Panasonic 4K Consumer Camera

[Mac]

To be honest, much of the negativily that surrounds the AF100 is entirely our fault - if we were a few guys meeting monthy, smoking cigars and chatting about our cameras in seclusion, no one outside the "users" would pay attention to any of the criticism. Unfortunately, it's out there every day in a public forum and, as I've often said before, other people read these forums. All of us want an improved AF-whatever, but that has been construed as bashing... it isn't.

Except for the few who seem to have personal agendas, possibly originated by competing marketing departments, most here are merely trying to let Panasonic Broadcast know what we want in an imprioved model. The AF100 is a very good camera, way better than what was available a mere 2 years ago. 4K is the new Holy Grail I guess, people now believe that "it's like looking out a picture window" is good image-making - but I'm still back there when making good films was the goal.

[filmguy123]

...and then...you wake up. ;)

Ha which part? I thought those were all terribly realistic! Actually, most things there cost no more than one AF100 was made (processors have improved to easily to process 4K/high FPS/higher bandwidth codecs/more color space); screen technology has improved substantial (retina display everything), really the only thing that costs more out of that whole list is the S35 sensor with better DR. The rest of it is natural progression with tech.

[filmguy123]

To be honest, much of the negativily that surrounds the AF100 is entirely our fault - All of us want an improved AF-whatever, but that has been construed as bashing... it isn't.

The AF100 is a very good camera, way better than what was available a mere 2 years ago.

So true. Yes, there are a number of things I want, and I do have high expectations for my next camera (largely because tech is progressing so quickly), but my AF100 is great. And all the criticisms I hear, while technically valid, seem to be a little overblown. I've had people say "I hear it has a crop factor and it's impossible to get wide" I flip the LCD screen around and show them the frame with Olympus 12mm (which isn't even THAT wide) and they're like "...oh... yeah... OK, that's pretty good." Another person watched a video I made out in bright sunlight and asked how I handled the AF100's strong yellow highlights. I was kind of confused... cause I didn't do anything. I just shot and exposed for my subject and anything that came up was minimal. People say they heard that the 5Ds are better in lowlight. Yes, they definitely are. But, I show them my Nokton 25mm f/0.95 with 1600 ISO (heck, even 400) and they pipe down real quick... "that's still really good"... yup, it is.

Being able to shoot light and compact is a HUGE plus of the AF100. It's one of the best live event/documentary cameras I could hope to own since it's got all the XLRs, NDs, proper tools built in. Long recording times, small lenses, and I can get long focal lengths for way cheaper... which actually is more beneficial most of the time than being able to get CRAZY fish-eye wide. I can rent a 7mm (14mm equiv) if I really need it, but 90% of the time my 12mm (24mm equiv) is as wide of a look as I want anyway. But being able to have my retro nikkor f/2.0 85mm (170mm f/2.0 equiv)) which I got for dirt cheap as a great telephoto, and is VERY light and small, is hard to beat for a lot of live event/doc work. I can easily fit my whole kit into an internationally sized carry-on bag. I can shoot slow-motion at weird in between speeds which give great, subtle dream like appearance to clips (love 36/44fps), I don't have to sync audio later or carry add in mixers or be limited in audio gear choices, etc.

[groveChuck]

My big 4K question (as opposed to my million dollar question) is: to what purpose?

For cropping/reframing in post?

As acquisition, not delivery?

If delivery, of what product (other than movies, though aren't they typically 2K?), and how?

Certainly not for broadcast for the foreseeable future, and I'm not sure corporate would move on it this early, other than large displays, perhaps?

Just curious...

[Mac]

I think 4K is being touted as the end-all fior the "fix it in post" crowd. Personally, I like the image that comes out of the camera to be the one that is eventually seen... Sure, there may be some minor scene-matching or white balance fixes (especially shooting documentaries, as I do) but as for framing and overall color balance, I think that's the job of the cinematographer, not the editor - or worse, the producer looking over the editor's shoulder...

As filmguy says above, if you know what you're doing with this camera, you hardly ever encounter the "problems" that are so often cited... I've had some highlight clipping, but it's not nearly as bad as it was with the HPX500 or the HVX. It's really the dynamic range that is important. Increase the dynamic range and you will never need 4K - unless maybe you're business is stock footage and you want a future-proof archive, that I can understand.. But for actual documentary or narrative filmmaking it's overkill.

[Erik Naso]

For now 4K is great for reframing and maybe image stabilization but if consumers have 4K monitors in their homes and corporations have them in the board room then we need to shoot 4K and deliver it in 4K. I think it will take a couple years for this to happen but it will eventually. New media types will have to be developed for delivery and new codecs need to get the compression down so the 4K footage can stream or at least fit on the media. H.265 is being developed now to do just that. I was reading an article on Blu-Ray and how they are working on a 4K solution with optical disks. Interesting stuff.

I don't see local broadcasters moving to 4K over cable anytime soon. Local news will be in HD for a long time. To replace HD cameras and routers etc. would be a huge financial commitment that probably wouldn't pay off.

[Erik Naso]

If you use your waveform monitor on your AF-100 your footage will be awesome.

If you don't blowout over 100 IRE your footage will be awesome.

If you want to control your camera. Learn how to break it and your footage will be awesome.

If your ever in San Diego and you buy me a drink you will be awesome!

[bgundu]

At the rate at which things are advancing, streaming 4K will be here sooner than you think. The only limitation is bandwidth and new codecs are being developed including REDs own .RED format which will be 2.5mb/second. I've been shooting 4K for a year now on mostly corporate stuff. Of course I've been delivering 1080, but it's been so refreshing to know I have some wiggle room to smooth out those steadicam shots and reframe an interview to get closeups and mediums at one go. David Fincher shoots a 5K with 4K framing for the same reasons. I agree that it's a luxury at the moment for most, but exciting to be on the cusp too.

[filmguy123]

4K is great for image stabilization. I shoot run and gun on a DVtec MultiRig pro for live event/documentary. The footage is mostly stable... ish. But I smoothcam or warp stabilize everything. 4K would be awesome for that to maximize quality. It would make for sharper, higher res final delivery for sure. And shooting in this style is very fast and allows a lot of creative freedom, while giving super smooth/steady results.

[filmguy123]

Can you/could you retain a M43 lens mount design with an s35 sensor? Or would it require a change in mounts to utilize s35 sensor?

Because if you had an S35 sensor with M43 mount, it would crop a little bit of the S35 sensor... yes? But wouldn't it still give the benefits of the larger sensor (better low light) and even with the crop, reduce the crop factor greatly from the AF100? If this was the case, would 4K still be possible or would it be closer to 3K? Not that it matters much to me, I don't need 4K resolution...

Perhaps the AF100 could be an S35 internal sensor but with a slight bit of a crop factor, retain M43 mount?

anyone?

[Mac]

The running gag when I was at UCLA was - Hollywood cinema verite, put the Mitchell on a dolly and shake the room...

Two of my favorite documentaries are DON'T LOOK BACK and UNZIPPED - They're grubby, choppy - and exciting. Imagine if they had been shot in 4K and had the life massaged out of them by an overzealous editor...

I'm not suggesting that 4k, or S35 sensors, are bad, they're just not needed everywhere in every camera. There's a place for a simple, light-weight swift camera like the AF100. It just needs to be updated, and renamed if necessary - but don't throw the baby out...

[noirist]

To be honest, much of the negativily that surrounds the AF100 is entirely our fault.

I disagree -- I think Panasonic is entirely to blame. Look at how they have performed in the large sensor video camera market versus their competitors since the AF100 was released in 2010. In the past two years Canon has released three dedicated large sensor movie cameras (C300, C100, C500), each with outstanding image quality and significantly higher resolution than the AF100. Over the same time period Sony released even more large sensor video cameras, including the F100, FS700, F3, F5, F55 plus the VG20, VG30, and VG900. At this point every major manufacturer of large sensor video cameras has released (or at least announced) a camera that can shoot 4k, a camera that can shoot RAW, and a camera that can deliver the full 1920x1080 resoluion. EXCEPT PANASONIC. Even the independents have announced multiple inexpensive large sensor cameras that can shoot RAW, including the BMCC, Digital Bolex, Kineraw, Kineraw mini. Forget whether they're shipping or not or whether they're any good - Panasonic hasn't even ANNOUNCED a large sensor camera that can shoot 4k or RAW or can provide the full 1920x1080 measured resolution. In this time of incredible change, all Panasonic could do was (1) announce a tiny tweak to a three year old camera that can only deliver 700x680 4:2:0 and (2) put an unlabeled mockup of a 4k camera in a glass booth at a trade show. Panasonic is making themselves look bad.

[nosys70]

first, we get full HD consumer camera able to compress 1920x1080 in a 15mb/s stram, so even if 4K is 4 time the bandwidth, it still only 60Mb/s.
That is pretty easy to store.
and, if you played with some r3d 4k footage found on the web, you would immediately see the advantage to be able to zoom in picture and still keep a workable resolution. I think 4K for display is useless, at 5 feet, you would unable to make the difference with a good full hd picture.
but 4k is great because you can make easy 3D with 2full hd picture side to side, or get incredible stabilizer (cropping picture) , or get plenoptic cameras or.....
sky is the limit....

[Adamsenoj]

and, if you played with some r3d 4k footage found on the web, you would immediately see the advantage to be able to zoom in picture and still keep a workable resolution.

So you mean 4K's advantage is to be able to save directors and DPs from their own incompetence from getting the shot right where it should have been gotten right, the set?

[Igelkott Film]

So you mean 4K's advantage is to be able to save directors and DPs from their own incompetence from getting the shot right where it should have been gotten right, the set?

+1