Liking my little HDC-TM900

[cmoore]

I do jobs for corporate clients using two Canon HDSLR's and so far so good.. very stellar stuff. I have wanted to replace my aging HDV cameras. Got this little prosumer TM900 at Frys (very clean floor model) for $380. Its about time I got a deal....
That 1080/60p stuff is pretty amazing I must say. Makes me wonder why you don't see more of that, other then the obvious bandwidth it needs of course. Anyway at that price its pretty much a throw away in a year or so but in the meantime ..its pretty fun. to Panasonic for this one.

LOL !!

[pokiou]

I bought the SD900 and yes its a fantastic little camera. Wish we could hack it to up the bitrate. Would be fantastic to get higher image quality. This is a little video i recorded the other night. I'm quite pleased with the camera.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71kF-isJqjA

[thabo]

That is quite a good deal! I got a used TM700 for $500 a couple of months ago. The internal hard drive can record something like 20hours + of 1080p60.

The picture is great but editing is a pain as FCPx does not natively recognize that 1080p60! You need a pretty fast machine to edit it natively too even when your transcode to PROres.

R

[BennyMonday]

I've had mine for a month or so and love it. Wish I got a deal as good as yours (went with B&H), but the footage looks fantastic and since my older version of Vegas couldn't handle it I went with $85 Vegas Movie Studio. I do miss my unlimited timeline but it does handle the 1080/60p natively and is a breeze to render. Amazing looking. Since I'm only using it for work (business type videos of less than 10 mins), I can handle the limitation of the NLE ... just curious how it would do on a short film/pilot project. I don't shoot my own film projects but confidence is building with this little bugger.
The panning with a lens hood on and OIS on, makes the vig come out in the corners really bad ... probably my only complaint so far.
He's a little fast motion I slowed down.

http://youtu.be/8S08pkdvWDE

[mellodeque]

we're also using small panasonic's to B shots - here is example of quality of ours small pana.... we also using HMC151 ;) now time for AC160 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dlVBYj-LkY

[Kin869]

I have a SD600 (the older model) and I have to agree that the 1080 60p image quality is pretty awesome! As a bonus, slow motion looks great going from 60 to 30 in post. I got it for $300 last year when the newer models came out and I've used it for a couple shoots. I paired it with a 35mm adapter (who uses those anymore?) and was surprised at how good the footage looked. Here's a short video that I shot with it (some of the footage was shot with the 35mm adapter).

[brunerww]

Kin - great work! Goes to show what these little prosumer cams can do in the hands of someone with a talent for storytelling. Guess I'd better go out and buy a Letus35 Mini and a 46mm to 43mm step down ring so I can use my old Nikon lenses with the TM900. Don't need no stinkin' DSLR :-)

Cheers,

Bill

[Kin869]

Thanks Bill! A 35mm adapter is nice because you don't have to worry about aliasing and moire problems, but your GH1/GH2 will probably blow your TM900 + Letus35 out of the water!

[brunerww]

My GH2 is unhacked, so the two cameras actually cut together pretty well. Better, surprisingly, than the GH1 and GH2.

[Kin869]

Nice! I might be getting a GH2 soon so it's good to know I'll be able to use my old setup as a B-cam.