Product Details

Panasonic Pro AG-HVX200A Reviews

HVX200A is a great camera. Consider the cost.
by Natural68 from California, USA, 2010-02-18

I am now a proud owner of the Panasonic HVX200A. This camera has treated me very well since I've received it, although, there are some really important things to consider when making this purchase. This camera comes with many great features and great picture quality with a quick and easy workflow. The camera is somewhat heavy compared to others in it's size class, but it's the best quality for the price in my opinion. (next to the Sony EX1, which I have not put my hands on yet)

One thing I didn't consider when purchasing this camera was the cost of getting it up and running. This camera comes with a great (big) price, too. P2 cards have come down in cost since the E-Series card came out, but thinking a little further into it is a must. In order to be in a run-and-gun situation there are a few more items needed. You'll need a place to store all your footage, and with the P2 card they haven't made it easy. There are 2 products that I would trust, although, Panasonic's P2 Store is the lesser of the two. Nexto DI has a product that I purchased to go with my camera so I can shoot events and not have to worry about running out of space or time. $2000 Nexto=500GB, $1500 P2 Store=60GB. You decide which is better.

With my Nexto DI storage I wish I had purchased the 32GB P2 card to go with my 16GB card because of how fast it unloads. My ave. with a full 16GB card was 5 mins.

Really consider the cost when considering this camera. It might save you some time and money.

I would recommend this camera to a friend.

Tops for the prosumer
by Alan Smithee from Santa Fe, NM USA, 2009-05-05

We used this camera to shoot our short film and it proved to be awesome. The P2 cards were a little tricky to work with, but certainly less difficult and more portable than film; without the added expense of telecine.

For the cost, we could not have gotten this level of quality otherwise. I believe its got the depth of 16mm, plus it shoots in 24p. When we saw our final projection, we were just amazed.

Great cam for the money.

Coming from DVX100...
by yogagirl from chicago, 2009-02-21

This camera uses P2 cards or you can plug in a Firestore (you have to drop another 2K for that). I am using it with a Firestore in a chassis rig ($350) underneath the camera. This is a better setup for tripod work, but less than ideal for shoulder shooting. Its bulky and slightly delicate because you have the Firestore plug right next to the headphone jack, right in the same area as the record button. This could cause a serious problem if you accidently jar the plug while reaching for the record button.

The whole process of setting up a Firestore with the camera's menu system, and navigating the Firestore menu to record and organize footage is a little more involved than just using mini-dv tape, but the convenience of recording to a hard drive is wonderful. It takes far less time to get the footage into the system. Of course, this is compressed, but still very good quality HD footage. I couldn't fathom going back to SD minidv.

One last thing: I hope they make a higher resolution screen/viewfinder. I have noticed that it is sometimes hard to get things in focus because you just cannot see the fine detail needed. This is another drawback and a serious consideration. For the price, however, this is great for many types of shooting.

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