Naturally, things rapidly changed for the worse when we moved to a dimmer environment, though the grainy results were still acceptable for private home viewing. When we used the camera in optimum lighting, our footage exhibited accurate colours that were relatively free of noise. Despite these considerable handicaps, the Panasonic SDR-S26-K managed to impress us during testing. Most modern digital camcorders offer CMOS chipsets, which are said to provide more reliable video quality in low lighting. These are not particularly impressive specifications, even for the asking price. On the imaging front, the SDR-S26-K camcorder shares the same 1/8in CCD sensor and 380k pixel count as the SDR-H80. Instead, the battery remains tucked inside the camera’s body, which lends the device a much classier appearance. Thankfully, the Panasonic SDR-S26-K has managed to avoid the protruding ‘ghetto booty’ battery that has marred so many of its siblings (see the Panasonic SDR-H80-K, Panasonic HDC-SD20-K and the Panasonic HDC-SX5 for some unsightly examples). With dimensions of 107x56圆5mm, the Panasonic SDR-S26-K isn’t quite so compact as its pint-sized predecessor - the Panasonic SDR-S7 - yet it should still slip comfortably into a bag or jacket pocket without weighing you down. (We’d take it over boring old silver any day). It’s a bit unconventional, but not unpleasant to look at it.

We tested the latter version, which sports a curious sky-blue finish rather than the typical navy shade. The Panasonic SDR-S26-K comes in a choice of three colours: red, black and blue. While image quality isn’t stellar, it remains more than reasonable for the asking price of $549. This includes an Intelligent Auto (iA) mode with inbuilt face detection, a dedicated Web button for one-step YouTube uploads and an Advanced O.I.S stabiliser for shake-free recordings. It also comes packed with plenty of consumer-friendly features (some of which work better than others). This makes the Panasonic SDR-S26 an excellent choice for outdoor shooters, as you’ll be able to get intimately close to distant objects without affecting the picture quality (provided you’re armed with a tripod, that is). Its main claim to fame is its 70x optical zoom lens, which is considerably more powerful than the average entry-level camcorder (most models offer an optical zoom of between 10x and 40x). The Panasonic SDR-S26-K is an ultra-compact camcorder that records standard-definition video to removable SD memory cards.

Panasonic sdr h80 battery