I currently have a Panasonic HMC151 which has and is brilliant. The reason I have it is that it uses 3xCCD which means that propellers are not an issue and appear 'realistic' rather than some of the problems facing CMOS chips.

Now, I am happy with the 151, but I could do with something that has a longer Optical range, like the old XM2 I had which had a 20x zoom.

So what I am looking for is a HD camera that shoots full 1080P, has a reasonable Optical zoom and can cope with Propellers. If it has CCD's that's great, but I don't know how the latest CMOS chips cope with Propellers.

The best way of testing this is to just use an indoor fan and film it. If it looks like a spinning disk, great, if it looks like a bent banana or straight horizontal lines, it's not what I am looking for

I am looking at a £2k budget, but at a push (and with a little tear in the eye) I can probably go to £3k.

I have no idea with recent cameras whether £3k will get me interchangeable lenses (like the old XL1/2 system), but I hope to be able to get a decent HD camera with the above specification, but interchangeable lenses is a bonus not a priority.


Any help really appreciated, it was advice here that made me choose the 151, cheers, MP