Thinking of buying Canon XM2, but still nervous about forking out all that money. Wondered if anyone had any knowledge of it, or the Sony TRV950 / Panasonic MX500b / or JVC equiv.

Want it specifically for making short films - drama and documentary styles.
Hoping to edit on PC.

All advice/opinions welcome. Thanks.

Hi!

For what I've read the past two weeks on different forums and review sites I can tell you that the Panasonic MX500 is an excellent camera.

-Good image quality when used with much light (sun/outdoors)
-True 16:9 format (does NOT stretch image)
-Optical Image stabilisation
-3 CCD
-Descent price

As for almost every cam out here there is one big "but". In this case for the MX500 it's the performance when used indoors. Image quality is dark and grainy unless you use a 200 watt light or more.

Why is it so bad?
-First the lens. An F1.2 lens passes through more light than a F1.8 Lens. The lower the F-value the more light the lens passes through and the better the low-light performance is. The MX500 has an ordinary F1.6 lens.

-Second: The size of the CCD. The BIGGER the CCD the LESS light is necesairy: The MX500 has small 1/6 inch CCD's

-Third: The MORE pixels on each CCD (higher density) the MORE light is needed (not 100% sure about his).... the MX500 has high density CCD's

Al together a great and a not to expensive cam for what you get, but NOT good for indoor shooting without extra light.

The VX2000, the XM1 and the XL1(s) do not suffer from low light. The VX2000 can even be considered the king of low light performance! (big CCD's and low density per CCD --> about 450 k pixels) However these cams are way more expensive!

The TRV950 floats between those expensive (3000+) cams and the lower priced cams (2000-) However this cam still costs about 2500 and makes it not a cheap deal or good value for money... It's a good cam indeed, but for me not worth the extra money.

So what's left? I already told you about F-value, CCD-size and Density. Now, the JVC GR-DV3000 has a F1.2 lens (good) and a CCD size of 1/3.6 inch (good too!) The CCD-Density is 1.33 mpix, but since this single CCD captures all of the light instead instead of splitting it on three chips the 1.33 mpix does NOT make this cam perform bad in low light for as far as I know.

Reviews state this cam is indeed a good low-light performer and if we take in consideration the difference between 1 CCD and 3 CCD is hard to see and the MX500 3 CCD cam is very bad in low light, the DV3000 would be my choice.

To bad there is a big "but" for this cam too: For some reasons the engineers at JVC decided NOT to include an external MIC minijack. No external mic for DV3000 users except the zoom-mic from JVC which can be put on the info-shoe. Too bad this mic is rated very bad (even worse than the build in mic). Sound is often underestimated and I would never buy any cam that has no external MIC input.

Luckily the DV3000 is about to be replaced by the DV4000 which will be available late April. This cam is similar to the DV3000 but HAS an external MIC input. The price will be about the same. The only "but" with this cam is the slightly smaller CCD size (1/4 inch). However this cam has a lower LUX-rating and should thus be a little bit better than its brother (perhaps JVC got it's hands on some higher quality CCD's that are smaller but perform better?)

Time will tell. When reviews about this cam appear i will read them. Then we will see if the DV4000 is a worthy succesor (or at least not worse than the DV300) If it's just as good or hopefully even better this will be my cam of choice

p.s See my other post in the Panasonic MX500 for pictures taken in low-light situations

[gringottsdirect]

New Panasonic NV-GS70B has 3 x 540k CCD, Leica Dicomar lens, 1.7 Mega Pixel still images, USB 2.0 and should be a well priced.

I own a Sony VX2000 and if you want my advice and you're going to be spending the kind of money neccessary to buy one of these
expensive cameras, you might as well get the Sony VX2000. Why?, because it's great in low light performance, the ccds are one third of an inch and it's just an all around great camcorder, plus you can get it on the net for a lot less than the retail price.
Good luck, Tunes Man.

Oh dear, another person harping on about low light performance, and quoting that ridiculous "200W minmum light needed" rule... What utter tosh! My MX500 has performed superbly in awful low light conditions, and it has never been cause for any problems.

Is "low light performance" some sort of specialised camcorder fetish? If you must film the insides of darkened nightclubs then buy a video light!

As far as the original question, every review of the XM2 I've seen says that it is particularly bad for picking up it's own zoom motor noise, which spoils an otherwise excellent camera...

[Wayne Moule]

WellingtonTrout

If you're nervous about spending all that money,does it need to be a 3CCD?

The Panasonic NV-GS70B is about £800 on the net.

The MX500B is about a £1000.

The Sony VX2000 is £2000.

I wouldn't get a camcorder expecting it to take great stills either.

Sometimes a video light on a camcorder is not always practical, in which case the low light performance of the VX2000 wins out again! Happy spending!

Tunes Man.