A camcorder equipped with a powerful zoom lens is an extremely important thing to have around when you're planning on shooting videos of certain subjects from far away, such as wild animals (when you're a wildlife filmographer) or movie starts in embarrassing situations (when you're a paparazzo). Anyway, regardless of your profession of choice, you might really find some of Panasonic's latest camcorders to be extremely useful, since the SDR-H80, SDR-H90 and SDR-S26 models come equipped with what their manufacturer claims to be the world’s first and most powerful 70x optical ultra-zoom lens.

Before going into specific details regarding any of the camcorder models, let's first take a look at the technology that makes possible that amazing zoom level. Thus, as Panasonic informs us, the 70x optical ultra-zoom lens is supported by Panasonic’s advanced O.I.S. System, which is capable of reducing the effect of hand-shake even when subjects are zoomed to maximum magnification. The camcorder's built-in gyrosensors detect the hand shake, while in the same time the advanced O.I.S. shifts the lens to correct the optical axis and repeats this detection and correction process about 4,000 times per second.

It's also interesting to note the fact that Panasonic makes video recording in any type of conditions a lot easier, since the iA technology built within these camcorders automatically detects the shooting conditions and selects the most suitable modes and settings. The device also includes Face Detection technology (what imaging device doesn't, nowadays) and an Intelligent Scene Selector system, which determines which Scene mode will provide the optimal results.

We've seen what all these things have in common, now it's time to take a look at what sets them apart. Thus, the SDR-H90 uses both an 80GB HDD and a SD/SDHC memory card slot for storing video, providing enough space for around 72 hours of video recording in LP mode. The SDR-H80 follows the same design, with the difference that the built-in HDD has only a 60GB capacity and thus can be used for recording up to 54 hours of video. Last, but certainly not least, comes the SDR-S26 model, which is only able to record on SD cards.

All the three 70X camcorders from Panasonic will arrive in stores at some point in April 2009 and will retail for $499.95 (the SDR-90), $449.95 (the SDR-H80) and $329.95 (the SDR-S26), respectively.


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