Panasonic SDR 100 (A Personal review by Derek Yeo October 2005)

 

Panasonic has hop onto the same bandwagon as JVC with its introduction of the SDR 100  tape less camcorder. Unlike the Everio series which records video on a micro drive, the SDR 100 records its video on a high speed secure digital card and the package comes with a Panasonic 2 GB high speed SD.  It seems the direction is inevitable for makers to move towards the direction of tape free solutions. The SDR 100 is hailed significantly as the first 3CCD SD card camcorder that flies the flag as for now.

 

Getting up close and personal, I purchased the SDR100 the very instant it hit the shelves inSingapore. I must admit I was completely impressed with the video resolution and quality. The video resolution of the SDR100 is extremely sharp and superior. This I can say confidently and put on writing after been through the JVC – MC 500 and the other JVC Everio series. There is simply no competition at this point of time.

 

The SDR-100 is driven by 3 1/6 inch 640K pixel CCDS and although the CCDS are smaller then the 1/4 inch found in the MC-500. I would still clearly say the quality of the SDR-100 surpasses that of JVC any day and any night.

 

A fairer comparison would be its older sibling the GS-250 with the same specifications.

Although I would personally say the GS-250 had better color performance.

 

The surprising thing was that the camcorder is small, lightweight and packed quite a punch with the features that it possesses. The tape less solution meant also free from motor noise while recording which is a problem you will face in models such as the 3CCD JVC-XR5 (the strangest and weirdest looking camcorder cube I have encountered.)

Shooting Time

 

The SDR-100 is packed with a battery that hides away which also meant the incapacity to use high capacity batteries. So if you plan to buy this camcorder to take on a holiday, I think it’s not a wise choice unless you want to lug around 10 spare batteries or bring a generator along on your travel. Also the 2GB SD provided you less than 30 minutes of video in XP mode and this would also mean that you would have to buy a couple of high speed SD cards for good measure or bring along your laptop to download your recorded files every time you run out of space.

 

The 2.8 inch LCD screen of the SDR-100 is sizeable considering the size of the entire camcorder. The widescreen LCD also meant more video real estate in terms of viewable video image. The camcorder has no accessory shoe and I think it was a smart move on Panasonic part not to include too many unnecessary features for a camcorder this size which I am certain was built more for the purpose of quality and discreetness. The camcorder does not shoot in a true 16-9 resolution so this means you lose video pixels when you set the camcorder to shoot in 16-9.

 

Start Up Time

 

The power up of the SDR-100 is also pretty impressive. The quick start stands around 1.5 seconds from the moment the LCD panel is flip open. I find this important especially in moments you want to capture fast and not have to wait for the camera to respond and initialize itself.

Stills Images

 

SDR-100 has a 3.1 MP still recording capability and is able to capture pretty impressive stills including widescreen. There are four selectable resolutions 2048 X 1512 being the highest setting. Although, in this area I will give the edge to the Everio MC-500, XR-5, PC100 and even the HC1. The fact that the SDR-100 uses some kind of pixel shifting technology to achieve the 3.1 mp resolution, I was still pleasantly surprise with the fantastic results of the still images I manage to capture with this micro beauty. The only obvious problem was the lack luster color the images possessed compared with the other camcorders mentioned above.

 

Low Light Performance.

 

Nothing to talk about and simply bad in my opinion when it comes to an insufficiently lit environment. It would have been great if Panasonic included an LED on the camera like the ones you find on mobile phones today. That would at least give you some ability to shoot some close-up video footage in low lighting conditions.

Other Interesting Features

 

A camcorder that truly deserves the attention and Panasonic has not spared the inclusion of an Optical Image Stabilizer. There are also preset shooting modes available on the SDR-100 and this includes Sports, Portrait, Low Light, Spotlight, and Surf & Snow.

Manual white balance is available and also some presets. Recording light could also be turned off via the menu controls and this is such a great feature to have when you want to use the camcorder to shoot through reflective surface. The night mode is not worth using as this resulted in blurred images thus a feature I conclude more a gimmick then a useable feature. The camcorder also possess a zoom microphone feature but to be truthful, I could not tell the difference with this feature turned off or on.

 

The camcorder also allows you to set shutter and also exposure manually although it would have been nice if the shutter could fall below the 1/50 setting.

 

Zooming & Manual Focus.

 

Fitted with a 10X optical and 700 X digital zoom capability the digital zoom could be set either to 25X or 700X but my honest recommendation would be to completely turn this off if you don’t want to end up with highly deteriorated footages.

 

Conclusion

 

My final conclusion is for those who feel they have the extra $$$$$.

 

• Should you like the idea of shooting with a fancy looking camcorder that can produce pretty awesome video results? The SDR-100 is your best bet.
• Should you like the idea of not buying tapes, the SDR-100 is also presently the wisest choice.
• If you like someone to walk up to you and say what is that camcorder you are using? The SDR-100 is the camcorder to buy.
• If you are a terrorist? The SDR-100 is also the right camcorder to buy!