Drop, charge, and lose the cords
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 20 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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13 out of 13 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Great camera and not just for the price."
Pros: 3 chips, feels solid, night shooting
Cons: Menu-based controls, not all have designated buttons on camera.
Summary:Updated
I've had the camera for about 9 months now, and I'm still convinced that I made the right choice, even with Sony's new HDV cameras that have come out.
The DVC30 has a solid feel to it. It's smaller than the GL2, but still much larger than the small consumer quality cameras, which for me is a good thing. You might get some laughs if you are on a professional job with a palm-sized camcorder.
The only two complaints I have are that there are no XLR jacks for audio input, and a lot of the controls are menu-based (meaning that they do not have dedicated buttons, the functions must be accessed through the cameras menus). However, I knew of both of these before purchasing the camera, so nothing has come has a surprise.
What has been a surprise is the quality. Previous to this camera I had been using a Canon XL1 and XL1S, and I cannot tell any difference in quality of the video. I have noticed that the digital gain for low light conditions is much less grainier (up to about 9db) when being compared to the Canon cameras.
I've been very pleased with this camera, and expect that it will last me for years to come.
- 2 replies to this review
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To those who have purchased this camera,
I am intersting in purchasing this item but read that it captures bad sound. For instance if you press or breath it will capture your sound. Is this true? Also, read that the image is grainy but when night time? Thank you. -
After reading countless users & trade magazine articles/views I decided to purchase the Panasonic AG DVC30 & have not regretted it. The manual is not as difficult to understand as I had read. It is intimidating, but once you read & re-read it with the camcorder in front of you, the menus are not hard to understand & navigate through. There is a menu to control the zoom, iris, & focus from the ring, although independently. The rocker zoom is a joy with 3 speed settings, the LCD is large, four different scene selections that you can customize, change color, saturation etc....well built camera all around.
