Panasonic HC-V720 review

The PanasonicHC-V720 is the 2013 update to 2012’s Panasonic HC-V700 , and it doesn’t seem that much has changed. It has a 1/2.33in CMOS sensor, 21x optical zoom and 3in colour touchscreen display, but it does have a larger pixel count of 4.14-megapixels. The HC-V720 also benefits from 5.1-channel surround sound recording rather than the 2-channel stereo recording of the outgoing HC-V700. It also retains Panasonic’s excellent hybrid optical image stabilisation technology, which provides five axes of stabilisation.

The HC-V720’s 3in colour touchscreen monitor is also unchanged from last year’s model. The resistive touchscreen is responsive, and the default icons and details on the monitor are clearly displayed and informative. Grid lines and the level-gauge are thin enough not to obscure your scene but apparent enough to be of use.

The HC-V720’s menu is typical of the range, being a drab combination of grey backgrounds and white text. The HC-V720 responds to your commands quickly, but what little animation there is in its menus is performed jerkily, giving the HC-V720 a slightly cheap, budget feel. As with other Panasonic camcorder menus, the menu options are well organised and you quickly learn where to find the option you want to use.

Sadly, The HC-V720 feels physically cheap, too. The zoom lever, in particular, feels very flimsy. You can push it from one side to the other very quickly and, even if you exercise full care and control, there’s little subtlety in zoom speed. It’s either slow and steady or fast and frantic. The port covers also feel cheap and snap open and shut in an ungraceful manner. This is a shame, because otherwise the HC-V720 feels nicely weighted and well balanced.

WI-FI AND NFC

One feature that separates the HC-V720 from the outgoing HC-V700 is Wi-Fi. As with the top-end Panasonic HC-X920, you can either connect the HC-V720 to an existing network using a wireless access point or connect to it directly. Direct connection is the easiest way of connecting, as you simply have to select the HC-V720’s SSID and enter a passcode that the HC-V720 provides.

Once connected, you can use Panasonic’s Image app to control and monitor the HC-V720 remotely. We used the Image app with a third-generation iPad and an iPhone 4S, and performance was similar on both devices, with around a second elapsing before the Image app updated itself to reflect the scene captured by the HC-V720.

Much of the Image app’s screen is consumed by the monitor window, with the zoom slider and record, photo and mode buttons being located to the right. At the bottom of the screen is a meter that shows the level of magnification graphically and numerically when you use the app’s zoom lever. Conveniently, the Image app also displays the remaining battery life graphically and numerically. We think the zoom slider is too close to the record, photo and mode buttons, and would be better located at the base of the app, just below the magnification meter.

You can also stream footage to your mobile device, which is incredibly handy if you’re shooting on location and want to review footage quickly on a larger tablet screen, or if you simply want to play home movies to show your friends or family.

The HC-V720 has a good set of connection ports, including a Mini HDMI output, a Mini USB port, an A/V output jack and a 3.5mm microphone jack. It also has a shoe adaptor that you can use to mount accessories. That’s not a bad list of connections for a camcorder at this price, but we would have liked a 3.5mm headphone jack too.

VIDEO QUALITY

In our toytown video, the HC-V720 didn’t reproduce the fur of our teddy bears as well as the HC-X920, with clumps of fur looking like half-cooked grains of rice rather than fine hairs.

There’s also a lot of noise, even in the well-lit parts of the toytown scene. Compression artefacts add to this, making the HC-V720’s footage look much shabbier than that of the HC-X920’s. Of course, the HC-X920 is much more expensive, so this is to be expected, and the quality of the HC-V720’s footage really is more than good enough for recording family videos and documenting events.

This screen capture shows the Panasonic HC-V720’s image quality. Notice the lack of texture on the toy chick’s fur where the light hits it

As for detail, the HC-V720 falls short of the standard set by the HC-X920, with very dark and black objects having very little detail, if any. Lighter, brighter objects fare better, but the staining of our wooden train track, although apparent, fell victim to compression and didn’t have the sharpness seen in the HC-X920’s footage.

This shot was taken at full optical zoom in daylight, there’s a good amount of detail, but it’s starting to be lost

The effects of compression were also evident in daylight footage, with the flowers on our trellis not appearing as sharp or as detailed as they did on the HC-X920’s footage. Brightly lit reflective surfaces also lost detail and became large patches of bright white, but there was little noise evident in daylight footage. The HC-V720 also captured much more detail in daylight, even on dark objects. Noise was apparent on indoor footage under fluorescent lights, but it wasn’t enough to ruin your videos.

CONCLUSION

We like the Panasonic HC-V720, especially its Wi-Fi features, but we don’t like the cheap feel of the controls, particularly the zoom lever. We can forgive this, though, thanks to great image quality for the price, a 3MOS camera is far better but then it costs twice as much. If you’re looking for a cheaper camcorder then this fits the bill perfectly.