Quick Review Camcorders : Panasonic PV-GS200

The PV-GS200 ships with three 1/6 inch CCDs each with 800K gross pixels, 440K effective for video, and 530K effective for still pictures. The camcorder includes a 10x optical zoom with a 700x digital zoom (merely pixel enlargement).

These CCDs afford the PV-GS200 very competitive scores and performance results in our low light testing tent. It produces great color with excellent crispness, and all for a good price. You really can’t beat a three chip camcorder for under a grand, especially when it includes a focus ring, more effective pixels, and a hot accessory shoe over its predecessor, the PV-GS120.

Along with the manual focus ring, the PV-GS200 includes manual controls for White balance, Iris, shutter, and gain. Unfortunately, all manual controls expect focus are controlled and adjusted from within the camcorder’s navigational system, as opposed to external buttons. This makes manual adjustment kind of tedious and sometimes inconvenient.

The PV-GS200’s extra pixels, compared to the PV-GS120’s stash, allows the camcorder to take still JPEGs at 1760x1320. This is in no way comparable to a decent digital camera, and should not be the buying point, or selling point, of the machine.

However, the camcorder’s included microphone input, hot accessory shoe, pop flash, focus ring, and excellent low light performance should be. It also ships with a Magic Wire controller for remote adjustment of the camcorder’s zoom and recording capabilities.

With the talk of all these amenities you’re picturing the PV-GS200 as some huge hulking monster lurking in the pools of shadow behind your daughter’s closet door, waiting to hook its mossy teeth into the supple, tender, milky-white flesh between her shoulder and neck. Actually, the camcorder is just the right size. It’s hard to imagine that Panasonic got all this—focus ring, top loading tape mechanism, new bubbly, cushiony hand grip—into such a tight, concise frame, but they did. And, it’s worth checking out.

Panasonic PV-GS200 Compared to the...