Panasonic HC-WX970 review

4K televisions and displays still aren’t the norm in our homes, but that hasn’t stopped manufacturers from pushing forwards with a raft of 4K-capable camcorders. It’s definitely not a bad idea to futureproof your footage, and with Panasonic’s HC-WX970 you can put the extra resolution to good use – capturing still images from your videos that are the equivalent to those taken with an 8-megapixel camera. That’s easily high enough for sharing online, or even printing at reasonable sizes.

The HC-WX970 is a medium-sized camcorder, yet feels comfortable to hold one-handed. It’s surprisingly light at 360g, so we never felt fatigue while shooting. Like many of Panasonic’s other 4K-capable camcorders, it uses a 1/2.3in, 18.9-megapixel primary sensor, paired with a 20x optical zoom lens with a 4.08-81.6mm equivalent focal length and f/1.8-3.6 aperture.

There’s also a secondary sensor built into the flip-out touchscreen, much like the previous HC-W850. This uses a smaller 1/4in, 5.3-megapixel sensor and makes it possible to shoot yourself as you record other people or events, providing a commentary video track to go along with proceedings. How regularly you might use this function will be down to individual users, but we could certainly see it as useful for those who like to shoot reaction videos or possible citizen journalists.

You can adjust the angle of the lens with a fiddly slider on the side, although it’s still an improvement on Panasonic’s older twin cameras that forced you to swivel the entire touchscreen – preventing you from seeing a live view. The lens isn’t particularly wide angled, however, so you have a relatively tight shot of your face when you’re handholding the camera unless you extend your arm out. This isn’t the most comfortable or effective way of shooting when it comes to steadiness though.  You can also rotate the lens for an alternative front-facing angle, or all the way round so that it’s not exposed when not in use. It’s also possible to use your smartphone’s camera as the secondary camera, allowing for more flexible camera placement once you’ve paired both devices and installed the companion app.

The 3in articulating, 460,800 dot LCD display is slightly grainy, but perfectly serviceable for framing shots in the absence of a viewfinder. The resistive touchscreen takes a hard press to register inputs, but it’s still a quick way to change settings.

Similarly, you’re able to change a number of settings as well as remotely control the camera using the companion app on a smartphone connected via Wi-Fi. There’s about half a second of lag between what the sensor captures and what is displayed on your phone’s screen in live view. We liked that the camcorder’s LCD display switches off automatically when a smartphone is paired to conserve battery.

The zoom rocker on the top of the camcorder will also stop working, with zoom instead controlled by an onscreen rocker in the app. This has two distinct zoom speed settings, which actually makes it slightly easier to smoothly zoom compared to the physical rocker that lacks the distinction.

Recording quality was as good as we expected based on Panasonic’s previous camcorders. Outdoor footage recorded at 50Mbit/s MP4 at 1080p looked fantastic, with plenty of detail even when zooming in from massive distances. On a native 4K display, our UHD clips were impressively clear and sharp, with incredible levels of detail. Captured 8-megapixel stills looked great too, with just a press of the camera shutter button needed to grab an image. The five-axis hybrid optical image stabilisation also did a great job of maintaining a steady shot, even when we zoomed in all the way.

^Photo captured with from 4K video

The HC-WX970 also has a HDR (High Dynamic Range) video mode, although this is limited to filming in 1080p only. Like with still photography, HDR will help with scenes that have great variations between shadows and highlights. Often in such scenarios either the foreground object is correctly exposed, with the background blown out, or vice versa. HDR mode exposes for both and combines the image, capturing greater range across the light spectrum. We found it effective, avoiding the overly-artificial look we’ve seen from other HDR footage.

Battery life was also very good. We managed 1 hour and 53 minutes of recording at 1080p, which is very respectable. Charging is handled through a DC jack on the side of the camcorder and a USB to DC jack cable is provided along with a 5V/1.8A USB wall adaptor. This will mean you’ll be able to charge the camcorder through the USB adaptors that come with most tablets, which could potentially mean you carry one less USB adaptor on your next holiday.

Overall the Panasonic HC-WX970 is a feature-packed camcorder that’s light and comfortable to use. 4K video is still tricky to edit and not everyone has a display that can do the footage justice, but in the meantime 4K photo capture definitely makes it worth shooting as much footage as you can in 4K. The twin camera, on the other hand, probably won’t get a lot of use, so you could feasibly save £100 by opting for the otherwise similar HC-VX870.