As a TV Broadcast Engineer, I know when things are "right". In any design, there have to be compromises.
All of these small cameras are compromises. I bought the TM-900 for one reason -it's 1000 line resolution
in 1080P. You can't touch that for at least another $2K. What I was surprised about is that Panasonic went
all-out trying to top the competition. Say, compared with a Canon M41 (comparable price range) the Panasonic
has a FAR better viewfinder and LCD screen. The Canon doesn't have any focus ring and the TM's is superb and
versatile. The controls for manual adjustment are light-years better on the Panasonic. The TM has Person
identification, not just face ID. This one is amazingthe TM allows you to use the camera's inside processing
chips while you edit with their editorto hyper-speed the video conversion when making DVD's and Blu-Rays.
That's progressive engineering. The TM also is just beautiful-looking while the Canon is totally low-end (the
camera body itself).
I bought both -why? Because the low-light performance of the TM is only average. It's fine and in most shooting
you'd do well. The Canon M41 has their new HD pro sensor (same at their two best pro-consumer cams)and sees
exactly as well as humans do. It's amazingly good at low-light. the TM also has a top quality of 17MBS in it's
AVHCD regular HD recording. the Canon does 24MBS. The Canon is superior when shooting in 1080i (it's top level).
The TM's best 1080i AVHCD level of 17MBS is very good...excellent.. just not superb. Kick it up a notch to 1080P
and you're speechless. Wow! It's a high-res still photograph-that's moving. But remember, 1080P on the TM is
actually above the HD spec. Uh huh. So, your editor might not handle it. You TV might not handle it. When you
render 1080P from the TM onto a AVHCD DVD to play HD on your BLue-Ray player, it is amazing looking.
Also, you can play the native video files out of a TM-900 and M41 directly out of a good Hard-drive media player.
The editing and storage software with the TM is great. It really is. Smooth operator and burns out DVD's and
AVHCD disks with ease. So, the TM is my go-to camera and the Canon is used only if I'm shooting in natural low-light.
2.5 thumbs up on the Panasonic.. a real Pro-sumer camera at a great price. Bravo Panasonic.
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