer power to edit. The Big Three of video seem to like AVCHD, and it is used all over the place, but in video cameras it is hard to balance what you need to edit it with what consumers are using.

I mostly use a fairly new Toshiba laptop. Windows Media Player will play the clips from this camera, but it will not do it smoothly. You can see what you have, and follow what you have recorded, but it is not a good way to watch. I used a copy of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, the latest, and I can edit the clips fairly easily, and then render them to something like WMV video, at the highest setting. This is acceptable to me, for now.

It's not a great sign when the first two paragraphs of a review are about technical aspects of simply using the clips that are recorded by the camera. But the reality of AVCHD is that it is not simple, and no one should jump in thinking there is some easy solution. Even finding the clips on the card is somewhat awkward. But, the bottom line is you can shoot video clips, pop the SD card in a reader, and then use them with a fairly reasonably priced editor like Vegas, and from there render to a useable format for a lower powered computer, at least one of recent vintage.

The camera itself is very small. Some people do not like the ergonomics but I think they are fine. I did not want to buy a camera without a viewfinder, the eyelevel kind, but the screen is good enough outside, though the sun fades it. I like to set the exposure and lock it. I was surprised that there is no exposure lock, but you can get a fix on the exposure with the Ia mode, then shift to manual and the auto settings are retained. You can then work from there. This works for what I want.

The zoom starts at about 35mm. This is why I bought the camera. I need a certain amount of wide angle. Most cameras start around 45mm. I used to carry an adapter, but the adapters are a pain and they often distort. If you want wide angle for scenics or inside shots to show a wider view, this is a good place to start. Sony has a 28mm camera. It seems to be the trend. Even Flip seems to be going this way.

The autofocus and auto exposure seem to work quite well. The slow zoom is what I want, though you can speed it up. The menus are just fine for my purposes, at least if you spend an hour with the manual. The size of the camera is great. Indoor shots with decent light (like through normal windows) seem to be good. There's a lot of gain as you move to a dark room, but in a room with good light there is no gain up. In the manual mode, the camera tells you what the gain level is, so after you open up past F/2.0, you see gain from 3db and up. This seems technically refined.

 HDC-SD60K - Apr 15, 2010

I just tested this camcorder for a full day and was pleasantly surprised. I bought a Canon HFS100 last year and liked the video quality but was disappointed with its stabilization, wind noise, and limited optical zoom. Even though the HDC-SD60K was half the price of the Canon, I really could not tell the difference in video quality between the two cameras on my HD TV. In some respects such as color accuracy, I think the Panasonic was better. I really liked the 25X optical zoom and the excellent stabilization, even at full zoom. The wind noise cancel feature seemed to work well too. For the price, I am amazed by the video quality.