Panasonic introduces new digital still cameras and camcorders [video]

Press was today invited to Panasonic’s introduction of a line of digital still cameras and camcorders to the Middle East. The new still digital cameras include the TZ10, FP1 and FP3. Panasonic also introduced six HD camcorders, including the HDC-TM700, and six SD camcorders, including the SDR-S50.

The TZ10 is made for travel and zoom, according to Panasonic and in our testing that is a good way of looking at it. With a 12x zoom lens reaching from 25mm to 300mm (and even further with digital zoom at surprisingly high quality), it’s a beast of a zoom lens on such a compact camera. In fact, in our review of the TZ10, which will be in the June issue, the zoom lens is what we’re most impressed with.

With 12.1MP there’s enough pixels to capture small details and with the GPS all exposures can be geo-tagged so you can later see where you took all the photos. Panasonic has also thrown in some of their usual goodness in the TZ10, like Power O.I.S. (image stabilization for less blurry shots) and iA (intelligent automode, where the camera makes all the decisions about how to take a shot). It also records 720p HD video with AVCHD. AVCHD typically results in very high quality video and small files but it’s more processor intensive for a computer to deal with.

The FP series is a first for Panasonic, bringing small and slim camera bodies to their lineup. They both have internal foldable optics, meaning that the lens doesn’t protrude from the body of the camera.

Although the two models are very similar there are also important differences. Both feature 4x zoom, 35-140mm, which is image stabilized through Mega O.I.S. Where they differ is in megapixels (FP1 12MP, FP3 14MP), LCD display (FP1 2.7-inch non-touch, FP3 3.0-inch touch). Finally, they both come in a range of colors. Eight in total for the FP1 and 12 for the FP3. Both models come with iA and HD 720p video recording.
In camcorders Panasonic unleashed 12 new models, half HD and half SD. Instead of talking about all the models I’ve picked out two. Among the HD camcorders the TM700 is interesting in various ways. It has 32GB built-on flash memory and also accepts SD card.

What’s really impressive is that it supports 1080p (progressive) recording with three separate sensors (3MOS). That should provide excellent detail, contrast and colors.

Panasonic has, per their custom, put a high-quality Leica Dicomar lens on the camcorder. With 12x optical zoom, 20x “intelligent zoom” and 700x digital zoom there should be enough range to find the smallest of details. Mega O.I.S. helps with keeping the video steady even when zooming in. The TM700 saves video in AVCHD format, which means small files with high quality. Finishing off the package is a stereo mic for 5.1ch surround sound and 3.5mm jacks for external mic as well as headphones.

Finally, I’ll mention the SDR-S50 SD camcorder. It may not be as exciting as HD but fact remains that many users could do with “just” SD resolution. It features 78x “enhanced optical” zoom, Advanced O.I.S. and you can take still pictures at 0.3MP. Video resolution is 704 x 480.

This may not sound too impressive but the benefits are obviously that the price of the camera is lower and since files are smaller, transfer to and processing in computer is faster. You could say that even webcams today have higher resolution that this and you’d be correct but the main benefit of using a dedicated camcorder instead of the webcam is that the lens is going to be much better and the exposure capability of the camcorder will way surpass the webcam’s.

Hitesh Ojha, Product Manager for cameras and camcorders, Panasonic Marketing, Middle East, talked to us at the end of the event and showed off some of the cameras and camcorders they introduced today. You may want to go back and listen to Hitesh talk to us about their range of digital still cameras as well.

Finally, we recorded this piece with the HDC-TM700. It records to SD card and I think the results are very good and it was easy to use. Don’t take this as a full review though but under the circumstances I must say I was happy with the camcorder. One thing though, we forgot to put away our mobiles so you’ll hear from them here and there throughout the video.