Hi, we have a Fujinon a20x8.6berm-sd (2/3") from an old sony block camera and are considering purchasing a Panasonic HPX500. Does anyone have any insight as the whether or not there will be significant loss of quality using this SD lens on this HD body?

Nick,

I think you can get better feedback on the panasonic camera thread below this one.

Ted

whoops...thanks Ted

But since you asked...
I understand that the Panny guys are getting very acceptable results using good quality SD lenses. In fact, some are saying the results from a very good SD lens beat out the lower priced HD lenses. Really wide shots supposedly look a bit soft, though.
Someone from the Panny forums posted some video shot with an HPX500 using an SD lens, and it looked great.
I'm familiar with this because I asked the very same question on the Panny forums, as I am considering buying an HPX myself (but am now leaning toward an EX3).

Tried an SD Canon J14.5x8.5 vs HD Canon HJ11x4.7 (top of the line) on an HPX500 and there wasn't a huge amount of difference from what I could see. The HJ was definitely a little better, but not night and day better. Of course the HPX500 is not the highest resolution camera out there. Although I did also do a comparison with the same SD lens vs Fujinon 22x7.6 on aSony 750, and again the HD lens was better, but not by too much. Seemed to me that they were the sort of differences you'd see when they were side by side but on their own they'd be acceptable maybe.
Steve