Today’s review is on Panasonic’s flagship 1MOS camcorder, the HDC-SD40. Stay tuned if you are in the market looking for a flagship lightweight High Definition camcorder at a very affordable price tag. The Panasonic HDC -SD40 Camcorder will fit in exactly in this category costing under £250. Most of its features and specifications resemble its cousin Panasonic HTC-TM40 HD camcorder, however, you will not get the eye candy of 16GB in-built memory. It is sad that the high end, highly specified models get all the limelight when majority of the consumer market are looking for something just above basic at an affordable price tag. This entry level HD camcorder has more features than what you will find in the pocket internet devices, but less than the high-end 3MOS units.

Design:

The most notable design feature of Panasonic HDC-SD40 HD is that it is one of the tiniest in its range, weighing just 211 grams including the memory card and battery. This camcorder DOES NOT have a touchscreen, unlike its HDC SD 80 camcorder.

Storage:

You will not get any internal storage with the HDC SD40 HD Camcorder, and entirely relies on the SDHC slot. At the highest quality setting, you will get about one hour of footage and since this slot supports SDXC format, you will be able to use cards of up to 64GB.

Controls:

All of the device’s setting are configured with the help of D pad, enter and menu buttons in the side of the LCD. But, the unfortunate thing here is that, this also means that you will not get a second set of controls on the edge of the LCD for operating zoom or record, also making the shooting with two hands. If you are not a big fan of controlling the camera features on your own, Panasonic has offered a lot of options for that too.

Slots and connections:

Panasonic HDC-SD40 HD camcorder comes with the zoom Mic and Wind Noise cancellation features. You will also be able to manipulate the microphone levels manually, but there is no minijack available for connecting an external mic or any other accessory, and you will not get any headphone jack too. The other ports include a proprietary AV multiport supplying composite and component analog video along with RCA audio connections, all of these in one single cable. A mini USB port has been provided to transfer the files from the camcorder.

User interface:

The menu button will get you the full settings menu, and as expected, the enter button will activate the shooting parameters, which will vary based on the fact if you are using the iA mode or manual. In the automatic mode, the only useful option you will get is that of backlight compensation, telemacro and pre-rec that will continue to buffer video and includes a few seconds additionally on the front of the shot from before you had pressed the record button. The pre rec features is a life saver for people with slow reflexes.

You get a range of settings in the manual mode including manual focus, even though it might be a bit hard to operate with the D pad. As far as the white balance options are concerned, they include a couple of presets each for outdoor and indoor conditions and also the manual and automatic modes. Panasonic has also included intelligent and soft skin contrast settings, while the former option maximises the details in places of brightness and shadow. The camcorder also included the colour night view option that drops frame rate below 1/25th, compromising on motion smoothness for visibility.

Panasonic HDC-SD40 Lens details:

Moving on to the all important lens details, the HDC SD40 includes a 1/5.8inch CMOS with a resolution of 1.5 megapixels. Does the spec seem familiar to you? Yes, it is similar to Panasonic’s HDC-SD 80. But, note that only 1.19 megapixels of the 1.5 is used while shooting a video and the SD 80 uses 1.3megapixels, which is substantially fewer than the resident resolution of 1920×1080 Full High Definition format that is used for recording. Hence, this model will not be able to provide you with the amount of detail that is offered by the higher end models including the HDC SD90. Panasonic has also shunned the 24mbps data rate to just 17mbps.

Image Stabilisation:

The good news is that Panasonic has not been skimpy as far as the shooting features of the Panasonic HDC-SD40 are concerned. You get the Power OIS type of Image Stabilisation that proved to be quite remarkable at the time of tests. We were not able to find any worrying drop in quality of image. Even though it does not seem to be as good as the Hybrid OIS that you will be able to find in most of the latest Panasonic models, it still seems to be pretty capable, especially at this budget.

Zoom:

The optical zoom is quite good at 16.8x, which is still low compared to HDC SD80’s amazing 34x. You also do not get the additional CMOS pixels, neither is there the dynamic or intelligent zoom to enhance the range, all that is available is just 1200x and 50x digital zooms the former is quite ridiculous patent wise. Of course, there is Face Detection, which sets focus and exposure with the help of human face that is present within the frame as the reference point. The Face detection feature works hand in hand with Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto system  that the company has been offering for a few years now. The Intelligent Auto feature essentially does the job of “autoexposure”, sensing the various conditions and setting particular scene modes like low light, poor illumination.

Still images:

The still photo features are not much; all you get is self timer and quality settings with the availability of shutter sound. The still pictures images are taken at a resolution of 2.1 megapixels, which is lesser than most of the camera phones, but what you have to keep in mind is the quality SD40 lens and optical zoom.

Performance:

Moving on to performance, the image processing and sensor technology has developed at a rapid rate and the Panasonic HDC SD40 Flash Memory Camcorder has included quite a respectable video quality with CMOS even at low light conditions. The colours in good lighting conditions is quite good, but if you try and nit-pick, there will be heaps of lack in detail in comparison to a lot of the Full HD camcorders. In low light conditions the video is even grainier than the high end models like the HDC SD90, however what was surprising is the brightness. There is a video lamp, which will be useful to light up subjects of up to 2m from the front of the device, but do not expect this to be a magic fix. The audio quality is just fine, not as good as the posh models. Overall the video quality of the SD40 matches and sometimes exceeds camcorders in this price tag.

Battery:

The HDC SD 40 has quite a strong battery life, offering about 155 minutes of recording on a single charge. This is really good, considering that some camcorders really struggle to get 100 minutes. One of the reasons for this impressive recording time might be because of the 2.6” LCD display that is      smaller than most.

Verdict:

The pocket camcorders have been the first choice for the point and shoot consumers and will continue to be. However, if you are looking for some more control along with optical zoom , the Panasonic HDC-SD40 HD camcorder is the best choice.

Panasonic HDC-SD40 Camcorder – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer Panasonic
Model Name HDC-SD40
Camcorder type Professional Camcorder
Dimensions (W x H x D) 51.5 x 57.5 x 108.5 [mm]
Weight 211g
Display 6.7cm (2.7") Wide LCD ( 230,400 dots)
VIDEO FEATURES  
Formats Supported MPEG4-AVC/H.264 (AVCHD standard compliant)
Zoom Intelligent zoom 16.8x
Digital Zoom 50x , 1200x
Compression of still image JPEG
Image Size still picture 2.1 megapixels (1920 x 1080) [16:9]
Instant Shooting Yes
AUDIO FEATURES  
Audio System Dolby Digital (2ch)
Built in Microphone 2ch Stereo
Speaker Dynamic
CAMERA FEATURES  
Lens Panasonic
F Value F1.8(WIDE) / 2.6(TELE)
Focal length 2.9-48.7mm
Features  
Specific features Power Optical Image Stabilisation, Shooting Modes,
Tele Macro, Face Recognition, Wind Noise Canceller,
Wide Angle Lens
Included Software HD Writer LE 1.0
Others  
Recording Format H.264, Mpeg-4
Recording Speed 17 Mbps
Internal Memory None
Memory Card Compatible Yes
PORTS AND CONNECTIVITY Hi Speed USB 2.0
Standard accessories AC Adaptor
AC Cable
DC Cable
Rechargeable Battery Pack
AV multi Cable
USB Cable
Battery Life 1 hour 45 minutes approx
Warranty One year

Other Camcorders