Priced at about £800, the Panasonic NVGS250B is not the cheapest consumer DV camcorder. And measuring roughly 152 by 76 by 76mm, it's also not the most compact. But to the discriminating videographer, it offers a three-chip capture system and improved image stabilisation -- advantages that make it a winner.
Most video cameras geared toward general consumers have a single light-gathering CCD chip. Professional cameras, on the other hand, employ a prism behind the lens, which sends the red component of the image to one chip, the green to a second, and the blue to a third. Three-chip cameras generally produce images with richer colours and in greater detail than single-chip cameras. They had been too expensive and bulky for home video use until 2004, when Panasonic introduced a series of three-chip cameras priced and sized to compete with the one-chippers. The NVGS250B represents the second generation of the company's consumer-orientated three-chip line, replacing the NVGS200B in the middle of the series between the NVGS150B and NVGS400B.
Design
Weighing a solid 453g and clad in a lustrous silver metallic skin, the Panasonic NVGS250B feels solid and well balanced in the hand. The body is orientated horizontally in a classic Handicam-style design rather than the vertical layout of many current consumer cameras. On the right side is a top-loading tape door under a hand strap; on the left, a 2.5-inch flip-out monitor sits above an SD/MMC card slot. The Leica Dicomar 10X zoom resides next to a stereo microphone and a flash on the front, and the battery snaps onto the camera under the viewfinder at the rear.
The uncluttered design of the NVGS250B has clearly been optimised for one-handed use with the camera set on automatic, and it is at its best when used this way. Just about all special features and manual controls are accessed through a navigation system controlled by a small joystick that rests under your thumb. This navigation system is very well organised and easy to use, but such menu-based setups are better suited for the occasional mode change than for the constant tweaking required to control a camera manually. While you can theoretically command just about every aspect of the NVGS250B manually, doing so for any length of time quickly becomes frustratingly tedious. The only other significant controls are the smooth and well-placed manual focus ring and the mediocre zoom toggle, which has too short a throw to facilitate subtle zooming.
iPhone App 
Newsletters 
RSS Feeds 
Send Us Tips
User reviews2
Add your review
Little Tyke 18 May 2005
Good: Those lovely CCDs
Bad: Blurry noise in low-level light conditions
Comment: Ooh this is a Winner (and not of the Michael variety). Just fantastic image quality under normal lighting conditions. This may even survive the imminent tech transition to high def... Ok, it might not have all the features craved by indie film makers (progressive scan etc) but it does have a letterbox mode for those times you want to make your home movies look like a Ridley Scott film. The camera is so small and perfectly formed too. Bless.
The only slight fly in the ointment is the automatic low shutter speed in low-level light conditions. This means that if you're filming at a dark, vicious party you're liable to get trails and noise that are nothing to do with intoxicants and sound systems.
However, those three lovely CCDs work like a charm normally, and make for fantastic picture quality.
Jah Womble 17 May 2005
Good: Tiny weeny camera
Bad: Controls a bit fiddly for a big-fingered person
Comment: Rocks overall.
See all 2 user reviews