The autofocus was exceptionally responsive and reliable. Face detection worked superbly, and was completely unfazed when our subject was backlit against a bright sky. The fully automatic mode proved to be extremely adept at capturing high-quality video. However, this means that sunlit shots are likely to be overexposed, so it’s not an ideal solution.Ĭasual users won’t be put off by this omission, though. It’s possible to achieve the same effect by activating Auto Slow Shutter and locking the shutter speed manually to 1/25 seconds. We were surprised to find that this camera doesn’t support progressive scan – a feature that appears on Panasonic’s cheaper HDC-TM10 under the guise of Digital Cinema mode. The fully automatic mode includes an option to touch the screen to track a moving subject for focus, but it’s not particularly reliable.
Adjusting the focus manually using the up and down buttons on the touchscreen feels clumsy. It’s a shame there’s no spot focus option, though. This provides a greater level of creative control than the majority of video cameras, which group these functions together into a single exposure control. In common with all Panasonic video cameras we’ve seen recently, the SD60 includes direct access to shutter speed, iris and gain for full manual control over exposure. A 64GB SDXC card is phenomenally expensive at around £350, but prices are bound to come down eventually. This camera also accepts SDXC cards for capacities over SDHC’s 32GB limit. As usual, though, it’s more economical to buy the SD60 and stock up on SDHC cards – a 16GB card costs around £25. There’s no built-in memory, but the HDC-TM60 is the same camera with 16GB of flash memory and costs £440. Battery life is impressive at exactly two hours, although two hours and 18 minutes to recharge is on the slow side. A so-called Intelligent Zoom function extends this to 35x without a noticeable deterioration in quality, and there’s also the option of a 1,500x digital zoom for those who like to record nondescript fuzzy blobs.Īs usual, most of the controls appear on the touchscreen interface, but there’s also a row of buttons below the screen including a dedicated button to enable the LED lamp for shooting in very dark conditions. stabilisation system to counteract camera shake, and has a massive 25x zoom range. The lens benefits from Panasonic’s superb Power O.I.S. The SD60 packs lots of impressive features into its petite shell.
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