PANASONIC AG HMC41
The HMC41 (HMC40 in the US. Why?) is the camcorder in the advertisement I referred to in Rantings and Ravings "the only two cameras you will ever buy." Panasonic list it as a PRO camera on its web site, but it sits right at the bottom of the pro line and is best suited to keen amateur and semi-professional video makers.  I'd rate it as an ideal production tool for the web. Incidentally, the AG HMC40 won Videomaker magazine's 2009 Best Professional Camcorder of the Year award saying that"The great performance we encountered with the HMC40 is common when using a $US6,000 HD camcorder, but it isn't common when using a camcorder priced under $US2,000."

Samples of footage shot on the HMC41 shown on the web are impressive. In my view the images appear smoother (less jerky) than that from some of the current DSLRs, while the colour and sharpness is fine.

With a stills facility topping out at 10MP I'd expect that the still photo quality will be reasonable, with the caveat that it the HMC40 is still a camcorder. It is not likely to replace any of the still DSLRs right now. Yet for a lot of what I do I expect that it would be more than adequate.

For example, I have another web site — Vervacious Art — for which I cover Art Show openings and the like shooting stills of visitors and in situ images of the art. Some make it to the web and I'd suggest that none of the pictures I've put up in the last two years have exceeded 700 pixels in width. Well within the capability of the Panasonic. And as I'd like to develop a video option for the site I am looking at all of the possibilities right now.

 

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