This the first review I have felt was worth the time to do. I have have worked in several fields of photography over a 37 year career that include motion picture, commercial catalogs and aerial mapping. I am also an avid amateur nature photographer. I lost count of how many film and video cameras I have purchased over the years. My last camera was a JVC model GR-DV3000 and 3.5 years old. It was a very good camcorder. I read several reviews on the Panasonic DHC HS300 before purchasing it. I is an outstanding piece of engineering. It work great right out of the box. I purchased the camera on July 6 and used it extensively on a recent trip to Las Vegas. The results from daylight and night time shooting is superb.

Pros: There are so many good features it is difficult to determine where to start. Switching from Video to Stills is easy and smooth. The touch screen is a big plus in navigating through the various menus. For the advanced user the are numerous manual options to chose from. The 10..6 megapixel stills are better that my 8.2 megapixel Canon D20 digital still camera. I purchased a 16 GB Transcend SDHC card to compliment the 120 GB internal hard drive. I used both the hard drive and the card in Vegas. It is very easy to transfer files from one to another. The video and still files work well with editing software. I use CyberLink Power Director 7 Ultra. Cables are provided to link up to HD TVs and pro logic receivers with the HDMI mini. Other cables are also provided. The thumb nails provide easy access to the video clips and stills.

Cons: The camera button and touch screen might pose some difficulty for a person with large hands. In this case the stylus to navigate the touch screen is necessary. Do not buy the filter sets that use a reduction ring from 43 mm to 37 mm. You end up with vignetting at the wide angle setting. I purchased Tiffen 43 mm filters. The additional Tele and Wide angle lenses are not worth the money. There is no neck strap or case available for this camera. Therefore I purchase a Lowpro gadget bag. It can be used as a fanny pack this a belt.

Conclusion: A bit pricey but Panasonic has put together a great overall package.

I've had this camera for about 2 months now and I'm very happy with it. This camera really shines in so many ways: stunning picture quality, ultra portable, lots of pro-type features and controls, fast and easy to use with a PC (unlike the HDV camcorders like the HV20, HV30, HV40 from Canon which still use tapes and require a slow capturing process). I was going back and forth on either purchasing this camera or the new Canon HV40 model, but ultimately I decided on the Panasonic HDC-HS300 as I really liked the picture quality, preferred not having to deal with tapes, and I really wanted a true focus ring which the HDC-HS300 offers and the Canon does not. The one thing I don't like about this camera is that it doesn't have native 24p mode. It has a 24p digital cinema mode which can be enabled in the recording menu options but it works via a 60i wrapper (this is quite common with video cameras). That means you'll want to remove the "2:3 pull-down" caused by the 24p conversion process with something like Neo-Scene/Cineform (which is windows software for around $100 and is extremely effective - you will want this software any way if you own an AVCHD camera). However I feel that Panasonic should really have included native 24p as a feature on this camera, it would have been easy enough for them to do. Although in the grand-scheme of things, that is a small price to pay for the excellent quality you can get from this camera, at an excellent price-point and the improved workflow that recording to internal hard drive or optional SD cards provide (also the 24p digital cinema mode on this camcorder still looks great despite it not being true "native 24p").

Let me give you some quick tips for using this camera: attempting to directly edit the AVCHD .mts files this camera creates is a bad idea. It will eat-up far too much of your computers resources and it is just not worth the extra headaches. As the more experienced video pros will tell you, AVCHD is an acquisition format and is not meant to be edited directly. So instead what you will want to do is buy yourself a copy of Neo-Scene software for about $100 and use the convert feature to convert your .mts files to .avi files and then edit the cineform converted .avi files (import the .avi files into your timeline). These will run much better on your PC and the Cineform software is highly regarded with video pros for excellent quality and ease of editing.

For those of you who want to use this camera just to shoot home videos or other personal stuff, you can easily record your video to SD cards (this camera has the capability to record to either the internal hard drive or SD cards) and then you can watch the footage directly from the SD card on most of the currently available blu-ray players. This makes for a very convenient way to record/watch your home movies. This is a great feature and sure to be popular with home-movie enthusiasts.

For those who are thinking of using this camera for indie movie making, note that the lens attachment is 43mm (same size as the popular canon hv line of HDV camcorders). This means it is compatible with lots of different tiffen filters, with 35mm adapters like the Letus35 mini/Jag35, and other add-ons that are commonly available to hop-up a high-quality consumer video camera to use the accessories of more professional type cameras. However if you are considering the HDC-HS300 you may want to consider the new Panasonic HMC40 as well, which is also new and basically the same camera but with some additional features enabled (24p native and others) but has a more professional looking form-factor/body.

OK, So I have used this camcorder for about 1 week. I think the outdoor shots taken with this camcorder are top notch and look fantastic. I play them back via my PS3 using the USB port and a SD card adapter on my 46" Mitsubishi LCD TV. I also converted the videos to Apple TV format and they still look great. The indoor shooting seems to be best when you switch to manual. I would say these videos are good but not great. I had a Sony TRV38 before and that camcorder was worse indoors than the HS300. Keep in mind that I'm comparing the outdoor shots to indoor ones and all camcorder will be better outside. I will also say that they are still better as far as clarity and color than my old DVC camcorder. I will update this review once I have some more footage shot. The transfer from hard drive to SD card works well. I converted a 30 minute Christmas morning video on my MAC in less than 20 minutes using the SD card to transfer. So far I'm pretty please with using Imovie 09 to work with the files. Even though I have not used it very long I would have no problem recommending it to a friend,

Let me star by saying that I have had this model HDC-HS300-S for over a year now and I have no complains, every aspect of my camcorder is A to A+, I find it very easy to use, with greats manual features, the Japanese HDC-HS300 is a more advanced camcorder. It includes 120GB of internal Hard Disk Drive, a larger 1/4.1-inch CMOS with a 3,050,000 x 3 gross pixel count, a 12x optical zoom, and also offer an optical image stabilization which make it easy to shoot.

This is a highly recommended Camcorder for everybody.

I personally do not have this model but I friend of my does and I have tried a couples of times so I will focus only in what I have used and note.

Plus:

* Huge capacity
* Vast of manual controls
* Nice looking
* Perfect for outdoor activities


Cons:

* touch screen might pose some difficulty for a person with large hands

* the editing software need some improvements

* Low light performance is not the best

Overall it is a real good HD machine!!!

Even thought Panasonic it selling this camera as their "top of the line HD camcorder" is not like that. As far as a Hard Drive camcorder it is very good but since they introduce the HDC-TM300 and now the HDC-TM350 on the way to US is not worth to pay more for less. The HDC-TM stand for Hi Definition Camcorder - Twin Memory which means that you will have a faster, lighter and durable camcorder with the same capabilities.

I bought this camera as the best in 2009 according to VideoMaker Magazine. It is truly high definition when you are near the subject, but if you are far away and use the digital zoom the image get pixeled.

Very difficult to use the HDWriter Program that comes with it.