[Ryvboy]

I'm about to buy a camcorder and i'm in the prize area of these two cameras..


what do you suggest? (or others opcions?)


thanks

Phil

 

[Paulo Teixeira]

Here are some differences:


The TM700 has wider lens.

It's cheaper.

Better stabilizer.

More sensitive to light.

Shooting in 1080 60p will give you the best HD quality.

Ability to do excellent 1080p slow motion secquences

A viewfinder which can be very important in some shooting situations.

A traditional focusing ring like in many professional cameras.


In Canon's favor, theirs 2 memory card slots verses only 1 on the TM700.

Higher bit rate 1080 60i mode (Still not as good as 1080 60p from the TM700) I couldn't resist!

Native 24p mode. With the Panasonic you have to use something like NeoScene to fix it. Basically an extra step before you get to edit the footage.

Doesn't have the slight fan noise that you hear in very quite environments.


Reading my posts you'll see that if it was me choosing, it would be the TM700 without question but not everybody has the same priorities.

 

[Ryvboy]

i read this

Quote:
Hello, many user asking which one to choice canon s20 s21 panasonic tm700 I was also asking before myself . Both of this cameras has some + and - none is perfect ,I was before Panasonic fan when DV was standard but once it come HDV I start to prefer Canon natural color and since HV10 HV20 HV30 , canon also has larger video sensor better low light more cinema DOF look, i am fan of nature and for me Canon gives best result even if Panasonic videos on first look has more sharpness i think this is done by some trick over sharpening like pixel shifting etc. Canon video is like in cinema not over sharpen more natural polished no aliasing pixels have smooth edge (please note i am only talking about 1080P raw mode on booth camera i am not interested for 1080i and all straight from camera without editing , maybe after editing you can get different result ) , on Panasonic you have better wide view angle and recording during day time with lots of light is very clean with no noise , video on Panasonic looks more pop up strong colour and if you prefer like more home video vivid pop up colour and recording in day time with lots of light Panasonic is good choice . Low light: Canon can do much better here because of larger cmos sensor , Panasonic low light recording: only if you know how to record in manual mode and put to 1080p mode and shtr. speed to 25 and to not go in IRIS more than 12db. Otherwise is really bad to much noise .(Panasonic why didn't you put option in setup to allow limit gain ? what a shame!).

Canon has unmatchable better instant focus which is perfect, it is so fast like human vision always perfect in focus, Panasonic focus can do sometime hunting is slow to focus but is not so bad , I whish if Panasonic use same focus tech. as find on Canon . Canon has better high resolution LCD display i don't like touch screen control is not bad to have but still prefer to have also more buttons on cam . Panasonic has Manual ring focus is really good to have, manual button mode on Panasonic cam is very bad placed if you rotating lcd it will obstruct that button and manual focus ring , Panasonic has better 12x optical zoom canon only 10 zoom. Panasonic rendering sky colour is very bad unreal like hue gone crazy, not real natural blue colour like find on Canon (please note some user watching videos on computer with ATI video cards will not notice much of this sky colour problem I find that ATI vide cards have built in chip and video AVIVO driver auto video corrections in fly which will correct this sky colour problem so buyer will not notice this but on NVIDIA and other video cards which does not this will notice very much ,also some Panasonic viera tv-s have similar colour correction option built in TV called 'Colour management'' if this is switched on you will not notice this problem much ), Video mode choice on Panasonic is very poor why not put more video modes preset for all tastes , some users prefer to have more vivid some more warm some more natural some more cool, so Panasonic why not give us option to choice is very easy today to built this in cam setup menu , on Canon you have 5mode natural vivid cool warm soft manual and most important to have in video menu 'Contrast control'' picture contrast on Panasonic is very high , if is possible to setup in like on Canon would be really good to correct this . Built in video editing feature for clips is poor (also on Canon), even today cheap mobile phones have all more options for edit videos and included more video modes and manual controls . Today video cameras with solid state memory technology should be easy for manufactures to built in much better editing tools in camera for editing video clip to cut, paste, divide, merge, del. clips, add video music effect etc.. I like to have done job from camera not to waist all day time on computer editing small things

If you want to shot in 1080i mode on Panasonic is rubbish it is only 17mbit very bad compression it should be at least 24mbit like all today's canon and Sony etc.. 17mbit is very bad even Canon and Sony 1080i 24bit looks like 1080p compared to Panasonic 1080i 17mbit, I am only interested in highest quality like all users , today sdhc cards are fast and cheap 6 class sdhc card can accept easily 60mbit write speed so why not more writing speed mbits . I wish Panasonic give us 1080 25P mode with 28mbit and 1080i at least 25mbit ( 30p if you are NTSC land) I prefer more 25P natural movement than home video smooth look 50p (60p in NTSC) but is really good to have 50p and should be included as standard on all cams (Canon and Sony listen to this) .

If only Panasonic has built in some of features noted before and has built in larger video sensor 3x1/2.7 or 3x 1/3 inch than would be totally different story in overall picture quality ,for now I am returning to Canon

Best regards

 

[Paulo Teixeira]

Their are some inaccuracies in what he/she is saying. The TM700 has 3 native 1/4" chips, Theirs no pixel sifting like in the Panasonic SD9 and the sharpness of the TM700 is real. Besides, since the SD9 is CCD based even just counting the pixels is not fare because you don't have some of the issues that MOS/CMOS cameras have but anyway, we're not talking about the SD9. Also that person requests Panasonic to release a version with 3 bigger chips. Having 3 1/4" chips inside a body this tiny is already very big. The Canon only has 1 chip. That's the same reason why you can't claim that the Canon HF S20 has better low light capabilities because of the bigger chip. The Canon XF300 has 3 1/3" chips so in his/her theory, the low light capabilities should be slightly worse than the Canon HF S20.


When it comes to focusing, both Canon and Panasonic are known to have the best.


I think I read that on Vimeo and theirs a good reason I never bothered to respond. If you want to be all technical, than at least be accurate in what your saying.

 

[Ryvboy]

thanks so much...


this is a work similar at the one i've to do...

do you confirm the panasonic?

 

[alainhubert]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryvboy /forum/post/19525161


thanks so much...


this is a work similar at the one i've to do...

do you confirm the panasonic?

For me, I would say YES but with some considerations:


If you will want to do any kind of photographic diaporama, like shown in this video, be aware that the TM700 is pretty limited in the resolution of the still photos. Yes it has got a 14Mpixel mode, but it's fake and of poor quality. But if those photos will be only used in the context of a video, then there's no problems since the native resolution of video sensors is the same as for photos, 1920X1080 (2.1Mpixels).


Even better, you could even create still photos from video freeze frame in camera, for later use in editing without having to switch from camcorder mode to photo mode while shooting.(except if you would need the flash in some situations)


So, from this video example there was nothing in there that the TM700 could not do as well as that. My opinion on it...

 

[Paulo Teixeira]

I guess your looking for something that's suitable for corporate or documentary work. I'd say their both perfectly capable but hopefully you have or are getting a wireless lav or at the very least a shotgun mic for this type of work since you do get a slight fan sound on the TM700 when theirs not much other noises around besides the voice although I'm sure it wont be an issue most of the time a shotgun mic or definitely a lav would be beneficial for the Canon as well!. As far as the HF S20 is concerned, not having a viewfinder can be problematic unless you know you'll only be shooting in auto or you'll invest in a hood for the lcd screen. I would rather pick the HF S21 than the HFS20 because of the viewfinder although it'll costs a bit more. A viewfinder can definitely be important for this type of work.


Every time I talk about the TM700 you'll never hear me praise the still capability since the way Panasonic designed that camcorder was entirely on video quality. Saying that it has s high MP count is marketing speak as far as I'm concerned. Still, I bet the photos for HD videos will look the best out of the TM700. If only a company would go ahead and make a tipple large chip DSLR or video camera, The picture quality would be incredible but also the price unfortunately.

 

[Ryvboy]

the photos will be shotted with a D300, no problem..


i care only about the camcorder for that type of video-situations..


so seems to be the panasonic a step forward?