Panasonic HDC-HS80 – GarageHP.com previously wrote articles about Asus K53E-B1, Apple iPhone 3GS 32GB Black, and Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8. Now we are talking about Panasonic HDC-HS80, Manual Controls in a Functional. A functional trio of camcorders, the Panasonic HDC-SD80, TM80, and HS80 are notable for their manual exposure controls (unusual for their price class) and well-designed touch-screen interface, but otherwise you can find better options. Of the three, the SD80 is the best choice simply on price.
There’s a lot to like about this little series of camcorders. But while the 16GB Panasonic HDC-TM80 and its similar kin, the no-internal-memory SD80 and 120GB hard-disked HS80, do provide a surprisingly full set of manual controls for the money, as with every HD model we’ve seen with a sub-HD resolution sensor, the video quality just disappoints. This review is based on an evaluation of the TM80.
Panasonic HDC-HS80 Review
It’s fine in bright sunlight, when you’re zoomed in on the subject. The video looks clean, though softer than I’d like, with edge artifacts. When you zoom out to a wider angle, though, you can tell that the low-resolution sensor simply can’t resolve enough detail. And it’s even noticeable played back on a big screen (such as the 47-inch Panasonic I used), which frequently obscures many of the artifacts. There’s also quite a bit of aliasing (jaggies) on edges.
Exposures are very good; like all inexpensive models it blows out highlights, but without excessive fringing, and it handles backlit and other difficult scenes better than most. And while the colors aren’t that accurate, they’re certainly pleasing and saturated under bright conditions.
Unlike their low-cost competitors, the TM80 and company have an onboard LED video light. While it can help in some low-light scenes, you really don’t want to point it toward people or they’ll be seeing spots for a very long time. It also results in a not-very-attractive white balance, and you still lose a lot of detail in the scene. Without the light, the camcorder’s low-light quality isn’t very good. There’s quite a bit of color noise and it’s very soft.
Panasonic HDC-HS80 Digital Camera
And if you’re looking for a dual-purpose still/video device, look elsewhere. You don’t want to use this camcorder as a still camera; the photo quality doesn’t even match that of a camera phone unless it’s scaled down.
Performance is a mixed bag as well. On the upside, the optical image stabilization works quite well, even out to the end of the 30x zoom range. It also switches decisively, and at a nice rate, between focus subjects. Unfortunately, decisively is not the same thing as accurately; it has trouble maintaining a lock on a given subject against a busy background if the subject is even a little off-center. I also saw some odd intermediate white-balance shifts when panning (in bright light) and zooming (in dim light).
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