Which of course brings me neatly to the main subject matter of this piece,  the Panasonic HDC-HS60 as this is one of the cameras in that camp of no HDMI cable supplied. And apart from that glaring omission, it is rather a good little basic no frills camcorder with only a few bugbears, two of them I admit personal so I'll get those out of the way early.

Touch screen and no viewfinder.

Moving right along.

There is a larger than average 1/4.1" CMOS sensor married to a 35.7mm lens that supports up to 35x zoom. This is further helped by an optical image stabiliser - far better than a more simplistic electronic version. Other electronic trickery added includes 'Intelligent' Face Detection, Scene Selector and Contrast Control and AutoFocus/Exposure tracking.

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