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Panasonic's standard-def camcorders get bigger hard drives, extreme zooms

Announced Wednesday at CES 2009, the SDR-H80 and SDR-H90 camcorders from Panasonic offer storage capacities up to 80GB and an optical zoom of 70x.

Joshua Goldman Managing Editor / Advice
Managing Editor Josh Goldman is a laptop expert and has been writing about and reviewing them since built-in Wi-Fi was an optional feature. He also covers almost anything connected to a PC, including keyboards, mice, USB-C docks and PC gaming accessories. In addition, he writes about cameras, including action cams and drones. And while he doesn't consider himself a gamer, he spends entirely too much time playing them.
Expertise Laptops, desktops and computer and PC gaming accessories including keyboards, mice and controllers, cameras, action cameras and drones Credentials
  • More than two decades experience writing about PCs and accessories, and 15 years writing about cameras of all kinds.
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Joshua Goldman

Panasonic

Featuring a "world's first" optical zoom of 70x, the Panasonic SDR-H80 and SDR-H90 should be a prime choice for sports fans, wildlife lovers, and stalkers alike. Good thing they use Panasonic's advanced O.I.S. system (optical image stabilization) to reduce hand-shake by way of lens-shifting gyrosensors.

The camcorders also boast large storage capacities; the H80 has a built-in 60G hard drive and in the H90, an 80GB (that holds up to 72 hours of video in LP mode). Plus it's a hybrid, letting you store video to SD/SDHC cards, too.

Other key features include a fast quick-start option for recording in less than a second and the company's iA technology that does face detection and automatic scene recognition.

The H80 will run $449.95 and be available in silver, blue, red, and black. The H90 is in black only for $499.95. Both show up in April 2009.