This first sample is a 6-second video of a banana slug, about 1.5-2.0 inches from the camera.  I held the camera as close to it as possible.  The camera was set to these modes:
Full auto mode, Widescreen video setting, XP (finest) video quality, Optical image stabilization on, Wind-sound filter on. The video was transferred from the SD card using PavGrab4 specifying the widescreen header-set feature (WS-SET.EXE) so that the video would play properly in utilities such as Windows Media Player.  Then this 6 second clip was cut out (without recompression) using Womble Multimedia Mpeg Video Wizard.  This is how I plan to do all the clips here.

Note: It's common for people who are  used to viewing Divx or other types of internet video on their computer to have trouble evaluating NTSC video.  This video is fully interlaced, and usually the interlace lines show up on computer monitors, leading some to remark that they see "motion artifacts".  But these "lines" are normal and they do belong in the video! Fully interlaced NTSC and PAL video like this can only be accurately judged when viewed on a TV.  (Unless you have specific software and hardware on your computer which can emulate an interlaced scan.)  The interlace lines can be removed by deinterlacing, but that also reduces the 60-per-second image update rate to 30-per-second, making it no better than a typical digital still camera's "video mode".  Deinterlacing also reduces the effective vertical resolution from 480 to 360 or worse.  So please keep all this in mind if you view this video on a computer screen.  You will ALWAYS see the "horizontal lines" when there is movement.  Something would be wrong if you didn't see them.  Don't worry, they will not be there when you view the video on your TV using your DVD player, because the TV can properly display interlaced video.  The files made by these video cameras are meant for TV viewing, not computer viewing.  If you want to convert the video your camera makes into form suitable for computer viewing, you will need to apply deinterlacing.  Just remember that once deinterlaced, the video is no longer as suitable for use on a DVD for viewing on a TV.

Banana slugs are common here in the damp coastal redwood forests of California.  This was taken around midday, a few hours after a light rain had fallen.  The slug was cruising accross our steps, and I thought, "I wonder if I could get a closeup of it on video...".  It looks stunning on a 48-inch plasma widescreen TV. 

To make the still, I loaded the video into VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.1 and used its deinterlace (blend) filter and its resize filter (704x480 to 848x480 bicubic) to restore the video to its proper aspect ratio of 16:9, then picked a frame and saved it. The picture below is that frame reduced to half size, 424x240.  The full size frame capture 848x480 is here.  The link to download the 6-second video is below the picture.

Here is a sample taken indoors.  The settings are the same as the first except: the camera is in "low light" mode.  I am unsure what the color balance setting was, except that it would have been either "manual" or "incandescent".  In this low light mode, the shutter stays open longer, as long as 1/60th second. This means moving objects show more blur as they move, of course, such as the ball below.

The short clip shows both my granddaughters playing with a ball.  This is a good example of video in a well lighted room.  Overhead in the room was a light fixture with five 60-watt incandescent bulbs.  Attempting to shoot video in less light than this results in a higher noise level and weaker colors.  For a frame from a video with less light (60 watt lightbulb overhead) see this message which illustrates the difference between the SV-AV100 and the SDR-S100 cameras under extreme low light.  Given the conditions, the SDR-S100 seems to produce video with rich, detailed color, less noise, and good sharpness compared to the SV-AV100.

I obtained the captured frame the same way as before except that I also added the temporal smoother filter, set to "4", which reduces noise and improves edges a bit.  (The video clip below was NOT filtered, only this captured frame.) The reduced size image is below; the original is here, the link to the video clip is at the bottom.

Here is another clip in Auto mode, taken at the beach about an hour before sunset on a partly cloudy day. The sun is behind me and to my left.  There was a UV filter on the camera, but nothing else.  The image below is the one automatically resized from the frame capture to fit the page, the first link is the actual frame captured from the video (captured using the method given in a previous message), and the second link is the video file itself.

My use of a UV filter is mostly to protect the lens.  I don't think it does much.  The polarizer does more. But instead of putting test shots here it would be better to just put links to other filter articles which are better than anything I could write.
http://dpfwiw.com/filters.htm
http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/filter/filter-UV.html

I removed the auto lens cap from my camera, so I like having the UV filter there as mechanical protection of the Leica lens underneath.  So it is just a "transparent lens cap".  As it says in one of the articles above, most digital cameras have such low sensitivity to UV that for a lot of cameras the UV filter has little effect.  The next time I go skiing I'll test it out - the high altitude is supposed to be where you can see more UV effects.  The polarizer, though, does a lot.  For instance, shooting from inside a car, the polarizer greatly reduces glare and reflection from the glass. 

Here is a list of other of my SDR-S100 clips appearing on the forum.

I put another sample SDR-S100 video in this message on editing:
Correcting Mild Underexposure with Womble (SDR-S100 video) [Win]

This message compares SV-AV100 to SDR-S100 video in low light conditions, with frame captures shown:
Low Light Comparison SDR-S100 vs SV-AV100

Here I demonstrated doing video-on-video editing with MVW:
http://zyvid.com/smf/index.php?topic=315.msg1569#msg1569

This is a clip edited with MVW using the Picture-in-Picture tool (PIP):
http://zyvid.com/smf/index.php?topic=315.msg1570#msg1570

These are frames taken from two clips showing the difference between standard and widescreen:
SDR-S100 comparison widescreen versus standard

Here is a short clip of a symphony orchestra warming up during intermission.  All settings were default.

Thanks for the samples, Skymist!

Do you have any samples of the SDR-S150, as I am thinking of getting one? (Unfortunate that higher models such as 200 and 250 never came out in the USA, and Panasonic seems to have dropped the line entirely, keeping the smaller but not as good SDR-10 series (now including a 20 and 7 number), and expanding on its HD line. Many stores still have the SDR-S150 in stock though, and there seems to be a wide variance in price, from about $400 to $800 or so.

One thing that would particularly interest me is the sound quality, as I sometimes record concerts. I currently have a JVC compact flash camcorder (I forget the model number, one of their very first solid state models). In recording concerts, I find the sound pretty bad, although it records in stereo AC3.

Record something with music on the SDR-S150 (with the source of good quality), so that I can see how well it records sound. Are there any sound recording settings, other than wind cut on and off? (Make sure that is off for the sample.) Any setting of sound recording levels? Is there some kind of automatic gain control, for the sound? If no automatic gain control, and no way to set the levels, the sound recording could easily clip, causing distortion and bad sound.

Unfortunate that none of the solid state camcorders (that I've seen, at least) seem to have a microphone input jack. Does anyone know of any that do?

Anyhow, samples with music would be appreciated.

Also, how well does the 150 do in low light indoor situations?

Thank you.