One thing we like to do at Auscam is take camcorders through their paces in real world scenarios. You are not going to shoot too much footage in a laboratory controlled situation and nor should we. As such, we have reviews such as those from Steve Turner while making his fishing show for Channel 7 in Adelaide, yours truly on an outside broadcast at Sandown and Bathurst as well as a creating a TV segment for ABC’s The Collectors, Biggles Longden testing microphones on the tarmac at airports and much more.

The latest, also from moi, was over three days being ferried, winded and dined around Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand.

Disclaimer: I was flown and accommodated (and aforementioned wined and dining) by Panasonic Australia. However, during the ‘events’ organised, I was given three cameras – two stills and a camcorder – to as I wished with. If I wanted to say they were crap, I could.

I will not stray too much into still territory here, if at all, and concentrate on the HDC-SD90 camcorder I was given open slather use of, and indeed, told to push to the limits.

And pushed to the limits it was, and in an interesting comparison, where possible, compared side-by-side with my own SD700 hard disk Panasonic matched with a Rode Videomic.

Some details first. The HDC-SD90 is an SD based camcorder with a 1 MOS processor being driven from a 28mm wide angle lens, flip out SD but sadly, no viewfinder. There is a 42x “intelligent” optical zoom (34x standard) and Panasonic’s optional 3D conversion lens can be added if wished. Other tricks such as LCD open power on, optical image stabilisation with a locking mechanism, zoom mic with wind cancelling and auto screen brightness are standard. The majority of controls are via touch screen and the menu system is familiar and easy to follow.

During the two days, the little camcorder was subjected to pounding (and splashing) by jetboat (twice), high altitude cable car rides – well 3000 feet or so anyway but it WAS steep), extreme helicopters flying through mountain country (think Lord of the Rings) and glacier lakes, sheep shearing, night clubs, restaurants, vineyards and more. Early morning starts and late night finishes meant a variance of weather too from moderate warm to very cold (by West Australian standards anyway).

So perceptions?

Battery life was excellent and outstripped my 900 by around 3 hours. So no contest there – over the two days I needed a recharge for the last hour only. In extended use, my wrist became somewhat cramped but to be fair a lot of that can be put down to having to grip harder than normal due to the jet boat violence and helicopter mountain ridin’. Tracking a pair of very excited sheep dogs is also not as easy as it sounds; V8’s don’t suddenly change direction!

Colour saturation was very, very good – see for yourself with the clips shown here (Coming soon) – and audio, considering the racket from various overpowered pieces of machinery with little in the way of muffling!

Downsides? I still lament the lack of viewfinder as in bright sunlight (or low light), the LCD alone for me just doesn’t cut it. I also get antsy that manufacturers don’t supply an HDMI cable and even a small “starter” SD card. A big selling point of the SD90 is its HD and 3D capability, especially matched to Panasonic’s own Viera TVs, so it doesn’t make sense they allow shoppers to go to a store to get a cable and SD card, and see other brands in operation, beckoning to be bought.

I didn’t get to see the documentation so cannot comment on its value, but generally Panasonic’s paper manuals are better than average to good.

For a holiday-use camcorder, the SD 90 will fit the bill very nicely. Nice pictures, easy to use, lots of features, great battery life, small enough to fit comfortably in a back pack and 3D capable. At $899 it is not the most inexpensive model on the market, but you get very much what you pay for and there is no scrimping on quality and features.

By David Hague

David is the owner and publisher of AusCam Online. He has a background in media dating back to 1979 when he first got involved with photojournalism in motorsport, and went from there into technology via a 5 year stint with Tandy Computers. Following that, he ran a software distribution company on the Gold Coast and was one of the first to recognise the potential of Microsoft Windows.

Moving back to WA, David wrote scripts for Computer Television for video training for the just released Windows and Office 95 among others, and was then lured to Sydney to create web sites for the newly commercial Internet in 1995, building hundreds of sites under contract to OzEmail including Coates Hire, Hertz Queensland, John Williamson, the NSW Board of Studies and many, many more.

He went back into full time journalism as the Managing Editor for Channel 7's 'Gadget Guy', Peter Blasina's publications VideoCamera and Pixelmag, before starting Australasian Camcorder magazine when these publications were shelved. He lives at Sydney's Avalon Beaches nearly on the ocean front with dog Budweiser and in his spare time is a nut for motor sport, road safety, fishing, science fiction - especially Dr Who - and technology.

David can be contacted via david@auscamonline.com