Panasonic Palmcorder® PV-DV53 Mini DV Camcorder

Pros: Excellent quality, manual control.
Cons: Battery life, sensitive LCD pull out screen

Very nice camera , easy to use, small compact design. Excellent quality video. Great manual override features. Good bang for the buck.

Pros: Film quality, ease of use, price.
Cons: Build quality, bad customer service.

When I purchased my camera (PV-DV53) one year ago, I was very pleased with its performance and ease of use, especially when compared to its budget price. However, potential buyers should beware... My camera stopped functioning properly; switches to 'safe mode' (disables record and playback functions) due to a tape transport problem. After further investigation (don't expect great customer service by the way) I discovered that many other people have had the exact same problem with Panasonic MiniDV cameras. I believe this is something potential buyers should be aware of; my next DV camera will certainly not be a Panasonic - although it seemed to be a fairly good camera for a low price, I have serious doubts where build quality is concerned, and Panasonic's customer service is below par.

Don't take my word for it though - if you plan on buying this camera, spend some time doing online research first.

Pros: CCD size 1/4 " important for good low light performance
Cons: COM port instead of USB for still images transfer, weight, size

The Panasonic PV-DV53 is middle size camcorder. The main advantage is 1 / 4 inch CCD. Most of the modern mini DV camcorders have 1 / 6 inch CCDs. Size of CCD is the main factor for low light performance. Video quality is good even in low light condition due to large CCD. Price is low. Camcorder-computer firewire connection for digital video transfer works excellent and my Windows XP recognized this camcorder automatically without any additional drivers. I bought it for $300 in Circuit City.
This camcorder is little bit heavier than latest small size mini DV devices and has inconvenient record button (on my opinion).
Zoom is smooth and auto focus is excellent. Auto exposition works good and quickly.
Standard battery lasts about 1 h.
I didn’t try still mode- using digital camera for still images.
If you don’t care about weight and size – it’s high quality unit with good optic, reliable mechanic and solid body.