Video Camera Review Update of the Panasonic NVGS280 Digital
Camcorder
 So how do we find the Panasonic NVGS280 digital camcorder
now after living with it for the past year? In fact we didn't use
it during the winter months (Nov-Mar) except to capture some digital
stills from our 1999 and 2000 holidays' DV tape to create our Peak District and Yorkshire image galleries.
We've discovered a few more camcorder quirks. One such
is the digital stills - no, not the image noise this time but the image
size which is slightly wider than the 4:3 aspect ratio. Not
really a problem, but it does mean we have to crop our web images to
our 240x180px size rather than just set the pixel dimensions. The
aforementioned picture noise remains, however this doesn't seem to
manifest itself when printing or with our web
images. The digital stills also seem to exhibit an over
saturated green/yellow (confirmed by looking at the histogram).
While on the subject of the digital stills, the over-exposure on 'auto'
continues to be an issue. We've taken to switching to manual and
knocking it down by a stop, however this extra fiddling means we risk
missing shots. Worse, we then forget to switch back to
auto-exposure, the manual setting is retained next time we use the
camera (either on video or stills) resulting in an incorrectly exposed
image! Arrggh, why o why can't the digital stills be better on
this hybrid video / stills Panasonic camera?
The best bit has to be the camcorder's battery charge life
which has held up after a year. Even over the non-use winter
months the batteries still retained plenty of the previous
charge. The clock had lost several minutes though. In fact
the user guide warns it's not very accurate, although subsequent
testing revealed this 'inaccuracy' to be only 10 seconds a week, we
think we can live with that! Another good thing is the sound
glitch we experienced between shots on LP speed seems to have vanished.
 One annoyance is that
the video camera's cassette housing opens quite forcefully, so much so
we've taken to damping it down with our finger (see picture) for fear
something'll dislodge and fly off! Another issue we've noticed is
some irritating lens reflections under certain lighting
conditions. This appears be caused by the ND lens filter we use,
but then again the camcorder has a screw thread for just this purpose
so Panasonic presumably expect its use. One more gripe - the LCD
screen smears easily and is then difficult to clean. This became
apparent when using the video camera in drizzle on holiday in Shropshire in the
wet 2007 (unlike the hot and dry 2006!) summer. We dabbed the
screen dry, but it left smears that needed some firm rubbing with a
lens cloth to remove. The camcorder's LCD is made of soft
material, it would be better if it were harder like our Sat Nav screen.
Panasonic continued the NVGS280 digital camcorder model well
into 2007, a sign that it's been successful. It's since been
superseded by the NVGS320 camcorder with broadly similar features,
according to the user guide we downloaded from the Panasonic
website. The new video camera loses the shoulder strap and mic in
jack, but gains a lens cap (wow!) and ability to capture higher (1 mpx)
resolution stills from the DV tape. The auto/manual switch has
been moved from behind the LCD screen to the top right. We
wouldn't consider this model now - the lack of a mic socket would
prevent the use of an accessory shoe external mic, a serious omission
in view of the poor inbuilt mic. Also we'd miss the shoulder
strap which forms a useful secondary security method, as we discovered
when the hand strap broke on a previous camcorder in the early 90s, the
camera being saved from a watery grave by having the shoulder strap on!
Hmm, more gripes than likes. Perhaps we've outgrown
consumer products and should consider semi-pro models...
Update Sept 08 - two years on - and a serious problem with
our camcorder.
Well, OK, let's start with the serious problem. While
happily videoing at a wildlife park during our New Forest short break in
October 2007 it became apparent the camcorder wasn't recording
correctly. Playing back the recording revealed substantial
picture blocking/freezing and break-up followed by a screen prompt that
the heads needed cleaning. We managed to struggle through, but
the resultant section of tape, right at the last few minutes, remained
largely unplayable. On inspecting the DV tape itself (Panasonic
branded) we noticed crinkling along the edge of the ribbon. We've
not experienced this with other tape brands, or indeed since with
Panasonic tapes so put it down to a faulty tape. We considered
the possibility of condensation, but had no dew warning indicator kick
in. We subsequently bought and ran a cleaning tape, but the
faulty tape section still won't play back correctly. All
recordings since have been fine, including extensive use during our
2008 Gower holiday. Our
concern is that it wasn't some cheapo unbranded tape - it was a
Panasonic tape in a Panasonic camcorder! We'll be keeping an eye
on this one!
Onto other matters then. We've since stopped using the
digital stills part of this video camera. The hybrid nature of
this camcorder was one of our main buying decisions, so the poor stills
performance has indeed been a disappointment. Still, it gave us
an excuse to purchase an excellent little
modern digital compact camera!
The camcorder batteries, both the Panasonic original and the
'unbranded' second battery are still going strong and holding their
charge well, even when left unused for months and lasting well during
use. We've stopped using the ND filter which has cured the
annoying lens reflections.
 Sound issues
One of our other concerns was the uninspiring sound quality
which we suggested at the end of our initial
review would probably be resolved by the use of an external
microphone. We've now bought an Audio-Technica ATR25 mic which
mounts on the camcorder's accessory shoe and plugs into the mic socket
and it came with an extension lead to use it remotely from the
camera. This mic has transformed the sound, which is now a far
more dynamic and involving experience together with a very distinct
stereo soundstage. So much so in fact that it was immediately
apparent when we coupled up the left and right channels the wrong way
round when using the extension lead. Doh! A slide on wind
muffler (wind gag) was supplied which is far more effective at cutting
wind howl than the camcorder's wind cut switch. However, there is
a downside to using this accessory mic. The video camera with mic
on top makes it all the more cumbersome, it won't fit into our
just-big-enough-for-the-camera carry bag and mounting the mic each time
we want to use it is just not practical when out and about.
There's also the question of remembering to switch the mic on (it's
battery powered). So... despite the inbuilt camcorder mic's
mediocre quality, for sheer convenience we tend not to use it out and
about, reserving it for indoor or planned shoots only.
Our two year old camcorder is already dated! Now with
High Definition (HD) models recording to hard disc, DVD disc and memory
card, DV tape based models seem positively prehistoric. If we
were buying today the nearest equivalent would probably be the just
released (at the time of writing) Panasonic HDC-SD100, which records
AVCHD files onto SDHC memory - 8GB stores 1hr of video at the highest
quality setting. This would eliminate the mechanics of tape
drive, thus improving reliability, plus reducing weight and media
size. The downside is the relative cost of the high capacity SDHC
cards. But this is bound to tumble in time and the cards can
always be reused once footage has been transferred to computer for
editing. Hmmm, tempting, pity about the credit crunch...
Update Sept 09 - three years on and... Oh Dear!
Remember our saga with the picture blocking/freezing caused by tape
crinkling damage in our last update? Well, it's happened again,
this time while rewinding a tape at home. So that largely rules
out condensation or a faulty DV tape (yes, it was a Panasonic branded
tape again!). Yet everything's been fine since, so we're unsure
what's going on here.
Now, if you read our original review
you'll remember we bought a second (non-Panasonic branded) rechargeable
battery. This was despite Panasonic's user guide advice that, for
reliable results, to always buy Panasonic. The second battery was
some three times cheaper, so when one them gave grief can you guess
which one it was? Yes, it was the... wait for it... Panasonic
one! The problem was (and still is) that the green charge light
never goes out, indicating the battery is never reaching a fully
charged state. Both batteries have had the same amount of use
under the same conditions. So what are we to conclude here from
our tape and battery experience? That non-branded is just as
good, and often better!
We've not had any other issues with our DV camcorder, now
three years old. Then again, it only tends to come out for major
trips, maybe six or seven time a year, so usage is low. From this
year (2009) we decided to become really cool and take our movies in
widescreen, this despite the theoretical recorded data reduction.
This move should ensure our movies, when burnt to DVD, are future
proof, at least until we decide to (afford to?!?) upgrade to an HD
model. Watch this space...
Update Oct 2010 - four years on - and we cure the wind
noise!
Fed up with wind roar on the sound track and anticipating this to be a
problem on our (then) forthcoming West Cornwall holiday
(where we'd be walking some exposed coastal areas) we looked to fit a
wind muffler to the camcorder's built-in mic. The flush design
doesn't easily lend itself to wind gag fitment, and after researching
some (pricey) commercial solutions we decided our best option was to
modify an old (but good quality Rycote) fluffy muffler we had on a
disused prehistoric Hi8 camcorder. We cut the gag material to
size and attached with Velcro self-adhesive strips.
Brilliant! This worked well at taming wind noise significantly
and a far better solution than the largely ineffective electronic wind
cut setting in the menu, but arrggh - if only we'd done this years
earlier! There was a minor downside however; the gag seemed to
introduce some annoying low-level background noise (probably internal
camera operational noise directed into the mic) to appear. But as
our somewhat improvised muffler is only used in windy outside
conditions this isn't really an issue provided we remember to remove it
when not required.
We haven't had any further tape crinkle problems, although the
Panasonic branded battery is all but finished, whereas the generic
equivalent is still going strong! The LCD fold-out screen seems
to have become less bright, fooling us into thinking the exposure is
low when in fact it's fine. But a quick tweak of the LCD
brightness pre-set in the camcorder's menu solved this.
This Panasonic digital video camera is now looking decidedly
dated when compared to modern HD kit using HDD or flash card storage
and coding files in AVCHD, so we'll probably be looking to replace it
before long with what will become our sixth camcorder! Widescreen
footage taken with this now four-year old mini DV camcorder looks
rather inferior when up against modern HD material on a large modern HD
TV!
Update Oct 2011 - five years on and still going strong.
Just a quick update this time as there's been no new developments with
our Panasonic mini DV camcorder since last time.
On our Isle of
Wight holiday we got the 'heads need cleaning' message; last time
this happened (see 2008 update above) we removed the tape to check,
following which we suffered the playback glitches and tape crinkle
problem. This time we ignored it, the message went away and we
continued filming normally. On playback at the point the head
cleaning message popped up there was a short glitch where the picture
froze/split into horizontal bars down the screen for a few
seconds. Now it was a wet day this time, on the previous occasion
it could have been humidity so we've concluded condensation/moisture to
be the root cause. Pity this Panasonic digital video camera
doesn't seem to possess a dew warning though.
There's no other issues to report. We still intend to go
HD and replace this camcorder with an AVCHD SD card capture camera, er,
sometime once other purchase priorities are sorted. We've gened
up and will post here when we do...
See the main video camera review.
You can find the Panasonic UK website at: www.panasonic.co.uk
© micbinks 2006-2011. Please ask permission if
you wish to reproduce any of our content.
Please see our edited Somerset video clips taken
with the camcorder.
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