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PANASONIC'S TINY AVCCAM UNIT IS A SMALL WONDER.
I never thought I could fall so deeply in love with a $2,000 camcorder. The HMC40 weighs a little over 2 Ib. yet packs a wallop in that small package. It is based around a 3-CMOS (which Panasonic calls 3MOS) 1A" imaging block recording AVCCAM, Panasonic's implementation of Long GOP AVC H.264 MPEG-4 encoding. The CMOS imager allows this camera to capture a full-raster 1920x1080 image. (When shooting in still mode, it boasts a 10.6megapixel image resolution.)
Ever since the breakthrough DVX100 series, Panasonic has relied on Leica optics, and this camera is no exception, using a 1 2x Leica lens with optical image stabilization (which can be toggled on or off). A pop-out screen doubles as a touch screen for selecting menu options.
The HMC40 records 1080 6Oi, 1080 30p, 1080 24p (native), 720 6Op, 720 30p and 720 24p (native) to Class 4 or greater SDHC cards. The Panasonic AVCCAM standard allows for recording at up to 21Mb/s and as low as 6Mb/s.
Don't be fooled by the small package and low price. This is a full-featured camcorder which, within the confines of its imager size, can have numerous professional applications. First of all, with its similar electronics and identical codecs, it matches very well with Panasonic's AG-HMC 150 camcorder. The HMC40 has provisions for up to two picture profile settings, and these can be interchanged with...