Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I use it for weddings and spot events... Great price and great quality... I love it...

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I use the HMC150 for everything. Commercials, events, interviews, vacation footage, etc. and it excels in all situations. Rave reviews on this quick clip I shot of my neighbor regarding colors, picture quality and DOF. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV1ehGsxYsA

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

The video quality is great, everything you should expect from a data cam are in this camcorder. The nd filter really are a big help during outdoor under California sun-light. The play system aren't as great but it works pretty fast with sd memory.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

GREAT CAMERA FOR HD

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

For 3 Years this Video Camera has been in our family. It has shot anything from high profile press conferences to high school football games. When a camera especially a video camera is on the market for a 1-3 years you expect it to get outdated. But if a 3 year old model is still running strong against a new model, you know you have something incredible. All the parts in this camera are top of the line. This camera has served me and my family well. I definitely recommend getting this camera.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

We use this camera to take videos of different processes in the manufacturing facility to be used as training. It't not the most intuitive to learn but it is great quality.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I've used this camera for years at school and when I graduated I needed to buy my own. I love this camera

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I use it mostly for small webbase promotional videos. Shooting to an SD card is great and a cheaper option than HDDs. Also if I contract out for a job the producer can just supply the cards and I don't have to worry about ingesting and losing a hard drive. The biggest drawback is that it sometimes feels like you're using a toy due to the light weight and the zoom and focus rings don't seem to be connected to anything when you turn them.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

If you know how to operate the AG-HMC80, this camera will present you with about a 30 minute learing curve. Its a smaller camera, so if you're going hand held you will need a stabilizing rig. After becoming accustomed to the soundless zoom of the HMC80, the noisy servo motor zoom on this camera was a surprise. You will not be using the servo zoom with a mic attached to this camera. It's something we had not intended so it's not a problem. The work around is to disengage the servo and use the zoom ring. It has a little knob on it, making it easy to do.

The buttons missing from the HMC80 are all here. There is almost no need for the user buttons. The lens is wider, so the add on wide angle for the HMC-80 is not needed. No mini mic input, not a problem for me, and the noisy servo and small form factor means we will have this on a tripod with remote XLR mics, so it will not be missed.

This is a CCD camera, not a CMOS. Global shutter vs Rolling shutter. A good thing for sports which is our major priority. It's a great package. I got it with the IDX battery kit package. Had I known about these batteries sooner, I would not have any OEM batteries.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

Bought this camera to replace an HDR-FX1 and flash recording unit I used to tape lectures. The AG-HMC150 was a significant step up in picture quality and camera features. The SD cards are great to work with and I can fit over 3 hours on each 32gb card. The lens on the camera is a big improvement over the fx1 too. I've been getting great images with the HMC150 and it seems to be extremely reliable.

On the downside, the panasonic feels much cheaper than the sony, the lcd resolution is very poor, and the xlr preamps aren't as clean as the 1/8" input on the sony. Even the body style of the HMC150, which came out in 2008 is hideous looking compared to the FX1 that was released in 2004. To be fair, the HMC150 has tons more features and I paid about 1k less for it.

I'm giving it 4 stars because of the picture quality, lens quality, and countless other features. The reason I didn't give it 5 is because of the build quality, lcd screen resolution, and mic preamps.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

To be a part of film-making business was my dream. In my 30s I had a lot of different experience in USA and back in Europe, where I am originally from. Now I finally find the money and time to get my degree in Mass Comm. To be a good at something it's not enough just practice in class, but live with it every day. For the long time I was looking for good HD camcorder. (good for me is a lot of manual settings options, great price and amazing pic quality) and all this I find out in AG-HMC150. I can't be more happy about it. It is satisfy all my filmography needs, gave wide range of possibilities and stunning output of video. Ability to be tapeless biggest plus.
Every day I fall in love with this camera again and again, specially with B&H price you can't go wrong!

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I've used these types of cameras for years and this one is pretty solid. The picture and audio quality is great. The only bad thing I noticed was that the large extra Peerless battery I purchased sometimes gets disconnected from the camera when going hand-held. I'll have to watch that, it turns the camera off and you don't know what happened. Small battery that comes with it works great, would recommend this camera--great for the money.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

Just started using the 150 so the jury is still out but so far it looks awesome. I shoot a lot of weddings and sporting events and this camera definitely can handle both. It seems to be pretty good in low light and the ease of changing the settings in the menu is a big plus for run and gun situations.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I use this product to film my tv show, commercial clips, and events. I love the camera but you have to make sure your video editor accepts video files in AVCHD formats. Otherwise you will be stuck! Also, make sure your editor is friendly to that format or you will get a lot of dropped frames. Camera is tough and can shoot well in well lit envornoments. Low light makes the camera footage looks bad. I would suggest getting a light with this camera, but overall coming froma GL2, this camera makes my production rock!

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I've just started using the camera and so far, so good! I'm going to be using it for shooting red carpets and segments around town and it seems easy enough to use with lots of convenient options. I like that the footage loads into my iMac soooo easily! The quality seems nice, too.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

We're using two AG-HMC150s to shoot a low-budget webisode / tv series. In the first two weeks, we ran for over 100 hours across two cameras, and they held up really well. For most of our team the HVX200 was their camcorder of choice before, so they started pretty confident with the HMC.

If you're a Panasonic user already, you'll be 100% comfortable with the HMC. It's physically like the DVX and operationally very much like the HVX. It feels sturdy and fairly reliable.

It shoots to AVCHD which, obviously, tons of cams do now. It's a real blessing that it can shoot over 3 hours to a 32Gb SDHC card (and that you can use an SDHC card versus an overpriced P2 card). But the downside is obviously that the AVCHD format is highly compressed and basically impossible to edit unless you transcode it. And of course, transcoding takes an awfully long time without a lot of horsepower.

Awesome bonus: the high-capacity battery runs about as long as the 32Gb card on a full charge. We've plugged the camera itself in exactly once just to try it. Downside: the operators have become completely immune to the concern that they're exhausting the battery or media when they're rolling, so we tend to end up with full cards without any pauses. Our editor is not thrilled. Plus there are never "good" markers because it's all one shot.

We found the flip-out LCD pretty and bright - too bright, in fact. At its default setting, it usually deceives us into thinking we're better-exposed than we really are. Dialing back the brightness to below the default is the fax, but it was a big surprise at first.

Finally, the audio recording seems a bit weird. Don't know quite how to describe it. Seems to be clipping more often than one would expect, even with the levels carefully adjusted, but the distortion seems fairly minimal when it does clip. It's sort of a bug-that's-a-feature.

Is it perfect? No. Are we planning on buying a third unit? Yes. There are things I'd like to see improved, but it's a lot of bang for the buck, and it's opening us up to a lot of new work opportunities because we can afford to run multi-cam shoots continuously for whole days.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I purchased this camera to shoot depositions. For that purpose it is fine. However, this camera does not feel rugged enough to take in the field under adverse weather and handling conditions. The door for the SD card access and for the HDMI connection are especially flimsy. The lens cover is a big clunky piece of plastic that must be removed and stowed - it's not built into the lens hood.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

I purchased this camera to provide deposition services. It's a simple camera to use and produces nice images, but the build quality is very disappointing. The plastic used to make most of the body itself has a very cheap feel to it. The doors that provide access to the SD card slot and the HDMI port are very flimsy. The date stamp is very pixelated on screen. Compared to other Sony equipment I own, this feels like a cheap consumer piece of gear. I would be very hesitant to take this camera outdoors for anything that involved any physical activity.
If you need to shoot depositions, then you will have to consider this camera, and it's suitable for that purpose. Beyond that, I think it is overpriced for the quality of the hardware.

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

Its a profesional camera ,easy to use has all u need for any filming situation ,light weight great for extreme sports ...like skateboarding 7 snowboarding..

Comments about Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorder:

This is a great camera for quality/capabilities vs. price. After loads of research there does not currently exist another camera on the market that can match its caliber of performance.

Great in low light, great picture, the onboard mics are really good (though I highly recommend lavs for interviews and external audio sources for productions-but then, who wouldn't?).

The white balance/color grading is finicky on these cameras, and so is the focus. Fortunately it includes an expanded zoom with enhanced edge definition (and graph) that really helps.

As for white balance and color grading, you must be attentive when composing a shot. I will say that any footage that I was less than careful (completely blew it) with was perfectly salvageable in post.

I have worked with the Sony Z1U and Z7U models, and the Panasonic HMC150 shares their functionality-yet with tapeless workflow-at a fraction of the price.