The cam adjusts it for you.Yes, for widescreen TV, from corner to corner.

Pro cinema and the likes...
 

Thanks Frank. I appreciate the help. I'm from Vancouver as well. Oak street.
Cheers

Bogdan it's from 1/8 to 1/500 and the cam adjusts by itself according to illumination level.

Anyway, don't you think we are asking too much for a $1,000 cam? I still think the GS100 is better than good enough for this price, and certainly the best among all consumer cams in the market right now.

Of course I would love to have bigger CCDs and bigger lenses that what this Pany offers but I'd rather not pay at least JPY198,000 to have that kind of cam.

Chris, I'm at 3rd & Yew, a stone's throw from Oak St.

Regarding lack of shutter settings below 1/60, this has been one of my biggest beefs over the years. The 1/30 and 1/15 settings makes for some interesting effects. Unfortunately, I only have the 1/15th and 1/7.5 setting on my DVLs. The 1/15 is good, or useful, the 1/7.5 I find useless; but I would really like to have the 1/30 setting. For PAL, 1/25 would be nice.

My other main beef is small CCDs, followed with poor built-in audio and slow responding auto adjustments (focus and white balance). Oh, one more, I wished consumer cams would would have thread sizes that are 49mm or higher, since pro filters usually start with the 49mm size and up.

Yes, Allan!
Totally agree with you - really happy with the GS100 :)

I meant 1/8 to about 1/30 when it's in color night mode (doesn't go faster than that I think and usually is 1/8 or 1/15).
In the zero color night mode the shutter is 1/4 and help from the LCD light.

In the low light mode (effect from the menu list) it's also auto shutter but the gain hits the max 18dB. It also apears to me slightly lighter than if you use 1/60, and manually set to 18dB in manual mode so there is some addition from the low light effect itself.

Chris, to add for the pro-cimnema - it applies specific gamma (slightly redish) to achieve film-like mood (together with the frame mode and the wide screen).

Smooth Color Night Mode:

It does go faster than 1/15 as the illumination level increases. The thing is, it's difficult to distinguish between low light mode and normal mode once light level becomes sufficient :-). Or it could be that the smooth color mode automatically deactivates once the cam senses sufficiently light. Try playing with your cam by panning from dark to not so dark to bright areas. I find best use for this feature in medium light.

In zero lux color night mode, I think it goes as slow as 1/4 (that's almost the same as the low-light mode of the previous 953/MX5K), so it's practically useless unless you use a tripod and your subject is not moving.

49mm filter thread, that's a brilliant idea Frank.

Again I have to agree.
It's usefull as you say if you are in really dark and shoot slow moving objects. If it happens better lit object than it's almoast as in normal mode. In medium light it helps and the movements are not so chopy (cause it shifts to 1/15)

To add about the zero lux mode - usually it's bound for shooting sleeping babies, supposing they are not moving :)

I guess with very small cams, 49mm threads would be too big for their lens housing. 37mm seems to be a common size for small cams.

manual low shutter speed or not, i have NO complaints with the gs100 and i'd buy it again in a flash. The video that this thing shoot is beautiful, especially when viewing on a television. I totally dig pro-cine mode, it gives a really distinct look, it's nice.

The only weak point of the camera is it's still photos, but i have a digital still anyways so it's a non-issue.