Panasonic HDC-HS300 user reviews

3.0 stars

"Small for travel, but not without issues" on April 5, 2010 by RevVid

Pros: Small, Light, Good in Low Light, Good image quality, Fast PC transfer

Cons: WB Automatic mode is a problem, slow startup, no Neutral density filter build in or mentioned anywhere.

Summary: Bought for travel, reading reviews. I have 2 SONY Mini DV camcorders with Procumer DCR-VX2100-Best in low light. Got Panasonic hdc-hs300k for best in low light vs price combination. I shot 1 hour with it and I see some disturbing trends with it especially, compared to Sony cameras. The most bothersome is the fact that HDC HS300 will change White Balance in automatic mode while you are recording! I have never seen that on SONY Cameras! That is really bad especially indoors. If you pan from darker area to well lit, white balance changes to cool-blue (and inaccurate setting for situation for that matter) while you are recording and that makes it impossible to have consistent video. Again, that just amazed me when it kept happening until I set it to manual WB mode. Having shot weddings professionally and other events, I find that "feature" unacceptable for camcorder. And it was not mentioned in any review I saw before buying it. Another thing I noticed, in Bright sunlight you need to use Neutral Density or polarizing filter since HDC HS 300 will overexpose people faces. SONY VX2100 has those filters build in (but is more pro camcorder that HS300). Zebra Pattern in menu is nice like pro cameras but no threshold adjustment. Startup time from turning a switch to recording is 5-10 sec-much longer than SONY cameras I am used to.
Overall I find HS300 to be good camcorder for money. But get a Neutral density or polarizing filter for outdoors and use it in Manual set WB if you don't want to have colors change on you during playback. Understanding shortcomings of the HDC HS300 and how to set it up, can produce very high quality HD footage. Unfortunately that defeats the purpose of Point and Shoot camera.