Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

Many features - high "learning curve". High quality. 22X lens! Great price. A bit heavy for a handy-cam and not well balanced left-to-right when shooting using top handle.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

To be used for shooting commercials, sales videos and in conjunction with computer visualizations. Very easy to setup and operate and so far I have no negative comments, it fulfilled my expectations and then some. great to use with inexpensive SD cards and MTS files are small and easily archived.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I just moved to this cam from a SD one and WOW shooting in HD is great. This camcorder has all the features I needed and with 1/3" sensors and a 22x lens, it shoots the pants off what I had. Sturdy construction but still light weight. Nice operation with buttons for the normally used features instead of being mostly menu driven. Having 2 SDHC is great for long recording and the battery it comes with last close to 4 hours for me. I did a lot of research and this was the best for me!

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

Excellent product - easy to use out of the box. I'm using it for horse shows - have currently only used it inside only and am very pleased with the results. Looking forward to using it outside.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

As an owner of other Panasonic cameras in this class (the predecessors HMC150 and the DVX100B), I knew that this would likely be another quality entry in the category for Panasonic. Compared with the very similar HMC150, this camera produces noticeably sharper images via the CMOS imaging system and the nearly double length zoom lens provides greater reach for those times when it is needed.

It is a bit heavier and bulkier than previous camcorders but is very well balanced front/back and side/side. The upgraded tripod mount base is a welcome improvement. The LCD and EVF are both excellent for achieving focus and judging the basic image. The focus assist (red outlines) make it nearly impossible to lose track of focus.

The only weak point on the camera is the remote inputs, which are set in a place that makes them very awkward to use when using a Varizoom type of zoom/focus/iris remote. The plugs go in oddly and can block other items on the camera, including the card door. This is a bit of an oversight, but not a major issue most of the time, and not an issue at all if you aren't using the remote inputs.

Highly recommend this camera compared with others in the class from Sony and Canon.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I bought this camcorder and I can say is excellent camcorder.What can i sais it's better than panasonic md h1 (very good to but ...not like this )
and canon xh a1 , my old camera.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

Awesome in low light compared to my Sony FX1000 and Canon HX A1 but I didn't want to believe the reviews how weak is the focusing till I got the camera. Yes it's searching focus even in well lit enviroment, much slower and more pulsing them the FX1000 or HxA1. Otherwise image quality very nice after the custom color and Gamma settings. The Face Detection is a very nice feature!

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I love the smooth iris control on the lens this is a great feature. The controls are easily accessable for me. Shipping was fast from B&H that I was able to use the camera for a live out door event. I spent about an hour looking over the features and I was ready to shoot. Beautiful colors. First few days just shot in full auto and was very pleased and so were my clients. I LOVE THIS CAMERA Crisp focus great depth of field. And lighter than I expected for such a powerful camera.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I have the XF100 which is very good but small. This one is very good in low light and looks to the client as well. All the control are outside and ready for changes. It has a good viewfinder too if want that. Too bad the audio is stereo.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

The placement of all the controls and switches is vastly superior to previous models. We have already used this for HD streaming to internet clients, as well as fantastic low-light performance recordings.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I think this camera is great! It has all of the ports, swithches and audio capabilities needed for the professional world. Definately legal videographer friendly, except the timestamp fix needs to come stock.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I received my camera and took it to work to try to learn how to operate it during my lunch hour. I have owned a video company for 27 years and worked part time as an event videographer. My "day job" is I work for the Fire Department and right after lunch, the day after I received my camera, a call came in for a house fire so I grabbed my camera and took it with me. I had to familarize myself quickly with the camera as I was going to record the event. I "hit the ground running" so to speak. The controls were easy to figure out and the results were remarkable. Excellent picture. Great camera!!!

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

This is a great camera, I have owned this camera now for several months and have not looked back. I bought this camera when I decided that is was time to step up my Part time video job to a full time job.

I have been able to use this camera for a wide range of jobs, while there is no one camera that will work in all situations, this one will work in many. I have used it in interviews, close up action events, IMAG for live events and studio work and others. The biggest plus is the waveform and vector scope, having those professional tools on the camera is very helpful.

The dual SD cards slots are very nice, I have only had once case where the video was lost on a card due to a write error. The problem was the card itself failed. Luckily the other card was fine, and saved 1/2 of a days work. Make sure you get high quality SD cards, I have been using SanDisk ultra or extream cards, and Lexar professional with out any issues. The one time I bought "cheaper" cards was the time that they failed on me.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I had know idea that this camera was going to be this big. I previously owned the DVX100A, HVX200, and the HMC150, and this camera is bigger the HVX200, but weighs much less. The body is made up of a super hard plastic and feels some what cheap, and it feels a little bit lighter than the DVX100. This camera will intimidate all of the competition in its class just by the bulky looks of it. The low light is pretty good and the dual card slot is awesome. I purchased the Panasonic 16GB cards and they are much more reliable than the SanDisk, becasue these cards are made specifically for Panasonic cameras. I am very Happy with camera so far and look forward to shooting something post worthy soon.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

Bought this two weeks ago and have been using it almost daily in a variety of indoor settings (stage and concert performances at various light levels, rehearsal spaces with horrible lighting, up-close red carpet type interviews...). It has exceeded my expectations on every level. Picture quality is incredible and I have barely touched the surface of all the tweaks and customizable options to get it up to 'my' look. Salesperson talked me into this versus the 160 (or even the 250) as he felt it would be plenty to suit my needs. Only feature I may regret not getting the 160 for is uncompressed sound - but so far I'm not missing it nor am I noticing any artifacts or distortions.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

I have just purchased two of these cameras and I am so impressed. We used Panasonic cameras like the DVC 30's and 60's and loved them but now they are going to be considered as tne last of the little giants.I have used the nes 130 twice and the images ar awesome, the audio is great! The only problem is that there are so many great qualities that this model has and can do. So far I am verry happy and pleased. Waited for a camera like this for a long time. Yhe only other or real negitive is that there is no direct mike input to the camera although it does have the XLR inputs which work great.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

After using Sony HVR-Z1U for 4 years I went for this monster.
It is a great bang for the money.Great image quality.
The best part of this is you can record Simultaneously on the media cards. that means your are safe.No problem when you go in the studio and there is nothing on the
media cards

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

Works well, used to shoot the viral YouTube video, "Sit Cyclists Say" here in Boulder, Colorado. Haven't had it for long enough to write in depth. Won out over XF100 based on low light ability and optical zoom.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

Perfect Camera for the Price. More buttons than I know to do with, but everything works as other reviewers had said. Only downfall is the built-in mic but anyone spending this much money on a camera should really invest in better audio. Does not come with the shotgun mic.

Comments about Panasonic AG-AC130 AVCCAM HD Handheld Camcorder:

If this is your first journey into the professional camera realm, you will do yourself a great favor if you take the time to learn the functions this camera has and study how to set up the camera properly for the intended scene. Simply setting it on the automatic mode and pointing it at the subject will not yield the best image this camera has to offer. I have heard so many complaints about the auto-focus. Yes, it's slow. Most professionals would never use auto-focus, so it's a moot point in the pro shooter's world.I use this to shoot independent films and TV commercials. The Panasonic AG-AC130 is an upgrade from my current Panasonic AG-HMC40 which for half the price, is itself a decent camcorder. The first thing I noticed was the size. The AC130 is double the size and weight of the HMC40. I was content with the HMC40 in bright light. But the 40 isn't a great camcorder in low light. It gets grainy and chalky in a dimly lit room.Outdoors, the AC130 offers a noticeably better image than the HMC40. It has a wider dynamic range, slightly better sharpness and less image artifacting than the smaller Panny. But it isn't a night and day difference. On a sunny day, you could match the image from the two camcorders fairly closely and only a pro could see the difference. Inside, however, it's a different story.At zero db gain, the HMC40 produced a dark, unusable image in typical room light (a single 60 watt ceiling mounted light fixture). AT zero db, the AC130 produced a very usable but not bright image that was free of video grain. Blacks were pure black and the red sofa looked truly red with no visible grain in the image. Pumping both cameras up to 9 db yielded more usable images. The smaller Panny struggled with the light, but the image was usable. The bigger Panny produced an image that looked like it was lit in a studio, albeit with a small amount of grain becoming noticeable. Holding the iris wide open on both cameras, at 18 db the smaller Panny gave a bright enough image, but it was getting too grainy for production quality use. At 18 db, the AC130 was grainy too, but not nearly as much. Parts of the image were overexposed when the iris was held wide open. Closed down to F4, the exposure was perfect and the grain was just enough to give it a 35mm film look. You can program a hi-med-low gain switch to any gain settings in 3db increments. A detail coring adjustment reduces grain while leaving the image sharp.The lens on the HMC40 is a Leica lens and it really is the strong point of the camera, offering a crisp image corner to corner with very little geometric distortion at wide angle. The AC130 uses a Panasonic lens. It looks as sharp as the Leica, but there is some barrel effect at full wide angle. To be fair, the widest setting is much wider than the smaller Panny. When I zoomed in to match the widest setting of the HMC40, the barrel effect was gone.The lens has three rings dedicated to focus, zoom and iris. The zoom is mechanical, while focus and iris are drive-by-wire, but still precise enough to use with comfort. You can set the information in the viewfinder for the lens to read distance in feet, focal length in millimeters and iris in F-stops. Gain is displyed in dB. There's also a shutter speed wheel that manually sets the shutter speed and shows it in the viewfinder as fractions of a second. Not only can you manually control every aspect, you can see in one neat cluster the status of every function as well as minutes remaining on the SD card and minutes of battery life. Of course, you can set it all to automatic if you just want to see what the camera will do on it's own. It isn't bad.There are six settable scene files you can customize with any combination of dozens of manual settings such as contrast, matrix, color level, sharpness, gamma, etc. There is a neutral density filter that you will need to use outdoors to prevent overexposure and to adjust depth of field. I set one for video mode and one for film mode, leaving the other four as they came.The viewfinder and the flip out LCD panel are both top notch and sharp enough to obtain critical focus without the need for an external monitor. That is, if you have the eyes of a twenty year old. Otherwise you'll need your glasses or contacts.The image stabilizer provides a minimal amount of steadiness; not a high amount like on a consumer camcorder. It's better than nothing, and left on at all times it's unobtrusive. White balance is easy to set, and you can save two of your favorite settings in addition to the preset 3200K tungsten setting.The built in mikes pick up a slight bit of camera handling noise. They do have a decent sound, but here again, it's reference audio, Used with a good external desk mike or a high end shotgun mike, the audio is strikingly clean. You can set the levels independently, as well as 10 and 20 db input padding to prevent overload. Independent limiter settings for each channel keep the high volume sounds from clipping. The XLR inputs are built in, and the manual controls are easy to access.Another high point is the ability to record to two SD cards at the same time for backup purposes, or one after the other for more recording time. The controls are well laid out and labeled in white for easy viewing in low light environments.Frame rates are adjustable between 24, 30 and 60 frames at 720 and1080p. There is also a 640x480 DVCAM mode, but I can't see the use unless you are trying shoot to match some older 4:3 footage.The AC130 has three MOS chips that are native 16:9. For richer color and sharper edges, three chips are always better than one. Because of this, the image quality and color are significantly better than the best single chip DSLR cameras and the AC130 is cheaper than some of those. With it's1/3 inch chips, you won't get as much depth of field as the DSLRs, and the DSLR's have a tiny edge in low light. But there are so many more pluses in the AC130 to offset that, such as better color, sharper imaging, no visible compression artifacts, no 12 minute video shot limitations, fully synced XLR audio and a crisp, fast F1.6 22x zoom lens. It's hard to see why someone would want to spend more money on a DSLR than this Panasonic unless they wanted the ability to shoot great stills. Of course, I could see the justification of buying a 1000 dollar DSLR over this strictly based on budget concerns.To summarize, the AC130 is a great looking camcorder that lets any client know you mean business. It will run and gun with the best of them and still let you produce that indie film you've always wanted to make.Rick Bennette, FineArtFilmWorks.com