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In this comprehensive Panasonic hmc40 review you will learn why this camera is hands down the best camcorder on the market for video companies, lawyers and small business owners alike. Continue reading to learn why the Panasonic hmc40 professional camcorder is a fantastic camera to grow your business. The combination of a great camcorder design, the features, shooting options, manual controls, the warranty and the price make it one of the best investments we have ever made in our video production business. If your already considering purchasing camcorder for your business and you want to trust my 300+ hours of using this camcorder, then skip the rest of the Panasonic hmc40 review and go right to Amazon, and purchase the AG-HMC40 now. However if you want all the wonderful details, read the full Panasonic hmc40 review below and learn why this camcorder is one of the best on the market.
The hmc40 Design
The first feature that we noticed that we really enjoyed about this camcorder is the design. Because the camera is based on solid state media, shooting and capturing the film in AVCHD, the camcorder has no moving parts. With no moving parts the camcorder is much less likely to break down from a broken gear or a worn out rubber seal, or a bad tape deck, which all have been seen by tape based camcorders in the past. The camcorder is also just 6 pounds, much lighter than other professional camcorders and other digital SLR’s that people use for video these days. The camcorder also conveniently comes with an attachable handle to hold the camcorder from above, which if handled correctly, can stabilize shots much more effectively than by holding the base.
The hmc40 Features
Some of the features that we particularly enjoy about this camcorder are the fact that it records to solid state media. When AVCHD was first introduced as a new standard for video recording by Panasonic and Sony several years ago, people were hesitant about the standard because of the time it took to un-compress your video footage to get it loaded into your editor. With the speed and efficiency of professional codecs such as Apples ProRES codec, and the speed of multi-core processors found in most modern computers, this is no longer a concern. In a miniDV tape based camcorder system, the only way to load your footage into the camcorder is through strait playback of the footage, which means if you want to capture a 30 second clip, you had to playback the camcorder for 30 seconds. Likewise with HDV footage, everything has to be captured. If you have 3 camcorders set in place to capture an hour long wedding of footage, that means you have to capture 3 hours of footage, and that’s just part of the day. Using the new Final Cut Pro X editor and my mac book pro from 3 years ago, I was able to capture and transcode a 33 second video clip in less than 3 seconds. This kind of speed and editing makes it possible to drastically increase the speed of your workflow, getting jobs done faster, and impress your clients that much more.
hmc40 Camcorder Shooting Modes
The AG-HMC40 has 8 different shooting modes, which vary the bit rate, frame rate and resolution of the picture that your capture. The highest end format is PH (Professional High-Quality) mode which captures data at approximately 24Mbps. HA Mode, capturing at 17Mbps, HG Mode capturing at 13Mbps, and HE Mode, capturing at 6Mbps. in the PH Modes, your options are 1080/30p, 720/30p, 720/24p. The first number in this convention is the number of horizontal lines of resolution, 1080 (with the full resolution of the TV being 1920 x 1080). This is the highest resolution available for all mainstream HDTV sets sold today. The second number is the frames per second or fps that the camera shoots at, followed finally by a letter of either a p or an i. The p stands for progressive mode, and the i stands for interlaced mode. Progressive mode shooting means that all of the lines of resolution are captured in one shot, while in interlaced mode, only 1/2 of the lines of resolution are shot, in an every other fashion. For example in interlaced mode, the first frame captured by the camera would capture lines 1,3,5,7…., and the second frame would capture lines 2,4,6,8… The result of this shooting style is “interlaced” frames, which need to be DE-interlaced with software later. After a camcorder shot is DE-interlaced, the resulting frame rate is 1/2 of what the original frame rate was. For example, DE-interlacing footage that is shot in 1080/60i (one of the camcorder frame rates) will DE-interlace to 1080/30p. This is the difference between a professional camcorder such as the Panasonic AG-HMC40 and other consumer grade camcorders. Consumer camcorders will have the marketing hype stating that they capture in 1080 resolution, but a lot of times it’s 1080/30i, which DE-interlaces to 1080/15p, which in some circumstances will look acceptable, for slow scenes such as piano concerts, but any kind of action scene with a lot of movement, such as the dance floor of a wedding reception, the details are clearly obvious. This is why if you want to have a professional look for your business, or if you want to make a living in the film industry, you have to have a professional camcorder.
Manual Controls
Another thing we really like is the manual focus wheel / zoom wheel. On the front of the camcorder, there is a large wheel that rotates around the entire lens, which can be used to create extremely slow zoom shots that give your shots a real professional feel. Other manual controls include a manual iris control, so you can very quickly adjust the lighting of your shot as conditions change. Single touch white balance controls, several programmable buttons for all your favorite features, all conveniently located on the LCD side of the camcorder. Another great feature that we have used is adjusting the shutter speed for better low light, and high exposure settings. By turning up or down the shutter speed, we can drastically change the look of the shot, as lighting conditions change throughout the day. The shutter speed is set automatically in the full auto setting of the camcorder, or changed through the LCD screen settings in manual mode.
Warranty
Panasonic believes in their products, and the features that they put into this camera, such as the solid state body design, recording to solid state media, multiple professional bit rates and shooting modes, manual controls and easy to use, lightweight body design, which is why if you register with Panasonic after purchasing the camcorder, you get a full 3 year warranty that comes standard with this camcorder. Very rarely will you find a camcorder with this level of support and warranty from any camcorder manufacturer. This is another reason why we chose the HMC40 for our shooting solutions.
Panasonic hmc40 price
The retail price of this camcorder is $2299, but after shopping around, we’ve found that 99% of the time, Amazon has the best prices for all high end professional camcorder prices. Currently on Amazon, the AG-HMC40 is selling for about $1700 (as of late 2011). We buy all of our hardware on Amazon.com and I think that everyone else should too. Amazon almost always has the least expensive prices, and you get a great value for the product your interested in, no matter what the product is. If your ready to harness the power of YouTube and vimeo and other video based social networks to create a powerful professional exposure for your business on the Internet than invest in the HMC40, you won’t be disappointed. Once you take advantage of the professional design and features of the HMC40, and you see how easy it is of a camera to edit with, you will see the value that this hardware brings to your business immediately. Using this camera and writing this Panasonic hmc40 review has been a pleasure, and I know you won’t regret the decision to invest in online video for your business.
