While the new Panasonic AG-HPX300 might be a bit out of your budget range ($8000 street price), it comes with plenty of bells and whistles.
It shares pedigree with Panasonic HVX200 and it offers much of the same features: a ton of formats and frame rates. It records on P2 cards as well as DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50 and DVCPROHD.
In terms of lenses, it comes with a 17x Fujinon lens that’s well above the usual pro-amateur fair. The sensor is big – 1/3″ and incredibly crisp, recording in FULL HD – 1920×1080.
If your budget allows it, I urge you to rent this baby for a test and then include it in your arsenal!
Well, I am a proud owner of HVX200a and had the opportunity to test this baby. I must say, I was impressed, but not as much to pay almost double the price I paid for HVX. Is it really worth it?
I have bought the HPX300 a year ago and have shot a feature film with it. While a few pople criticized the 300 for having a 1/3 inch sensor, from my personal experience it hasn’t been too much of a problem. Where I needed shallow DOF, I just backed up, zoomed in and was good to go. AVC-I is awesome, 4:2:2 color sampling is great as well allowing us to color-grade as much as we wanted withough introducing artifacts. I have to say that in that price range it is a killer camera. Flexible, capable, portable. All of the needed functions are right there via hardware not menus. It also has CAC, DRS, capable of recording proxies (used as dailies). I hooked it up with a RedRockMicro matte box and follow focus 2 and was in business. It also has very low power consumption, built in hd monitor and many many other pro goodies.
I recommend it to any indie filmmaker. And if you bent outta shape cuz it has 1/3 imager, get over it, get a relay for SLR lenses and be set. This camera delivers!