Panasonic AG-HVX200 1/3" 3CCD 16:9 HD/DVCPRO/DV Cinema P2 Camera

Average customer rating:

Quality Product that beats the Competition!!!

90 percent of the quality and features of the 50-100k alternatives

Very satisfactory experience thus far.

For Pros, not for Gadget-Seekers

Panasonic AG-HVX200 1/3" 3CCD 16:9 HD/DVCPRO/DV Cinema P2 Camera

Manufacturer: Panasonic
ProductGroup: Photography
Binding: Electronics

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Product Features:

SAFE DELIVERY, BEST SERVICE & PRICES by EMPIRE DIGITAL

ASIN: B000FAMV6Q

Customer Reviews:

Quality Product that beats the Competition!!!.......2007-11-11

I've had this camera for almost 3 years now. This camera beats every other HD camera out there on the market that's under $30,000.

This camera will beat the RED CAMERA!!! With the Hydra modification (from REEL-STREAM) soon to be released this camera will be able to shoot 2k with 4:4:4 color.

Pros: P2 cards (This is sweet because the cards have no moving parts) 16GB cards are here, 32 GB are coming
You can shoot in high or slow motion
Quality built - I've never had anything go wrong with it.
........ I could have added more pros, but the above pros set it apart from the competition.

Cons: 4:2:2 color (why not 4:4:4, Panasonic could have made it 4:4:4! This does not make me happy)
non-removable lens (Because of this non-removable lens I need to pay extra for a 35mm adapter)

P.S. (Don't get me wrong, color is everything. This camera can shoot vivid colors like no other camera.)

90 percent of the quality and features of the 50-100k alternatives.......2007-03-12

Being a professional videographer/producer.... I anxiously awaited the release of the HVX200. Having rented the 100Kplus Varicam for 1500 per day plus 600 per day for the deck.... I was head over heals when I read about the HVX coming out. It's DVCPRO HD codec is Professional. Not HDV consumer quality codec.. but real big boy stuff here. Sure, it doesn't have interchangeable lense, and a 2/3 chip... but man it's Sexy. Man it delivers the goods for a very reasonable price. One week or more of renting the Varicam and this baby is mine. It's my daily shooter.. my hammer and it's allowing me to deliver broadcast quality results without breaking the bank. Great for indi filmmakers and those looking to up their quality without killing their savings. It's also REVOLUTIONARY. Truly Tapeless and that's a God send. Tape is DEAD. Film is nearly dead and this camera is the harbinger of good things to come. It's not a pick up and shoot cold kind of cam. There's a learning curve... there some post considerations.. but all in all it's a 16mm film killer. Quality on par with 500 dollar for 10 minutes of Film kind of quality. It's variable speeds and timelapse is un-parralled. Ask anyone shooting tape to compare their Post affected slow motion with your real 60fps slow motion. It's just glorious.. as well is the 4:2:2 color. A must for green screen and high end work.

Best piece of technology that I've ever bought.... and I'm sure it'll be serving me well for more to come. Already had it for a year and still excited about shooting wtih it... been a while since I could say that...

Very satisfactory experience thus far........2006-07-21

Our company has purchased four of these HVX200's and we're very happy with their performance thus far. We're shooting a half a dozen HD (720P at 24fps) shows and all of our users seem happy and impressed. Be warned, however, that this camera is BIG and is not easy to use as a hand-held, particularly if you're using it with an external monitor with related battery.

The images we're capturing with the HVX200 are great. (Lighting, of course, is vital. These are not low-light cameras.) Learning how to shoot tapeless onto the P2 cards is a bit daunting at first, but, once you catch on, it's not difficult and has been reliable. We set up a laptop on location and use it to import the footage into Final Cut. Shooting at 720P/24fps, we can get about 20 minutes of video on each of the 2 P2 cards. So, it is optimum to have 4 of the cards for EACH camera. (So you can be loading the media onto the hard drives while shooting on the other two cards. It takes about 15 minutes to load one full card's media onto a hard drive.) At $1500 apiece just for the P2 cards, setting up one of these cameras is expensive. Check out Zacuto at [...]
We're pleased.

For Pros, not for Gadget-Seekers.......2006-07-07

We just received an AG-HVX200 and I tell you, it's got more menus than a powerhouse Chinese restaurant. It's not for people who enjoy the pyro-friendly camera; there are menus with the depth of a 15-layer cake. The reason is because the camera can be configured into over 100 different ways of shooting.

The HVX200 gives the new user a challenge to sink or swim, because it thrusts you into deep water. If you've ever shot with the DVX100, you'll adapt to the HVX quite well, from other reviews I've read. I'm a still shooter for a major city daily newspaper, and we're moving towards high definition gear to shoot movie clips and pull frames for news print. With this in mind, the camera's color retention are quality. But I wish the configs were a bit simpler. It will take time to learn a new format of news-gathering, but I see the potential with this gear.

One big drawback that I see is that the menu buttons are on top of the camera, beside and beneath the handle. Try shooting in the field and change your recording format, and it's an awkward feat to accomplish, since you're looking through the viewfinder (or watching the fold-out screen) as you scroll through the layers to figure which is the best recording format.

Would I consider giving this camera up? Hail, no. It's a powerful tool, and the result is what the image quality is about. The color shift with reds and greens and blues are minimal, unlike other samples from competing cameras that I have seen. This, coupled with the ability to drop files into a PowerBook with Final Cut Pro makes it a fast and efficient companion to get files changed to .mov format to drop them into ftp for web publication.

Delete unwanted files as you record. Drop the files onto a hard drive and wipe your P2 card to shoot some more. But you'd better have your software and hardware in order before you plunk down $6,000 retail,, just for the camera (and no mounted boom microphone - sold as an acc). A 4gb card sells $600, the optional 100gb Firestore costs $2,000 (which is about the same price as a couple 8gb P2 cards), Final Cut Pro 5 costs $1,000, and you aren't even talking about the need for a GOOD fluid head tripod ($500), wireless microphone system ($500), blue ray DVD burner (for the multitude of gigs of recording files), extra batteries and perhaps a large external drive to store clips as you figure how to keep all the hundreds of gigs of files from overloading all your open drive space. The HVX eats drive space like a great white eats people. It doesn't think, it just does, and at up to a gigabyte per minute.

Even with working for a newspaper, we still have to adjust our budget royally to get what's needed for one HVX camera. Add filters or a 4x4 filter system and, yeesh. Or, kerching. It's bling bling for the developers, while you've just spent the same amount for your camera, just to get it up, and running.

**Rule of thumb, boys and girls: plan to spend double the camera's cost to outfit a system; aka, you'll have to fork out over $11,000 to effectively shoot in the field and edit in-house.**

For those in the pro field, it's probably worth it. For the casual user, or someone just getting into indie film making or trying to make money off the business, it might be worth it to wait. The HVX200 is a groundbreaking camera, like digital cameras revolutionized photography. Tapeless production will be adopted and will change the face of video production in the coming years. The price will drop as others compete for market share.

Amazon.com Product Description

The NexStar 5 combines deluxe features with Celestron's legendary Schmidt-Cassegrain optical system to provide amateur astronomers with a sophisticated and easy-to-use telescope. It has a 5-inch diameter refractor, a focal length of 1250mm, a focal ratio of f/10, and one multicoated 25mm (50x) 1.25-inch Plossl eyepiece.

After locating just two alignment stars, you'll have the NexStar 5 up and running. If you are new to astronomy, you may wish to start off by using the NexStar's built-in sky tour feature, which commands the NexStar to find the most interesting objects in the sky and automatically moves to each one. The experienced will appreciate the comprehensive database of over 18,000 objects, including customized lists of all the best deep-sky objects, bright double stars, and variable stars. Here is an example of the actual text from the telescope's database as it describes M87: "Elliptical galaxy equal in size to 790 billion solar masses. More than 1,000 globular clusters are known to surround this galaxy and it is believed to have a giant black hole at its center. Distance: 50 million light years."

The NexStar has alt-azimuth operation (no need to polar align). Even if you can't find the location of two bright alignment stars, NexStar will find them for you using the "go-to" hand control that can be mounted on the fork arm for hands-free operation. The hand control is fully computerized, and it has red back-illuminated buttons that help retain your night vision. Just enter the date, the time, and your location, and the NexStar will align itself to the necessary stars. The hand control includes a built-in RS-232 communication port allowing you to control the NexStar from a computer and use popular astronomy software (like The Sky, which is included) for point-and-click slewing ability.

Finding objects is easy with the Star Pointer finderscope, which is like having a laser pointer that you can shine directly onto the night sky. Just align the red dot seen through the Star Pointer with the desired star in the sky.

Additional features include:

Star diagonal--1.25 inches
Visual back--1.25 inches
Heavy duty base with rubber feet
RS-232 port to communicate with a PC
Nine available slew speeds
Incredible 6.5-degrees-per-second slew speed
Powered by standard AC adapter or eight AA batteries (not included)

Mounted on a sturdy metal base, the NexStar 5 sits securely on any flat surface and has three rubber gripping feet for vibration suppression and traction. Weighing under 18 pounds, it is extremely portable.

Customer Reviews:

goto where ?.......2002-06-02

After receiving this scope .I read the instructions and understood them. The goto feature is not difficult to figure out.So I had no problems there. I have never been able to see any neb. or gal. Nothing but the usual boring venus and jupiter. The moon of course. This scope although expensive is no better than my dept. store telescope. What good is goto when you getthere there is nothing to see. Star test was excellent so it doesnt need collimation. DO NOT BUY ANY SCOPE WITH LESS THAN 8inches of apeture. And you can take that to the bank!!!

What I see through this scope.......2002-02-11

I originally ordered the Nexstar 80 GT because I wanted to see the bands of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn during winter of 2001-2 while those planets were high and bright. Before it shipped, an astronomer friend suggested that I save [price] on a 5" or 8" scope by not buying that one. So I bought the Nexstar 5 instead. Overall, I am very happy with it, but now I wish that I had saved [price] on an 8" or 10" scope by not buying the 5".

With the Nexstar 5 and [price] worth of accessory filters and lenses, I see clearly five or six bands of Jupiter, I watch the four largest moons change positions as they orbit, but cannot see the moons' shadows on the face of the planet. On a clear, still night I can just distinguish the red spot. Saturn is beautiful, but I cannot make out separate rings, they blur into one. I see the Great Andromeda Nebula as an indistinct splotch of light. My favorite targets are, by far, the sun and moon. With proper filters (mandatory for solar observing) I can see sunspots, but solar flares require another very expensive filter. The moon is spectacular through this scope; I can easily see many interesting features of craters and mare. These are just my observations and not meant to criticize the scope - it does exactly what it is capable of doing.

While it does seem logical to spend your money on optics, until you become an expert skywatcher, the Nexstar goto and tracking features are a must. The sun, moon, and planets move so quickly across the sky that without some type of tracking system they quickly exit the field of view. Without the goto features it would be impossible for moderately experienced observers to point the scope at, say the Christmas Tree Nebula (never mind whether you can actually see anything once it gets there). The Nexstar does indeed have an internal database of 18,000 objects and 17,995 of them are either invisible or nondescript points of light - but that does not mean that they are not worth pointing the scope at.

Astronomy is an expensive addiction. Even those who use the Hubble space telescope would prefer a bigger and better scope. So in summary, buy this scope if it is what you can afford, otherwise do your homework and then buy a more expensive one.

Compact and easy to use........2002-01-15

Small enough to throw in the trunk of your car, sturdy enough to withstand the rigors of stumbling around the backyard in the dark, the Nexstar 5 offers fine viewing and ease of use for any beginner that does not have the time or the attention span to learn the locations of many celestial objects.

Great scope for the size.......2001-06-28

My neighbor has a Meade ETX125 and he has spent countless hours modifying it and attempting to make it as easy to use as the Nexstar (he still is not there). After a fairly simple alignment process, the scope slews easily to find other objects. The computer program can find most objects an amateur like myself would be looking for. The computer program that comes with it provides additional info. The scope does require additional lens so be prepared to purchase extras as well as filters if you are going to be looking at the moon.

Great Fun.......2001-05-10

I purchased this product about 2 Months ago, even though it came with all accessories to get you started, I am surprised how much money I have spent trying to get all the add ons to get the most out if the telescope. As most of you who own telescopes know, one you start to explore you want more.

The Nexstar 5 clarity is outstanding, the included computer and motors makes it cool, however it does take some time to get it aligned before you can start observing.

The Moon and Sun are incredible clear, I have not have a chance to observe any of the planets yet, for terrestrial viewing it is also outstanding

I am enjoying it, I will let you more as I explore more

PS: before you go an invest on any sophisticated eyepieces, invest your money on a Zoom eyepiece, it is much better than spending hundreds of dollars and having multiple eyepieces that you have to carry and change depending on what you are observing.

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