Panasonic Palmcorder PV-GS500 Mini DV Camcorder

It was that time again. Time to start the search for a replacement for my camcorder - a Sony which has seen very heavy use and was beginning to show the signs of wear and tear. The Sony has been good. Hard to replace in many ways.

When it was bought, the main competitor against the Sony for my attention was a Panasonic, and in many ways they were like chalk and cheese. The Sony was sleek, light, had very fast auto responses, was good in low light, handled very easily, felt comfortable in the hand. The Panasonic was none of these, but had 3 CCDs. I couldn't see much difference in video quality even so, so bought the Sony. There were a few times I wondered if it had been the right choice - particularly when the Sony sometimes produced grainy images or slight aberrations. Rare, but just enough to keep wondering.

Then the Sony started playing up, beginning to zoom without the control being touched, switching itself to pause in the middle of a shot, refocusing without reason. It was likely a moisture problem, having used it extensively one day in mist with a strong on-shore breeze at the beach, but it got less and less trustworthy so I reluctantly started looking for a replacement.

The marketplace for video cameras has been in far more turmoil recently than it was before. Widescreen and High Def are now considerations when they were not before, with the growth of interest in HD alone causing manufacturers to realign their product ranges, and the proliferation of hard drive and DVD devices has complicated choice for many even more.

In my case, I wanted to stick with miniDV for compatibility with my editing systems, so the choice of format was easy, and while Sony continue to get high praise for their camcorders, the memory of the comparison between Sony and Panasonic when I last looked for a camera led me to check out the PV-GS500.


First thoughts:

The first thing to say about this model is that it is no GS400. The 400 was a previous product which was highly regarded for image quality and a range of manual control. I'd used one briefly and was very impressed. By comparison the GS500 has lost many features that GS400 owners liked and used. But while it is true that Panasonic 'dumbed down' their 2006 consumer camcorders, they reduced prices substantially too.

Comparing the PV-GS500 to other models showed that it did one thing extraordinarily well, indeed better than even the GS400 had, let alone similarly priced competition - it shot great quality pictures. Tested in sunlight, overcast conditions, indoors, in low light, image quality from the GS500 was a whole level cleaner, sharper, more naturally saturated than any of the competition. The extra manual controls of the GS400 caused me to look at a used one, but the quality of video was not quite as good, the price was significantly higher and the features simply not worth the trade off.

So I bought the GS500 and put it to use. It took a little getting used to, supplanting the touchscreen menus of the Sony with a system controlled by joystick, and finding my way around the different shape and layout, but it seems logically designed, with controls where you expect them to be. The body is fairly bulky by comparison to the increasingly slimmed-down products often found in this category, but the weight and balance feel comfortable, and the shape of the camera fits well into the hand. The bracing strap is, however, a little narrow so unlike some camcorders this one needs a fairly firm grasp with the right hand when in use to keep it steady, but it is easy to adapt to.


Brief tour:

On the outside, this looks like a pretty conventional camcorder. Slightly fatter than most, with a thicker lens barrel, but with the usual flip-out LCD (a widescreen 2.5" unit) on the left side, a pull-back/flip-up viewfinder for the conventionally-minded and those occasions where the LCD may not serve best on the top, with hot shoe mount infront, a mode control in the form of a rotating wheel on the rear panel for switching from VCR to playback, card or PC connection, and power, stills shot and zoom controls on the top. Rather nicely, Panasonic have continued their tradition of top-mounting the tape compartment too, which makes tape-swapping far more convenient, particularly when a tripod or other mount is in use. On the right-side a plastic cover hides the analog output port, and a socket for external microphone, combined with connector for a rather neat wired remote containing stop/start button, zoom control and shutter release for stills, along with a clip for attaching to clothing, belt, tripod etc. The wired remote is included, as is a more comprehensive wireless device.

A difficult-to-miss menu button on the right of the camera back panel above the mode control takes you to the basic, advanced and setup menus handing control to the aforementioned joystick, mounted in the center of the mode control, for navigation. Compared to many other menu-driven systems, this one is simple, clear and almost delightful. We have come a long way from the awkward multi-page, multi-level difficult to comprehend control systems used for setting up many camcorders in the past, and thank heavens for that, but even so, this is one of the neatest and least confusing. It's even designed for use in the dark, because the ring around the joystick itself is illuminated when the menus are activated. A nice touch which can be turned off if desired.

The PV-GS500 has connections for USB and firewire (IEEE 1394/iLink/DV) for connection to a computer (firewire is needed for video download to a Mac) and it also has a multifunction analog connector providing audio, composite and S-video outputs for use with TVs. It has no analog signal inputs however, so cannot be used as a pass-through converter for VHS etc as many other DV camcorders can. A USB cable is supplied, as if an A/V cable for analog output, but no firewire cable in included. The 'DV' port is a standard firewire/IEEE 1394 4-pin socket however, so standard cables are easily obtained and used.

The battery, a 1360mAh Lithium Ion unit, clips into place beneath the viewfinder on the rear panel. It takes a little under 3 hours to fully charge (off camera only) and delivers enough power for just over 2 hours of filming.


In use:

In full auto mode, the focus is a little slow, but the upside of this is that in low light where the fast reactions of the Sony caused it to hunt for a focal plane, the Panasonic seems to stay more steadily focused. It's also possible in this mode to fool the white balance too easily, by clicking the camera on before removing the lens cap. It readjusts after a short delay, but the results can be more interesting than intended, particularly as the camera rebalances as the shot continues. Exposure levels too are a little slower to adjust in auto mode than I am used to, so swinging quickly from dark to light or light to dark causes noticeable lag as the metering catches up. Again, the upside is that exposure levels don't visibly 'hunt' up and down with fast moving subjects - a definite plus when filming quickly moving scenes.

Even in auto mode, a range of controls are possible, including a tele-macro, backlight compensation and low light modes, initiated by pressing in the joystick itself, and then selected by flipping the joystick up or left or right (down backs you out from the first 'page'). This feels awkward when first used, but comes very naturally soon after. On-screen prompts show a joystick with icons for the functions to the left, right and above for the various options available, and a text prompt for each when selected. Very neat and well considered.

Inside the flip-out LCD panel compartment, a switch allows for the camera to be switched into full manual mode, where the same joystick controls now provide a wealth of options including shutter and iris controls along with white balance and gain, and via the basic menu, a range of pre-set 'scene' modes. These are not the complex and comprehensive set of manual controls which a real enthusiast or prosumer-level user would want and often need, so those who are looking for such options would do well to look elsewhere. However, these features would almost certainly meet the needs of most amateur videographers who, due to the design of the joystick metaphor, would find them easy to master with relatively little use.

The Auto/Manual switch inside the LCD compartment has an addition position for manual focus, where the GS500 scores over many of it's rivals by having a manual focus ring on the front of the lens barrel rather than relying on an awkward electronic control. Sadly, Panasonic omitted to provide any means to display the selected focal range, so manual focus has to be done entirely from viewing the scene in the viewfinder or LCD - neither of which are really large enough for the task. This is a disappointing omission. Also disappointing is that in some situations, the rather oddly-placed flash obstructs easy access to the focus ring itself. Since the flash is used only for still, and due to its placement is not that much good for even that, Panasonic might better have opted to place it elsewhere.

Low light performance is not exceptional, but very reasonable even so. Color definition and stability remain as the light level diminishes, and while noise does increase of course, it seems very under control and mostly unobtrusive until light levels fall appreciably. There are camcorders out there that go further, but usually with considerable noise or by slowing the frame rate until they are really only good for stationery images, but the Panasonic seems able to hold color detail better and noise levels lower in general.

Use with iMovie and Final Cut (Express and Pro) is seamless and reliable, with none of the quirks of some other cameras. Importing, exporting and camera control overall is flawless. Some issues were found with audio syncing in an old version of iMovie, traced to the camcorder's default of 12bit audio sampling. Changing this to 16bit in the Audio Rec menu resolved that problem completely. The camera also worked well as a webcam when tried on both Mac and PC systems (Mac connected via firewire and PC by USB).


Conclusions:

Ultimately, the quality of a video camera is not judged by the features and controls but by the results. The owner may struggle to control the camera and to get the video they want, but the true measure of how good or bad the camcorder is is in the minds of those who view the end result. As such, the PV-GS500 produces truly excellent quality images that are amongst the best possible to achieve without taking the step to High Definition. The 3 CCD image sensor clearly helps, though the inclusion of true optical image stabilization in place of the digital stabilizers found on most other cameras also plays a part in keeping the image still and crisp. Images are lifelike in color saturation and definition and have a far more solid appearance than any other camcorder I have used. Fine details in the scene that the Sony didn't pick out with clarity are easily visible in the Panasonic's output, enhanced by the GS500's excellent handling of contrast and light. Consequently DVDs of completed projects look sharper and more vibrant than before, and output from camcorder to TV is about as good as non-HD can be. Impressively so.

It puzzles me, however, why serious camcorder manufacturers continue to place an emphasis on modern video cameras maintaining stills photography options. To be sure it's convenient and for those unfamiliar with the usually-poor quality of stills camcorders seem invariably to produce, it may seem an obvious and welcome feature. But the truth is that camcorders don't make good digital cameras. The 4MP resolution of the GS500 is a good example, in that while it produces images which are at least no worse than average quality, they really are no better either, and can be beaten easily by a cheap, even lower resolution, dedicated digicam. This option is good for quick and easy snaps, which can be saved to tape and/or an SD card (not supplied) but should not be regarded as any more serious than that. Images are clean and clear, color saturation is natural but the results lack vibrancy and detail.

Even so, the Panasonic PV-GS500 is an excellent camcorder for a range of users from casual videographer through to serious amateur with a mind to capturing the best image quality around, short of moving up to HD, where the potential is higher, but not always realised, and where many computers used currently for editing work are simply not powerful enough to readily cope.

Controls are well positioned and easy to use, the joystick metaphor is cleverly thought out and the zoom lever gives very good, precise, control.

The manual controls and extra bells and whistles found on previous models would have been nice, but what Panasonic have done with this model is give those of us who wanted prosumer quality pictures a device we can afford that gives them to us. In leaving out the extra facilities they've engineered a mid-priced camcorder with high-priced image capture capabilities and a control interface that's simple, slick and easy to navigate on the fly, while leaving out the features that would have pushed the price upwards, or added complexities and complications. Build quality is excellent, design and layout is very good, marred only by a couple of oddities such as the positioning of the flash, and the standard battery supplied gives marginally over 2 hours of life in the field on a 2+ hour charge, which is pretty respectable.

Overall, the PV-GS500 is a stunningly good product that handles well, feels comfortable and which works like a charm. Only from the perspective of the models that have gone before it is it fair to be critical of its feature set, but even then, image quality is better. Exceptionally so.