Summary: Very Good Camcorder - Recommended

Comment: The "Panasonic GS85" is a great camcorder for most general uses. We had a need for a second video camera on a shoot of an instructional video for our small business and ended up borrowing a friend's GS85 for a few weeks of heavy taping.

Overall, the camera performed very well and exceeded most of my expectations for ease of use and quality, with the following observations:

Pros -
Good image quality *
Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) works very well
Accurate auto White Balancing
Conveniently placed controls
Great battery life

Cons -
"Cold" Accessory Shoe
No built in light

* While the image quality was very good, it did not match the quality of our high-end primary camera (Canon GL2). We ended up buying Panasonic PV-GS320 3.1MP 3CCD MiniDV Camcorder with 10x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom, which is in the same family as the GS85 but has 3CCDs and has a vastly superior image.

Highly recommended for home users! I also recommend the Digital Concepts Battery for Panasonic CGA-DU21 / Hitachi DZBP-14WS, it is a great long life battery.

Summary: not sure if any GS85 is as faulty

Comment: as mine. but mine possibly seemed to have poor (defective?) cmos sensor. As a result. autofocus was extremely slow and also resolution dropped too low even in the shade, not mentioning real low light. Overall picture quality in SP was worse than with my old Panasonic with same 680kpix sensor in LP. Maybe just my bad luck...
Great features are: fantastic OIS; VERY comfortable finger controls; webcam capability.

Summary: Great Camcorder

Comment: This camcorder is great for the normal person. It was not made for the sim-pro or pro vedio maker. This is a very good camcorder for the price. It is easy to work, has great Zoom and the OIS is great. I have used this camcorder every where. Please stay away from the PV-GS80, for a few dollars more you can get the PV-GS85 that does a lot more and I had the 80 and had problems with it the 85 is so much better.

Summary: Reliable well thoughtout Panasonic product

Comment: The PV-GS85 is one of many Digital camcorders I've tried in the last two years, and so far the one that has come closest to filling my need for a versatile consumer grade camcorder to replace my old Analog VHS PV-43 which broke after 13 years and 40+ hours of flawless service. Without going into boring detail, the PV-GS85 offers comprehensive manual controls accessible ( with some dexterity ) using one hand, and can even record stills to the SD card "while" shooting video. Low light performance comes close to matching my PV-43 something that was the norm on old Analog camcorders, but very rare on the new Digital models. It also uses MiniDV which uses a tape like the old Analog camcorders which to some may seem a disadvantage, however it provides the least compression artifacts in a lossless form that you can archive and label with a pen just like the old Analog tapes unlike DVDs where the ink migrates into the media. It also has Optical image stabilization, a very large field of view, a battery which will last as long a tape, as well as an external battery charger which is included. All in all a nice well executed camcorder. Panasonic even offers an optional 10 watt video light ( at extra cost ) that mounts on the cameras cold shoe.
This cameras not perfect, it doesn't have a microphone jack or manual focus ring like my old PV-43, nor are the stills of great quality ( only one of the camcorders I tested took decent, not great stills and had a flash - it's best to stick with a dedicated camera for stills )but it does provide possibly the best compromise available today. As always, do some research an try out different camcorders and have a clear idea of your expectations before deciding to buy and you'll be happier.

Summary: Very good cam !

Comment:
After searching for a while for a ~300 dollars mini-dv camera, i decided for this one and i dont regret it.

Has a very good video quality and a steady shot for photos, took pictures from moving cars or on the move and the optical stabilizers are quite good.
On top of that has a 32x optical zoom to match, those two allows you to take great pictures or film from very far.
Has decent low light capabilities.
That turn on/off function when closing the LCD is quite good.

Cons:
The light is not very useful.
Comes with a 45~60 minutes battery, larger ones makes imposible to use the viewfinder.
You have to remove the battery to access AC power, USB and firewire.
Cannot charge the battery while you have the camera connected to AC

Resuming, is a very good camera in the fundamentals and im happy with it.