I am a happy owner of a Canon XM1 for 3+ years and yesterday I had the chance to try the GS500 in a Pana promotion counter. I am thinking of buy a less bulky camera which will not attract the attention of bystanders but still with 3CCD advantage. The GS400 has been very successful but GS500 has its good points (as least to me as a father who video his daughters' stage performances very often). The GS500 fits well in my hand, not too heavy and not too small. The overall design is nice, not like a pro cam but pleasant. When I try the buttons, I think that they all are well placed. The zoom rocker can perfrom super slow zoom very well, which is essential for stage performance recording. An additional zoom ring may not be necessary. A focusing ring with zoom purpose may be confusing when you have to switch function in a sudden. Its low light performance is, to me, as goods as XM1, which is the most important factor for any indoor shooting. I have explanation for its lack of a phone jack. As a rather lazy cameraman, I do not always use headphone to monitor the audio but of course a shootgun mic is a must for all my stage shooting work. The top loading is already better than any Canon MV Series cameras. My XM1 is HK$12,600 three years ago and now the GS500 is just HK$8,000 with the same image quality. The camera fuction is nice addition and it can take away my burden to carry one additional digital camera. Perhaps Pana is re-focusing its market of GS to a market of ordinary shooter like me!

The disadvantage I could find in my 20 minute 'testing' is its mere 12X zoom ratio. It is not a killing factor. The XM1 is 20x, which is better.

Tong

The GS500 from what I have read is a GS400 minus the manual features that mde the 400 populair. According to Panasonic the video quality is slightly better. One thing I wish the GS400 had and would have made me very happy was a 16x9 LCD. The GS500 had one and I was like "wtf!" Ah well its a great camera from the footage ive seen and give better quality/price than most cameras around. I actually decided to go get the big dog and sell my GS400 which got me a profit lol, but now im going for the XL2. You'll be happy with your GS500 from what you've said but if your even an intermediate videographer its lack of manual features would probably drive you nuts.

-Kyle

I have a GS500 as a second camera to my DVX100A. The lack of manual control is indeed a pain. For day shots, it's not that difficult to adjust the GS500 footage to match the ones from the DVX. However, it's a different story for night/indoor shoots.

Anyway, I am happy with the price/performance ratio. I could have bought a small HDV cam which is not much more expensive. However, the low light performance of these HD cameras is just too poor.