After the big announcements from Sony and Canon this year, it’s no surprise that Panasonic, a leader in professional camcorders, decided to get its feet wet by announcing their own 3D camcorder – the HDC-Z10000.  The camcorder does have a number of great features that should make it a solid contender in the 3D world. First off, it has the ability to switch between 2D and 3D shooting, it records images in the 3D AVCHD format using the frame sequential method (meaning it records a full frame for each lens on the camcorder), can zoom up to 10X, and has a wide 32mm angle of view. The lenses have f-stops as low as 1.5 in order to capture great footage even in low light situations as well as two independent 3MOS sensors for each lens which should allow each eye’s picture to look its best.

The great features don’t stop there though. This camera also records in full 1920x1080p (which is expected) but can do so at a full 60 frames per second without any interlacing – a relief for any videographer. Like many 3D camcorders coming out on the market, the LCD display can show 3D images glasses free making it easy to see what your final result will be. However, it remains to be seen how effective their version of the technology is.

In the past, Panasonic has won over the prosumer world by having plenty of external controls on their camcorders and the Z1000 is no exception. It has a ring for focus, zoom, and iris giving it a real pro feel, and buttons for OIS, white balance, zebra bars, and many more. Panasonic also decided to include two XLR ports giving this camcorder a bigger edge than most of the camcorders being released today. Lastly, the Z10000 also has two SD card slots with relay recording making it possible to record live events for many hours without the fear of running out of card space. This is quite the improvement over their consumer model which debuted at CES last year.

With all of the amazing features this camcorder has, you’re probably thinking it costs more than $5,000. If so, you might be surprised to know that Panasonic plans to sell the Z10000 for only $3500 and will be shipping in December. With a price point this good, it’s easy to predict that this camcorder will likely be the prosumer choice for 3D shooting soon!

CES 2011 may forever be remembered as the year 3D HD shooting became affordable. There were many companies that jumped on the 3D bandwagon this year including JVC and Panasonic, but nowhere was this more evident than at Sony’s booth. Sony left no doubt where they were putting their time and money when they started off the show with a room filling you-go-to-be-there-to-believe-it 3D screen that displayed all of their newest 3D tech in 3D glory. Of all of the tech though, one of their most exciting announcements was the creation of the world’s first Full Double HD 3D camcorder, the HDR-TD10. This camcorder was able to film in 1920×1080 had a 10x optical zoom, manual iris control, shot at up to 60 fps, had a back-illuminated CMOS sensor for better low light capabilities, and included a 3.5 inch glasses-free 3D LCD display. All of this made for one impressive camera but don’t take our word for it, check out the video we shot below. The camera is available for $1499

Panasonic today announces pricing for its compact High Definition models, the HDC-TM55, HDC-HS60 and HDC-SD60, and its full-featured standard definition camcorders, the SDR-H85, SDR-T50, SDR-S50. All six models will be available in mid-March 2010.

The Panasonic full-HD camcorders will be available for suggested retail prices (SRP) of $529.95 for the HDC-TM55; $699.95 for the HDC-HS60 and $499.95 for the HDC-SD60. The three Panasonic HD camcorders feature a 35.7mm wide-angle lens and a powerful 25x optical zoom. And with Panasonic’s new Intelligent Zoom feature, the new HD camcorders can extend to a 35x zoom. Intelligent Zoom corrects image degradation in ordinary digital zooming to deliver stunningly clear HD quality, even with the zoom fully extended. All camcorders record to SD/SDHC/SDXC Memory Cards, while the HDC-TM55 also has 8 GB* of internal memory and the HDC-HS60 has a Hard Disk Drive that holds up to 120 GB. Read the rest of this entry »