Panasonic - HC-WXF1 HD Flash Memory Premium Camcorder - Black

I was deciding between this camera and the Sony AX53. I was just about to get the AX53 as it was on sale, then the sale disappeared and I fell into this camera. I am glad I did. It is a great camera, feels great, big, bulky. Lots of features, easy to use. I watched some YouTube videos comparing the Optical Image Stabilzation between the AX53 and WXF1K and apparently the WXF1K blows the AX53 away. Keep in mind the AX53 is a 2016 model (the WXF1K is a 2018 model, lots of improvements in 2 years). There is so many features on this camera that you will never even figure out how to use, it is crazy. The only big downsides are that it lacks a light (my old Panasonic HD-SD90 has a light) and the battery is proprietary. Panasonic claims they are doing that to insure battery safety. It is probably more about securing profits as their official battery plus battery charger retails for $100. I guess they weren't too hot on people buying $30 OEM batteries on other websites. Crazy. So all those OEM batteries that you see on other resale websites just won't work. They will fit, but if you try to use them you will get an alert after 30 seconds of recording saying that the battery is not compliant. The solution to this is just to buy a portable battery. Amazingly, the charge cable for the camera is USB type A. So, if you don't mind walking around with a wire leading to your pocket containing a portable battery, you can get around this battery nonsense. I did it for my recent vacation, filmed over 4 hours worth of video without needing to charge the battery once during filming. The included battery (without using the battery pack) will get you about 1.5 hours of recording time. I was using a 10,000 mAh battery pack. For video storage, I am currently using a 128 GB V30 SDXC MicroSD card (Sandisk Extreme Plus). The manual says that this is the maximum supported size. I did not try anything bigger. For 4k video this gets around 4 hours of video (it records at around 60,000 kbps video). It stores as MP4 files. The secondary camera is a cool idea, but in practice kinda useless. It is a revolving camera on the tip of the flap. You can open it up and record yourself as you record from the main camera. Good in theory, but bad in practice. If you start recording with it, your video will have the PIP overlay in the recording. I guess this is something great for YouTubers or something, but for normal folk recording family, turn it off. It doesn't record with great quality because the sensor is nowhere near as good as the main camera. Its horrible in low light. You will receive a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable in the package. Great touch. I loved recording stuff and showing it off to family immediately after. The eye piece is a little challenging to figure out. Works great, just pull it out, look in the eye piece. I guess it is good for saving energy over the flap viewfinder. In all likelihood the image will be blurry - there is an adjustment wheel on the side of the eye piece to make it clear and in-focus. A cool feature I have not yet used is the ability to use your phone to show video as well as RECORD using your phone's camera. You download the Panasonic Image app and you can connect by wifi-direct and do the above mentioned functions. Panasonic pulled out all the stops on the camera - it is definitely worth the asking price!