Canon HF-M50 vs Panasonic HC-V700

Can't help you with the Panasonic but i just bought the Canon HF M50 and i have no regrets at all ! First i bought the HF R300 but the low light sensitivity was not good enough so took it back and got the SONY HDR-XR260V . Now big improvement on light sensitivity but had horrible Chromatic Aberration but it had a great 5.1 sound system with no wind noise except when pointed straight up . But being new some of the software was not availble for the camera online yet . Anyway took it back and got the Canon HF M50 and got to say i wish i had done that in the first place ! NO C.A. that i could detect in any movies i took and once i even pointed toward the sun that had thin clouds in front of it and NO C.A. was evident i could see ! The 10x zoom doesn't seem much but a teleconverter can be added to this camera for a price but for me the 10x was plenty all i needed right now ! Also does MP4 format for uploading to the web . I took about an hours worth of video today and all shows were great and the MP4s' were very impressive ! Also to the R300 had a battery life of max 35-mins . where as the M50 has about an hour and half time on it . Big improvement . The R300 really is a nice corder for the price but it doesn't have lens auto door closer but the M50 does and it's very convienant ! Overall the M50 really has a great price for the mid range camcorders without getting into the Pro camcorders that cost $$$$ !! Also the last thing i might add is the SONY took 8.9MP images and was very good but the Canon M50 takes 2.07MP (1920x1080) but they were better than the SONY images and NO C.A. ! Hope this helps some .

I'm also looking at these two camcorders. The low light performance of the M52 is a really big plus for me. However, I do not like what Camcorderinfo.com had to say about its OIS. I would also prefer a wider angle lens (M52=43mm vs. V700=28mm) along with 60fps. Also, despite having a larger sensor, I'm interested to see how the V700 performs in low light with its 15.3Mp's - still images have little interest to me in a camcorder. I did find this review on the V700, http://www.techradar.com/reviews/cam...articleContent, but don't expect anything like Camcorderinfo's depth and consistent methodologies for testing.

Hopefully someone will chime in with their experiences with the V700. Maybe 2012 isn't my year for a camcorder upgrade.

Hear is a short low-light test i did in my house . One light on in the kitchen and one in the living room .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqv8nP06uSw

Find this youtube video about HC-V700 Night performance. Pretty good in my opinion.http://youtu.be/uvz1MITGW1g?hd=1

I really like that moon video except for the CA around the moon edges as it passed upwards . Was the settings in manual or auto mode ? One of the reasons i took the Sony HDR-XR260V back cause the CA was terrible especially in the daytime . So far on my HF M50 i cannot detect any CA in any images including the one when i shot the moon . Only thing tho is the Canon doesn't zoom as close as the Sony did at 51x zoom . , But quality is so much better !

Wow, tough decision!

I'm feeling a little better about the V700's low light capabilities but will likely have to buy another battery. Not sure why it uses so much more power, more then twice that of the M52. I suppose the 60p would account for some of that.

As for the M52, still bothered by its 43mm view vs. 28mm on the V700 and the lack of 60p. Also, OIS capabilities were tough to determine from the videos above.

Daveon, check out the Wasabi batteries & charger for the Panasonic V700. They have a kit with 2 high capacity (3800ma) batteries and charger for less than the cost of the high capacity Panasonic battery. It must be 'chipped' because mine give me the 'fuel guage' and time remaining.

I bought the Panasonic because it had the features I was looking for and the price was less than the Canon. Canon's look really good on paper & would love to play with one someday. Maybe get the wife one? ;-)

You know even tho the M52 has good low light ability in Manual mode you can adjust the exposure even brighter in a dark room or area . I didn't take any video last night but i was running through the settings to see what all you can do and in Manual mode i really like the controls , one of them being WB which is really good .

Godfather927- It's really a win-win situation no matter which camcorder you buy. I went thru the same dilemma you did. What mattered most to me was a threaded lens so I could protect it with a UV filter, external mic input, and image stabilization. Also, as mentioned earlier the Panny will go 1080p 60fps. On the flip side the Canon probably does beat the Panny in low light & overall picture quality. My pocket is only so deep therefore the Panny won.

If you want more battery life get the Wasabi battery kit with 2 high capacity batteries & a charger. Mine has worked flawless.

And that is exactly what I did- extra batteries, UV & Polarization filter, sdhc cards, aluminum card holder, & case to put all those in. I knew I'd spend another $150 in accessories.

I use Canons M506 (M52,M56) and Panasonic HC-V700 at this point and it's a hard to choose which one is better. Both have excellent image quality in bright light but in low light Canon is much better. If you film most of the time outdoors than V700 is fine but if you're filming a lot indoors than choose Canons M56 or m506. Most of the time I film my kids and when it's a rainy day, Canon is the best choice.

Advantages of V700
- wide angle
- good image stabilization
- 46x zoom
- better screen visibility in sunlight than M506
- 1080 60p or 50p (altough I can't see much difference only when panning fast)
- I like the build and design of Panasonic

Cons:
- low light not so good as M506
- auto focus not as good as M506, especially telemacro


Canon advantages
- good low light performance
- good autofocus at telemacro
- better battery life
- Colors are warmer which I like more.

Cons:
- no wide angle, which really annoys me
- white balance sometimes slow but accurate.

Canon has 40x digital zoom which pretty good.


Update:

Did some more low light testing and found that when moving camera, image looks like a smudge of floating pixels. I also noticed something that looks like ghosting.
Edited by Garret14 - 7/31/12 at 8:00am

What camcorder would be the best of both worlds? I'm looking for something with great low light performance, wide angle, and good image stabilization. I found that most these camcorders perform well in bright light situations. Good battery life is also important, but I could always get extra batteries.