Hello everybody

I've just bought the panasonic NV GS400 at www.ldlc.be for 1593€.

I would like to share my findings and experiences with it and compare it against a Sony DCR-PC1E for footage and against a Nikon Coolpix 4300 for still pictures.

Everything cannot be posted in one message, so I'll post quite some comments...

So what do you get for your money ? In the box there is :
- the camera
- a AC power adaptor and battery charger
- a 1360 mAh battery
- a lens cap
- multilanguage manuals (use of the camera and picture retrieval)
- a USB drivers CD
- a CD with MotionDV Studio LE (panasonic's solution for capturing, editing and authoring)
- a remote control and its battery
- a USB wire to connect to a PC
- a belt for holding the camera
- an external microfone with a 1 meter wire and with control buttons
Unfortunately there is no SD card (I found the SD slot empty), and the manual only explains the purpose of the various buttons and menu options. It doesn'e explain for example the white balance, how and when to use it. I suppose that is beyond the scope of a manual.

The fabric is good, it looks robust (Lens and CCD core made of cast aluminium, the rest is made of silver plastic), the buttons are well placed and their feedback feels comfortable. The LCD screen is large in size (3,5 inch) and gives an accurate and faithfull image of what is being filmed. The viewfinder is color and sharp, but a little difficult to slide back in place (suppose because it is new).

I couldn't wait and did some shooting : the difference in moving picture quality is stunning in comparison to the DCR-PC1E : lots of detail, sharp picture, and natural color rendering. Not so surprisingly it's a 3CCD, and the effective resolution is 3x690.000 pixels.
In low light conditions it does an excellent job : almost no noise and sharp pictures. One can switch-on to a "color night shot" mode which electronically enhances the sensitivity but gives trails (same mode as on the Sony). You can also select the "0 lux mode" where the LCD screen needs to be turned forward to the subject and lights bright white, but only at 1 meter no more. Nothing goes above a light torch...
Let's continue with the light : built in flash is good : guide number 6 meters and wide spread.

There are 3 different 16/9 modes available :
- Pro-Cinema : squeezes the picture horizontally to match a 4:3 screen
- Pro-Cinema Frame : same as above but in 25 ips progressive
- Cinema : resizes and adds two horizontal black bars
I like the pro-cinema mode since it gives excellent result on a 16/9 screen and the details remain sharp.
The Frame mode (aka progressive scan) exagerates the film like impression, I think it makes the footage to jerky (when panning the image jumps from one frame to the other).
The cinema mode (with the black bars) gives the same result on a 16/9 screen but you have black bar on the camcorder LCD screen.

I'll continue later with sample footage and still pictures for comparison.

Best regards

jacobus serpenti