Price: $614.99 - $562.99
(as of Oct 27, 2024 03:04:18 UTC - Details)

The V785 Full-HD Camcorder shoots bright, crisp images even in dim lighting, due to a 34% larger sensor (1/2.3-inch vs. standard 1/5.8-inch). To reduce hand shake, the AUTO O.I.S. Lock function automatically activates. Compact camera body includes 4-drive lens system and optical 20x zoom. Smooth slow motion video, multi manual dial settings, and a wind shield zoom microphone for high sound quality.
High Sensitivity 1/2.3-inch BSI Sensor for Bright, Beautiful Shots Even in Dim Lighting: The 1/2.3-inch Back Side Illumination Sensor has a large effective area and 34% larger pixels than a 1/5.8-inch sensor for reduced noise in low light.Operating environment : PC - Mac, OS - macOS 11.2, CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo or better.
Level Shot Function for More Stable Images and Less Blurring: Detects and corrects the tilting of captured images; hybrid O.I.S. thoroughly suppress blurring all the way from wide-angle to powerful zoom shots for crisp, clear images
Powerful Zoom in a Compact Camera Body: By driving each of four lens groups separately, the drive ranges are reduced, resulting in high image quality and high-powered zooming in a compact camcorder
Crisp, Clear Details in Both Bright and Dark Areas: By combining two images taken with different exposure times, the HDR Movie function suppresses blown highlights and blocked shadows for crisp, clear videos
Wireless Twin Camera for Picture-in-Picture Shooting with a Smartphone; Using your smartphone with Wi-Fi operation as a sub camera, you can shoot from two angles at the same time
Reviewer: Charles Carmichael
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Spectacular! (just not in low-light)
Review: This is a great product for what it is designed to do and it seems that many of the negative reviews are by people that didn’t research their purchase properly. I understand that frustration, but if you know what it can and can’t do before purchasing then you will not be disappointed! Let me give some of the pros and cons to explain what I mean. At the end I have a small explanation of what you can expect for picture quality.Pros - Zoom: The zoom is amazing! I shoot most of my videos on a 1.6x crop frame Canon DSLR and there is no lens in the world that will get you 59x optical zoom. That is something like 1650mm equivalent which gives you a tight headshot at 200ft. There are several “Intelligent” or digital zoom options, just disable that from the first day and forget about it. - Battery/Charging: The battery lasts forever. I’ve done long recordings and I really haven’t hit 50% battery. It is also easy to power off USB (in two different ways: the included barrel plug or micro USB) which means that a cheap battery bank will keep it at 100% power for days. - Price: At just under $200 this is $50 cheaper that most of the competition (for example the Vixia HF R800). Even for the same price I prefer the Panasonic to the Canon, and I’m an avid Canon DSLR fan! - Microphone: No, this doesn’t have a broadcast quality microphone. However, it is noticeably better than the mic on my Canon DSLR, especially in the wind. I do wish that it accepted an external mic input, and I’ve listed that as a con. So the quality isn’t great, but since it’s better than a DSLR I have to put it as a pro.Cons - Microphone Input: I really wish this accepted an external mic input as most of it’s competitors do. I get that most people buying a cheap camcorder aren’t going to use an external mic, but I would! - No Carrying Case: Even a simple cloth bag would have been better than nothing, I bought a $10 case that’s a bit too big for it. I wish I had something better. - Menu Interface: This isn’t a strong point for most camcorders, but this one is particularly finicky with the menus. The low quality touch screen and small icons mean it often takes two tries to hit the right button and the menus are designed someone who has never actually used a camera. - Live-Video Output: I haven’t even tried this, it uses a mini-HDMI, which is a stupid standard, but at least they include a mini-HDMI to HDMI cord with the camera. There are a lot of other reviews that talk about this… I haven’t tried and I don’t care, but others have issues, so consider that if you care.A note about video quality:I’ll start by saying that this is about on par with a good smartphone for video quality and maybe underperforms a flagship phone in low light. In a daylight scene it can be hard to tell the difference between this camcorder footage and a $1,000 DSLR with a good lens! However, as soon as you go indoors the quality of the camcorder footage deteriorates to a barely usable level. It says it is F2.08 @ 108mm and while I don’t think they are lying, the quality of the footage would not lead a person to believe that number…So why would you buy this!? Why have I given it 5 stars!?Because a good new DSLR+lens cost 3 or 5 times as much, and this camcorder keeps pace with good lighting conditions.Because a smartphone is lucky if it can get to 2x zoom without the quality collapsing and this camcorder does 59x and looks great.Because it is $200 and can get great footage that would be hard to get other ways!If you want to record indoors/low-light, or need the absolute best in video quality then spend the extra money to get something with a much larger sensor (not really available on any "camcorder"). Otherwise, you’ll love this!

Reviewer: Gregory M. Ross
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Awesome
Review: I've only had this camera less than a day and I'm already impressed. Very stable and sharp focused. Auto-focus is fast and accurate! Color, exposure and zoom are phenomenal! I've tried two cheaper video cameras, and this puts them to shame. They were 4K and this 1080 camera is so much better. It's true. You get what you pay for! The app isn't great but the camera is amazing!

Reviewer: Shaft of the Spear
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Extremely Capable Video Camera; great value.
Review: I love this camera!!! It's small and light, and well made, and feature rich. With a Comica V10 Pro mic and standard battery attached, this thing weighs less than a pound. If you have big hands, I can see how this could be too small for you. But, the ergonomics of the form factor for shooting video on this thing versus a DSLR or... a phone, is just way better, and way more comfortable. Also, there's no big learning curve to using this thing, like there is with a DSLR. I bought the Panasonic HC-V785(K?) Camcorder as my main camera to create content. I was looking at the Panasonic HC-VX981, which is the 4K version of this camera, but I could not afford it at this time. Don't quote me on this, but it seems that the only major difference between HC-VX981 and this one (HC-V785), is that the -VX981 shoots in 4K and the -V785 shoots in 1080p. I don't ever make 4K content, so this wasn't a big deal. This camera allows you to manually control your shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and White Balance (setting White Balance on here is really simple). But the auto image mode (where the camera picks the settings) is actually pretty good, too. This camera shoots excellent video with ease, and I'm able to get great picture quality with blurry backgrounds. It has impressive Zoom that you just can't get on a DSLR without changing out lenses mid... thrust, and the built-in microphone is really good (aside from being out on a really windy day, when it's not). It's got an external mic input, so you can use whatever mic you want with this thing. And it's got an HDMI out, so you can record to an external source. This camera also has an audio out (3.5 mm) so you could monitor the sound coming in. This camera has a built-in light, that is surprisingly helpful. Transferring data from this camera to my computer is a breeze; as soon as you plug the camera into a computer, and click PC, it comes up as a read-only hard drive. So, you can drag and drop your files, but you can't delete anything off the camera via PC. If you wanna delete anything off your camera, you need to do it on the camera itself, in this configuration; minor gripe. You can shoot stills with this camera, but they're just.. okay. I don't really take pictures when making my content, so this feature isn't that important to me. Image stabilization is pretty decent, as well. This camera uses SDXC SD cards up to 128 GB (according to the manual), but I'm currently using a 256 GB SDXC SD card, with no issues. The battery it comes with lasts for about an hour and 40 minutes. If you're plugged into a wall, you can pretty much shoot all day and not overheat.There are some things I do not love about this camera. The biggest one is that when I completely face the screen in "selfie" Mode (screen facing the same direction as the camera is pointing), the ability to adjust any camera options via touchscreen disappears. This is frustrating when I am filming things, alone. I feel like this could be fixed with a software or firmware update. Which leads me to my next big issue with this camera: there is almost no support for this camera from Panasonic. Panasonic! -Can't ya spare A GUY?! -Just one? It seems like your menu and features on your camcorders have been using the same base software for the past 10 years (AND THAT IS NOT A BAD THING, it works! Panasonic surprisingly makes an excellent line of video cameras), can't ya just throw A guy or two at this to make minor product improvements on your existing product lines? ...Please?? -I love your stuff. The wifi feature is kinda hoky - I mean, being able to link your phone and use it as second camera is cool, but your phone app sucks, and I really feel like this camera should have a blue tooth option to be able to link... everything to this camera. Another minor issue I have, is that the audio from the audio out has a slight delay which, if you were monitoring your sound with some headphones, could really mess you up. I also wish there was a dedicated stop-motion setting on this thing; I have not figured out how do it with this camera, or if it's even capable.This camera is not perfect, but it is still extremely capable. With all its short-comings, I still love this thing. I love playing with it, I love using it, and I love the output and features it gives me. If you're looking for a dedicated camera for shooting video, and you don't have the money to spend on a DSLR -and/or you don't have the know-how to use a DSLR, this camera, or its 4K brother (HC-VX981), is not a bad option. This is a good video camera, guys.

Reviewer: charlie chadwick
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great camera for the money
Review: I was looking for a camera that could take videos in low light, and did not switch off after 20 or 30 minutes. This camera is perfect. It creates multiple 20 minute files, but they can be combined seamlessly in most video editing software. If you keep power to the camera, it will record for 6 hours straight, if you have sufficient memory. It also can make stop action videos, take pictures while shooting, and shoot in slow motion.

Reviewer: Schuyler
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent zoom
Review: I use this camera for surveillance. Small, easy, good quality video, amazing zoom.

Reviewer: Jason Griffin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great!
Review: Camera works great, had a bit of a postal problem but seller quickly fix problem and had my camera to me. Quick to respond to me and fix the problem. Will buy again from this seller.

Reviewer: France Quirion
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I have purchased this camera for our little Historical Society and we are very happy with the quality. We have purchased an external microphone as the sound was not as great as we want.

Reviewer: Octavio Esteban
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Excelente cámara de video grava muy bien llego en excelentes condiciones.

Reviewer: athan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I'm an amateur, I collect memories. This camcorder is a blessing. Picture Brilliant , sound surprisingly clear. Light weight, easy to use, fits in palm super comfy. Battery lasts 4 hours at least with the flash on. Very steady and strong zoom. If you want something easy, to point and shoot, this is it. For the record, I have a DSLR and the right lenses to shoot a video but with this camcorder everything is easier. Buy it before they become obsolete

Reviewer: martin jolicoeur
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Cette caméro permet de réaliser de très belles vidéos. L'autonomie de la batterie est aussi excellente. Il faut utiliser un carte SD classe 10 pour que tout fonctionne parfaitement. De plus, il faut avoir un bon logiciel de convertion vidéo, car cela permet de transformer une vidéo dans un format qui pourra être lu par toutes les sortes d'appareils (TV, smartphone,...). Je la recommande à tous ceux qui veulent avoir un bon appareil compact et facile à utiliser.

Reviewer: Pat
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: excellent!