Does anyone here own a Panasonic HDC-TM300?

Martin68

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Hi guys
i'm seriously thinking about buying this camcorder, because it has good ratings with immage quality, i have seen footage on Viemo and i'm impressed with it's low light caperbilities.

I am also needing this camera to take good stills, I am aware that camcorders don't take stills as good as dediated still cameras, but i'm hoping this one is near as perfect as my dedicated 7mp stills camera.

So i am asking any one on here which owns one of these camcorders if they could comment about the stills picture quality, and better still, take some random photos at the higest quality and send them to me at full res. so i can see for myself before parting with £800!

i hope someone can help.

Martin
 
I just got this camcorder second hand literally less than a week ago. I am very impressed with it so far although I am just a keen amateur and my knowledge is limited :(

My first test was low light and I hooked the camcorder up via component to my HDTV and the picture was awful, but I since found out this was something to do with the component connect as playing directly through the PS3 the video is stunning. I was pretty impressed with the low light, some slight noise and grain but very very acceptable IMHO - but I have not tested the low light much.

I took some daylight video at the weekend and the video is amazing through the PS3. My bro came up last night and I showed him and he was amazed - like looking through a window.

I also liked the timelapse feature, very cool - filmed the sunset and it looked great.

Photos are also very impressive too. You can take a photo while recording video, or put the camcorder on photo mode where it functions like a digital camera - there is a flash also.

I havent played with the manual settings (or even the intelligent auto settings) but so far I'm really pleased with this camcorder. I'm not sure I would pay 800 quid for it, if I hadn't have got one second hand I prob would have opted for the SD200.

PM me and I will email you some photos in full res. Just a couple of tests shots I took.
 
Hi Steve,

Glad you got one in the end - How much did you pay for it?

To the OP, I found the TM300 to be great in daylight. I preferred the Sony CX505 for lowlight, but then again I'm no expert and may not have been using the Panasonic to its full potential. If there is reasonable lighting and you use less than about 3db gain then lowlight pictures are *very* clean.
 
Thanks Jimbob - paid the same as you got for yours pretty much (just over £500).

Just need to try and source some accessories! (wide angle lens, spare battery and maybe a boom mic thing).
 
Good news. I had been hoping to get £500 + postage, and was about to agree to your offer when the other one came in, but I'm glad you managed to sort one out.
 
did you get my PM Steve? im looking forwards to getting the still photos to judge for myself if the camcorder suits my needs.

Im also debating if i should go for the TM350 which is an improved version, which is supposed to be even better in low light, but it is £1000 and limited to only 200 in the uk, so may be difficult to source.
I know its expensive but when you think about it, basic camcorders of 20 years ago would also have cost around £1000 back them and even though people said they were expensive, it never stopped people buying them, even though people had less money back then, so £1000 today in my view is probably equivalent to what £500 was back then, so compared to 20 years ago, this is still quite cheap for the quality you get, as long as it meets expectations, and that is why i would really like to see still photos
 
Also...dose the TM have that novelty slow motion feature like the high end Sony's have, it take a few seconds of video and plays it back in smooth slow motion.
if this feature was not on the TM300/350 it would not matter but for the novelty it would be fun to use if it was.
 
Will send you those shortly Martin, didnt get back till late.

The TM300 has the time lapse feature and its really good, you can choose from a number of times and the TM300 will take a frame at each interval.

Will email a couple of photos soon..

edit: could you send me a pm again, just to warn you - the zip file is 20MB - hope thats ok
 
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Hi - does anyone know how to upload the time-lapse movies into iMovie or otherwise get them off the camera?

Great camera this (I'm a novice) having a lot of fun ;-)
 

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