What to use? 4:3 or 16:9

depends what you want... you can combine them both montages/long lens are often done in 16:9 and most other shots in 4:3

If you choose 16:9 it will be letterbox with little bars of nothing at the bottom however it will give you a wider shot, if you choose 4:3 you get no letterboxes but you miss out on the actoin on the sides. It's your choice.

i usually use wide angle (16:9) now because it lets you see more things than what you can see on your screen, use it for wider shots

Most prosumer cams and all consumer cams don't really shoot 16:9, they only crop the top and bottom off the shot, so really you are loosing image. I recommend you shoot 4:3 because you might end up needing that extra top and bottom. If you ever need to make it "16:9", just crop the top and bottom off in editing, it will come out the same.

^ yah my gs-300 does that but on pana3ccduser they all told me that it was a very minimal loss in quality, not noticeable at all.

Personally, I think 16:9 looks better. I am not aware that there is any quality difference between 4:3 and 16:9 in the actual video.

However, I disagree with those people who say you should shoot in 4:3 and crop in post. IF you decide you want your final product to be in 16:9, thats how you should shoot it--and vice versa. The reason IMHO that 16:9 looks better is that it makes for more interesting compositions. If you are shooting in 4:3, it's hard to precisely compose a shot for 16:9 because you don't know (or might even forget to notice) what will be cropped out.

You ever notice some movies don't look as good in "Standard" format as "Widescreen"? It's because they were composed and shot in widescreen and then they chopped off part of the artistic vision. Cropping the top and bottom is kind of like doing that.

I guess here is the bottom line. If you don't like black bars in your final product, shoot 4:3. If you like the look of letterbox, shoot 16:9.

well letterbox 16:9 format looks a lil more professional to me

yeah but keep in mind, you're shooting on a consumer camera. 16:9 isnt going to make it look totally professional. And I dont know about the Pani, but the Canons have 16:9 guides. I never said the actual image quality gets worse, Im just saying that you arent getting a wider shot, just less image is captured.

16:9 + wide angle lense = tits.

My shitbox digital8 actually shows more when I put it in widescreen. It makes it look so much more "movie like"