Panasonic - SDR-H40 Camcorder Review

Purchased the Panasonic SDR-H40 about a month ago. Have been pretty pleased with it so far. Filming indoors is pretty grainy as I would suspect most cameras in this price range will be. Turning all lights on and up when filming indoors helps with video quality. Sound is OK, but good for basic use.

I'm running it on a MSFT XP system and the software that comes with it - to pull the video files off the camera in a viewable format is clunky at best. While the user guide says to only use their software, I'd highly recommend upgrading to a more sophisticated or 3rd party video editing software vs. using the standard tool that comes with it. I'm running Adobe Premiere Elements now and it is a much better user experience -- from transferring files to editing the video.

On the positive side, the Zoom with optical image stabilizer are very impressive features.  I do a lot of outdoorsy filming and the ability to zoom across a canyon or snow field is great. The menu, interface, design, features/functionality are great -- easy to use yet flexible enough to meet most average users filming needs.

The product is also a good size and weight to carry around.

If you are looking for a basic HDD camera, I'd give this one serious consideration.