Panasonic HDC TM90K – High Quality Easy To Use Camcorder
Another breed of camcorders is gaining popularity in the market of digital devices; the Panasonic HDC TM90K 3D Compatible Camcorder with 16GB Internal Flash Memory. It is notably a very convenient and flexible camcorder breed that makes it easy for people to capture great quality video footage and images.
Pros
- Video quality is very good
- Touch screen layout is easy to use
- Full auto mode is quick to focus
- 26 x optical zoom
- Good low light performance
Cons
- Included software only runs on PC and not MAC
- Not include a mini hdmi to standard hdmi cable
Summary
This is a small camcorder that has a big clear picture. Coming from DV and moving to HD has made all my DV movies look outdated! The Panasonic HDC TM90K Has a lot of options but is easy to use.
The Panasonic HDC TM90K ’s touch screen layout is easy to use and the menus do not get in the way of the recording. The Panasonic menus are selected from a column on the left side of the screen so you can still see the image you are shooting and it has large enough buttons that are easy to select.
On a different brand named HD camcorder I tried out, the menu selections were so small that my finger would consistently choose the option either above or below the one I was trying to choose, also there was another brand named touch screen HD camcorder that i looked at, when bringing up the on screen menus, it would darken the picture on the screen and overlay the options across the darkened screen.
This camcorder works great as a point and shoot as the full auto mode is quick to focus, adjusting the white balance, and removes hand shakes very well.
If your looking for more control, there are some preset scene selections to choose from in certain conditions(Sports, Portrait, Spotlight, Snow, Beach, Fireworks, Night Scenery…), as well as separate adjustment controls for white balance, shutter speed, IRIS and focus.
One fun setting to play with is smile shot. When enabled, the Panasonic HDC TM90K will take a still shot of a detected smiling face automatically while its recording in the movie mode.
A little bit about HD recording settings. Basically the higher the resolution, the more space it takes on your memory card and this results in less time that you have to record on a card. I know it sounds simple, but it is important to remember when selecting full 1080/60p recording mode.
For viewing the movies and photos from the camcorder there is a HDMI port and a composite jack to hook up to your TV or projector or whatever. For moving files to other media, the Panasonic HDC TM90K offers a direct burn to DVD/BD if you have a stand alone recorder that accepts a USB input. It also connects to a computer via USB.
imovie (mac only) will recognize this camera and will import the media files. The TM90K also has a special iframe movie recording mode that is made just for imovie. The HD movie files are .mts files and can be played back with the free VLC media player that can be downloaded from the web.
There is software that comes with the camcorder for editing movies in Windows and it supports all versions of xp, vista and 7 only. No support for 2000, NT or below. I have found software on the web that you can purchase and download to edit and convert .mts files. Remember to backup your files before you play around with them. Panasonic HDC TM90K is easy to use, takes excellent HD video, is very small and compact, and doesn’t cost very much.