Panasonic HDC-SD60K – Nice Features, Nice Performance
Thumbs Up:
The Panasonic HDC-SD60K has a comfy design and comes with smarter-than-average autofocus and manual iris and shutter-speed controls. The lens for the camera focuses relatively closely and has really great battery life.
Thumbs Down:
The Panasonic HDC-SD60K suffers from overcrowded, low-resolution touch screen and Soft video.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Manufacturer: Panasonic
Part Number: HDC-SD60K
Price: $439.00 – $529.95
Product Type: Camcorder – 1080i
Weight: 9 oz
Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 2 x 4.4 x 2.6 inches
Optical Sensor Type: MOS
White balance: Presets, Custom and Automatic
White Balance Presets: Cloudy, Outdoor, Indoor and Sunlight
Shooting Programs: Beach, Snow, Scenery, Sunset, Low light, Fireworks, Night scene, Spotlight, Portrait mode, Sports mode and Night portrait
Shooting Modes: Digital photo mode
Software: Panasonic HD Writer AE 2.0 and Drivers & Utilities
Connector Type: 1 x USB , 1 x HDMI output , 1 x Component video output and 1 x Composite audio/video output
Microphone Features: Zoom and Wind noise reduction
Focus Adjustment: Manual & Automatic
Supported Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS X 10.6.x, Apple Mac OS X 10.5.8, and
Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later
Peripheral Devices: USB port & CD-ROM drive
Additional Features: AF/AE tracking , DPOF support , Built-in speaker , Face detection , Pre-Rec function , Face Recognition , Built-in help guide , PictBridge support , YouTube capture mode , Touch-screen control , Backlight compensation , USB 2.0 compatibility , Smile Detection technology , Intelligent Scene Selector , Automatic display brightness adjustment , Intelligent Contrast Control and Dolby Digital AC-3 (2 channel) recording
Media Type: Flash card
Supported Flash Memory: SD Memory Card
Service & Support:One year warranty
Supported Battery:1790 mAh (Included) 1 x Li-ion rechargeable battery
Razzle Dazzle:
The overall design of Panasonic HDC-SD60K is rather comfortable-to-grip and gives sturdy feel in hand. For the consumers having large hands or for those who actually doesn’t like the tubular design of the flash memory camera models, there is the hard disk of HS60, which just out from the right side of the camera and gives you a tad extra edge for gripping. Like all its siblings the HS60 also doesn’t have an accessory shoe, so the top floor of the camera hosts only shutter button for capturing still photos and a zoom switch. On strange thing we found here was the LED video light on the camcorder to support shooting in environments with dim lights. The LED video light is pretty unusual for its price tag. Although it on a whole is a decent design touch, but we still recommend that you don’t shine it straight into someone’s eye.
Inside Dope:
The Panasonic HDC-SD60K comes with a comfortable design. Panasonic has placed a switch on the rear end of the camera for selecting among video, playback and still modes; this arrangement according to us is much better and convenient than going through the traditional touch screen. Positioned just next to the switch is the power connector for the camera. In addition to the power button, there is a complete complement of connectors and ports residing in the LCD recess: Mini-HDMI out, proprietary video, an SDXC card slot and USB. Though most of the modern cameras are going it, but we still hate the placement of connectors inside camcorders’ LCD, the reason behind this being the fact that the LCD of the camcorder will be open when you attach the camera to some other devices, which definitely is kind of awkward. The camcorder has a button positioned on top of it for toggling between the intelligent manual and auto mode.
In both the intelligent manual and automatic mode, the relevant options become available through a flyout set of icons displayed on the touchscreen. The strange but not unique thing here is that the camcorder offers manual iris and shutter control for the camera just like their higher-end counterparts. The user interface for the camera is rather simple. Also in general we see small sized LCD screens in the camcorder of this class, but the SD60K uses the same LCD screen that we’ve seen in its high-end siblings.
One of the best things about the camcorder and one of its most notable aspect is its performance; its pretty decent, and not only for its class but on a whole as well. The zoom switch of the camcorder has a decent feel and is rather easy to maintain a constant rate with it. The autofocus here is accurate and fast; which is pretty unlike what we’ve seen in many of its competitors. The camcorder almost seemed to focus on the correct object. Just as most of the camcorders we’ve seen this year, the SD60K also comes with a second image stabilization option, which in this case is Power OIS, the power OIS here is optimized for shooting while walking. The standard and Power OIS both were reasonable, but surely not exceptionally effective, especially at the maximum optical zoom of 25x for the camera. The battery of the camcorder lasts a long time.
The video quality delivered by the camcorder is not as impressive as one would imagine, but still is respectable for its class. The low light video shot from the camera were noisy, soft and desaturated. So on a whole the Panasonic HDC-SD60K comes with a respectable feature set and performance.
Nitty Gritty:
The Panasonic HDC-SD60K comes with a nice manual and automatic feature set, and delivers respectable performance on a whole.
