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The Panasonic AG-HMC70U is a shoulder-mounted high definition camcorder which utilizes SD/SDHC cards. The camera provides operators with all the advantages of tapeless recording without the high price tag. The camera is equipped with a professional feature set that includes 3 CCDs and XLR mic inputs. The camera is ideal for weddings, educational applications, high quality home capture, and small production.
| Signal System | AVCHD 1080/60i (NTSC) |
| Image Device | 1/4" 3CCD |
| Lens |
f/1.8-2.8 12x Optical Zoom |
| Signal-to-Noise Ratio | 54dB |
| Horizontal Resolution | 1080 Lines |
| Sensitivity | 1400 lux |
| Minimum Illumination |
Normal Mode: 6 lux Low Light Mode: 1/60 |
| Built-in Filters | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| LCD Monitor | 3", LCD Color Monitor, 251,000 Effective Pixels |
| Viewfinder | 0.44" LCD Color Wide Viewfinder, 183,000 pixels |
| Scan Matching | Yes |
| Memory Card Slot | SD/SDHC |
| Shutter Speed Range | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| Gain Selection | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| VTR | |
|---|---|
| Tape Format | Not Applicable |
| Tape Speed | Not Applicable |
| Signal-to-Noise Ratio | Not Applicable |
| Maximum Recording Time | 360 min on 16GB SDHC Card |
| Audio | |
|---|---|
| Audio Dynamic Range | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| Audio Signal Format | MPEG-4/AVC Compression |
| Audio Frequency Response | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| Signal to Noise Ratio | Not Specified By Manufacturer |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Input and Output Connectors |
Composite: BNC (x1 Output) Component: BNCx3 (x1 Output) HDMI: HDMI (x1 Output) Audio: RCA (x1 Input, x1 Output) XLR: XLR 3-Pin (x2 Input) USB: USB 2.0 Type B |
| Power Requirements |
AC Adapter: 7.2VDC Battery: 7.3VDC |
| Power Consumption | 8.5W |
| Operating Temperature | 32-104°F (0-40°C) |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 9.2 x 9.2 x 17.1" (23.3 x 23.3 x 43.4cm) |
| Weight | 5.3 lbs (2.8kg) |
REVIEW SNAPSHOT®
by PowerReviewsPros
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Most Liked Positive Review
Great video Crazy Audio Hard to edit
The video is amazing. Play it back on an HDTV through the HDMI Cable and it noticably beats my Sony HVR-A1U. The footage looks different kind of like cotton candy but its crystal clear....Read complete review
The video is amazing. Play it back on an HDTV through the HDMI Cable and it noticably beats my Sony HVR-A1U. The footage looks different kind of like cotton candy but its crystal clear. Better low light performance than my A1U as well. People talk about having no focus ring. Not an issue with me. It focuses so good you dont need it. Auto is the way to go. I still give this camera a five because nothing beats it in its class but I see three main issues. First is there is no jack for a wireless zoom. Panasonic tries to get you to buy the hmc-150 by ommiting it for sure. Audio is funny. You cant balance it. XLR 1 records to the left channel XLR 2 records to the right and you cant mix them on camera like the Sony A1U. It can be fixed in post production well enough though. Just send the signal back out to both channels. Works fine in Studio 12 with the Channel Audio tool. The SDHC cards are awesome. 16gb 6 class cards going for less than $30. Almost four hours of recording time. They are so cheap that you can just keep buying them and store the footage like you did with the old tapes if you want. No need to stick a new tape in every hour. Thats priceless if you are doing a wedding thats 1:15 minutes straight. It's super easy to upload the footage. You'll never want to go back to tape again. I pop the sdhc card into my printer and upload it right into Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate in 1/4 the time it would take to upload tape. Unlike tape you can quickly look at the scene without all the rewinding and loosing your place. Thats a huge plus in the field. Never want to go back to tape again but there is a huge trade off. You had better have a beast of a PC if you want to edit this avchd. I build my own pc's. I have one with a 940 AMD an Asus mother board that will hybrid crossfire a 9800 gt 512mb Nividia graphics card and 8 gig of ddr2 800 ram with a soundblaster xtreme sound card. It struggles with this stuff. The same system crunches HDV like there is no tommorrow with graphics flying all around the screen. I can mix the footage from this and my A1U though. Didnt know if you could mix AVCHD and HDV but it works fine in Pinnacle. I looked at the Sony HVR-1000U but chose this instead. Sure a beachtech would have added xlr inputs but going tapeless is priceless. Sony does have the remote zoom control jack though but, by the time you buy a beachtech it's the same price as this camera. I use the camera to shoot local low budget business ads in dentist offices and car dealerships thats mostly for online use, some low budget tv commercials and a local small station tv show. It would work pretty good for weddings as well and projects that need to be turned around fast as long as you dont get fancy with graphics. It's big. Shoulder mount design makes you look professional. You easily put out professional looking video as well in simple auto mode. I was completely sold on Sony before but, this camera won me over. If youre looking at the HVR-100U check this camera out.
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Most Liked Negative Review
OK Camera, Decent for Price
For the price, this camera performs quite well. As long as you have good lighting, the images are very good, high quality. This camera has many external connections. Two XLR with 48v,...Read complete review
For the price, this camera performs quite well. As long as you have good lighting, the images are very good, high quality. This camera has many external connections. Two XLR with 48v, external mic mini jack, HDMI, USB, and more. Also, recording to SDHC cards makes the post production flow incredibly fast and efficient. That's my favorite part.
I don't like how the manual adjustments are all electronic. Meaning no ring for focus, zoom, iris. This makes it difficult to change these settings during a shot. With practice it can be done, but would be much easier with a manual ring. The LCD screen could be bigger too.
This camera doesn't allow for the best of manual adjustments, and you need a lot of light, but for the price, it's not too bad.
Reviewed by 41 customers
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I use the camera to impress the ladies ;).
Nothing says "$exy" like a shoulder-mount video camera.
Pros
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I received this camera and straight away it went out on assignment, I found that it a balanced and easy to use, on the shoulder and on a mono stick.
The eye piece adjustment worked well as the camera was used by different operators, for low and ground shoots the LCD screen worked well. The drawback that other operators spoke of is the on board mic, but I have no use for this so I did not consider this when I made the purchase.
This a no hassle easy to use camera, good in the field and in the studio.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I use the unit for weddings and its really great once you use the right accessories that unit requires for best performance. Great Unit.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I am just starting out in videography, and I can't believe this camera's quality. It has percise colours, very sharp. However very very poor in low light, but that just reminds me that I have to bring my lights along with me.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
My workplace bought this camera to use for events and such.
It's a decent camera for the price. XLR inputs, Optical audio inputs and the like.
But the pre-amps on this camera are horrible. There is that low-level -30db hiss that is always there.
It's a great camera to record video with and it does a great job of that, but for audio, I stick to the Zoom H4n as a required attachment.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I am a few years into my video career, this AG=HMC70U is my 4th upgrade but my first HD camera. It will need more time to fully review this product [...] Everything seems to work. The camera is fairly easy to use. I purchased an external light attachment which really makes my shooting at night work well. I'm impressed with this product.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
This camera was everything I hoped it would be. With that beings said I will give you a quick overview of what I have noticed about it.
1. For the price you are not going to get anything better. I chose this one over the next in line AG-HMC40 because it is a shoulder mount model
2. Everything is done internally on the camera. That mean focus, iris, white balance ... I mean everything. Some of my buddies say that would drive them nuts but I feel its just something you have to get used to. Yes, I would have liked to see a focus ring in the from but I wasn't going to pay another at least 1200 for that feature.
3. I haven't found a way to shut off the color in the EVF. Not the end of the world but it would be nicer if I could. Black and White offers a persecutive on contrast.
4. Like other reviews of this camera say the on board mic doesn't quite do it in all situations. I bought this camera because it had to XLR ports on it. I do not intend on shooting on the onboard mic if I don't have to. When I used a great shotgun mic the audio cam out crystal clear.
5. I usually shoot everything with the cameras manual controls (focus, Iris, WB, ETC.) I was pleasantly surprised when I flipped everything onto full auto that the results were way better than I could have imagined.
6. The SDHC cards are great, no more firewire for this guy. I just pop the card out drop it in the side of my macbook pro and go to capture. If your on a PC they make a USB card reader. It is some much easier to transfer files rather than to log time code and real time capture off of tape
I hope this was useful. There are better cameras out there but for the price and quality you can achieve with this one, it seems to fit the bill
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
TV Commercials, Weddings, Events, Web Videos, Sports videos, etc.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
We are a video production company and we use this camera every day. We shoot TV commercials, city meetings, live sports, and in-studio TV shows with this camera. It has worked well every single time and we are purchasing two more this month.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I use the camcorder to shoot military honors funerals. Colors are outstanding, because it is light weight I can move quickly and stay out of the way. I bought the kit that had the larger battery and the phantom powered mic. Great kit would recommend this setup to anyone looking to get into the video business. Next purchase will be the wireless mic. setup to get even more up close and personal. I also like the stabilization factor mainly because I have muscular dystrophy which causes me to tremor a lot.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
Excellent camera in its price range. Gets rid of the bells & whistles that you probably don't need in the first place so the price is lower, but leaves the good stuff - great image quality, decent sound. Great camera for those who do most of the fancy work in the editing, and don't need a ton of extraneous functions. Just a solid workhorse.
Only complaint would be low light situations - but that's nothing an external light (or, heck, a gooseneck desk lamp) won't fix. For the price, unbeatable.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
If you're in the business of shooting Weddings or Sports footage. This is the best camera you can get for the price.
One thing that I do not like about this camera. The Rack Focus techinque is something I like to use a lot, it is very difficult to do with this camera. The image is beautiful and with the proper external mic the sound quality is good as well.
Pros
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
For the price, this camera performs quite well. As long as you have good lighting, the images are very good, high quality. This camera has many external connections. Two XLR with 48v, external mic mini jack, HDMI, USB, and more. Also, recording to SDHC cards makes the post production flow incredibly fast and efficient. That's my favorite part.
I don't like how the manual adjustments are all electronic. Meaning no ring for focus, zoom, iris. This makes it difficult to change these settings during a shot. With practice it can be done, but would be much easier with a manual ring. The LCD screen could be bigger too.
This camera doesn't allow for the best of manual adjustments, and you need a lot of light, but for the price, it's not too bad.
Pros
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I bought this Camcorder to upgrade to a profecinal
level clips. It beem great for recording chuch
services. the battery that comes with the camera is good for shooting home made movies. Personally I like to use the AC adaptor to plug into a outlet
when I make a movie of a church service. The LXR input is great for breing the audio from the soundbaord for profecial sound. Someday I might just get me another one.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
Great product the best money I every spent and very affordable, I will never go back to tape again.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I am photographer for the Flagship Niagara - a two masted 1813 warship. I do both training films and action videos of sailing on Lake Erie. Tripods are of no use, so shoulder mount is the way to go. As is HD and tapeless recording.
Only problem is the supplied software downloads at 1440, NOT full HD at 1920 lines. Adobe converts at full 1920.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
It is a nice camera and it has good image quality although the colors are not that perfect. It looks really PRO so it's good for client rates! ...I love the postproduction an the image quality with good light is amazing. It goes perfect with my Letus Mini Bundle.
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
A excellent camera with good picture quality.Good for event video. i love my camera
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
This camera is great. I've used it for filming high definition nature shots, concerts, instructional type videos etc. The camera is very light and you cannot beat the tapeless feature. The only thing that I have found is that it records in .mts format which is unrecognizable by mac and final cut. This is easily fixed with a conversion program. I use iOrgsoft's converter. The other thing is that there is no focus ring which you get used to easily, but from the light weight to the tapeless recording to the professional audio inputs. You cannot beat this camera for the price. Just get a new and bigger battery.
Pros
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Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC70U Shoulder Mounted Camcorder:
I shoot primarily real estate videos but have been branching out into small businesses on the internet. I knew that we needed to upgrade our camera for better audio and this has done the job. The first time we pulled it out of the bag at a fancy restaurant in Maui the comments were "Wow you guys have really upgraded and really mean business!" Even though I can't see any difference in video quality from our small Sony, the customer definitely views us as more professional. We have upgraded with wireless lavalieres and a new shotgun. My only big complaint is the quality of the picture through the onboard screen and the eyepiece. I almost sent the camera back before I looked at the output for the first time. Once I saw the output, heard the input from my clients and worked with real audio---I was sold. Highly recommend, especially for the first time "pro" camera.
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