Recently I got to test out the Panasonic HDC-SD9 high-def memory card camcorder for work. Luckily, I had planned a weekend visit to see my family in Maryland, and my little 5-year-old niece’s Spring ballet recital was on that Saturday. I could shoot a video to remember her by, and the constraints of the environment would be great for testing out the cam.

I played around with the menu settings beforehand to get them to where I wanted. The menu playback was pretty intuitive, and I had it down after about 20 minutes. The SD9 has a 10x optical zoom and 700x digital zoom. I didn't want to accidentally slide into digital zoom and get a fuzzy picture of my niece in a tutu at the recital, so to be on the safe side, I turned it off. I also chose to turn on the optical image stabilization. I didn't trust myself not to shake while filming, and I didn't want a video that induces nausea every time I watch it.

I haven't filmed anything in years — since we owned our old VHS camcorder when I was performing in ballet recitals — but once I got to the auditorium, filming was surprisingly easy. We sat on the left side of the audience so that we could see my niece the best. The SD9 doesn't have a video light, which I guess was good for the people around me, but I found that I didn't need it after the cam assessed the light in the auditorium and suggested that I use a low-light setting.

We were also a little far back, but with the optical zoom I could see my niece as well as if I was in the front row. The zoom slider was conveniently placed on the top of the cam next to my right index finger, and made my zooms gradual and smooth. And with the swivel LCD, I could hold the cam slightly above the tall people in front of me and angle the screen down so that I could still see what I was filming.

The menu toggle was the most disappointing feature about the camcorder. It’s located on the left side of the cam, which made it kind of awkward to use. My hand had to cross in front of the screen during filming to reach it. It was also pretty uncomfortable to operate for a long time — the toggle's very stiff and the raised plastic tended to leave a dent in my finger. The speaker placement also seemed a little odd — right on top of the cam in the middle — and I often found myself covering it with my hand during playback.

I also don’t think I’ll be chucking my digital camera anytime soon. Even though the camcorder boasted a resolution of 1920 x 1080 for digital pictures, the shutter speed was slow. Pictures of my chubby nephew bouncing up and down on the theater chair tended to turn out blurry.

But I do have to applaud the cam's tiny size and light weight. Unlike my sister's larger, heavier hard drive cam, I could tuck the SD9 away in my bag and not even realize that anything extra had been added. The three separate CCDs also really came through — my niece's tutu appeared bright sapphire on film, with warm tones from the lighting and stage that weren't washed out.

My favorite feature was the Optical Image Stabilizer. My hand tended to shake when I was under the pressure of filming, so having the O.I.S. to smooth out the video was awesome. Best of all, it didn’t degrade the picture quality.

I had originally thought that the 1 hour of filming time on my 8GB SDHC memory card wouldn’t be enough, but I found that when I got back from Maryland I still had plenty of extra space. I would still probably go ahead and buy a larger SDHC card if I got this cam — at least 16GB — and then carry an extra or two in case.

I loved being able to show my boyfriend a high-def video of my niece's recital on our HDTV when I got back. Every demi-plié and grand jeté was sharp and in focus. However, I've since had some trouble finding the right software to read/decode the AVCHD format on my computer. The software included in the box didn't work for me, and I've heard similar complaints from other reviewers. Since AVCHD is so new, the software hasn't quite caught up with the hardware yet. I would definitely recommend doing a little bit of research before purchasing any camcorder, and possibly even investing in some third-party software if you plan to do any serious editing.

**Note: The screen shot of my niece included with this post is not high-def and does not reflect the quality of video recordings captured with the Panasonic HDC-SD9. In the end, I had to turn my footage into an mpeg file, which is much more compressed. I included this shot, however, because it's a good example of how well the cam performed in a minimal light setting from a distance.