The Panasonic AG-AC130A is the perfect all around camcorder for run and gun pro use. It's big enough to look the part but light enough to use all day without fatigue. The camcorder uses twin SDHC cards which can be set up to record in sequence for longer recording time or they can record to both cards simultaneously for file back-up. The AVCHD format allows longer recording times than the Quicktime format while providing the same compression quality, but the trade-off is you must convert the files to Quicktime for use in Final Cut Pro. If you use Sony Vegas, you can drag and drop the files to your drive and edit the native AVCHD files right away.The three 1/3 inch MOS chips provide excellent low light performance and super clean and sharp footage even in typical room lighting. They also provide truly rich and accurate colors beyond that of most DSLR's. You can manually dial in the exact color temperature in 100K increments. The lens has very wide angle and strong zoom at 22x optical zoom. Sharpness is good, but just a tad below the Leica series of lenses on their other camcorders. There are three independent rings for focus, manual zoom and manual iris control. Each ring has one function and there's no having to set a control to change ring functions. Focus is electronic, but it is super smooth even beyond a mechanical focus ring.
Film Makers smitten with low depth of field will have to shoot with the lens wide open and adjust the lighting and neutral density filters to obtain a film-like depth of field, but it is possible. There is a native 24P setting in both 1080 and 720 modes as well as cinema gamma for film like color and contrast. Dual XLR connectors mean you can do away with second system audio, saving countless hours of video sync in the editing suite. If film makers can get past the DSLR hype, they'll find this Panny more suitable than they think for their film making tasks at a cost that won't break the bank. There's everything needed for indie film making right out of the box.
Auto focus is reportedly slow, and that is confirmed by this user. However, any pro shooter would never use auto focus anyway, so it's a moot point. Truthfully, I would rather see them do away with autofocus and use a true manual focus only lens.
The viewfinder and LCD panel are both high res, so you can focus easily with either one as long as your eyes work as good as these devices. There is electronic peaking for focus assist as well. Zebra stripes and built in waveform monitor help set the perfect exposure and a built in vectorscope helps set up perfect color.
In short, the AG-AC130A has all the bells and whistles most pros need, with image and sound quality to match.
Update: My bad I found the lens cap buried in the box, so it was there.Good camera for light production work. Great especially if you still shoot DV format. not as good in low light as my old Sony PD-150 (you have to turn the gain up). Think hard about exactly how you are planning on using your camera. I needed FireWire out, so the equivalent Sony camera was out. But DV files take up a lot of room (4.5 hours is about 64 gigs). Now I'm considering shooting in HD, if only to save space. However, that will require me to use composite out (this camera can't output FireWire when shooting in HD). So although I do like this camera, for my purposes, if I could go back, if get the Sony. Now, if I shot more in HD, if be looking at it differently. Otherwise I'm very happy with this camera.
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