ALL: AC130a and 160A announced with upgrade available to current owners

ullanta

ullanta

Veteran
http://bit.ly/HLc2Wa

It seems like much of this upgrade has to do with focus issues… personally I think this is an elegant way for Panny to address some of the disappointment with autofocus without necessarily saying that it was flawed in the current cams. Bravo, Panasonic!
 
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The article doesn't mention auto focus at all. I guess we'll see when to first forum users get the new upgrade. I like the expanded focus assist.
 
ullanta said:
http://bit.ly/HLc2Wa

It seems like much of this upgrade has to do with focus issues… personally I think this is an elegant way for Panny to address some of the disappointment with autofocus without necessarily saying that it was flawed in the current cams. Bravo, Panasonic!
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I don't know if "elegant" and "Bravo" are really the best words to describe the handling of this issue.

Like you, I'm also happy that Panasonic has made some enhancements to improve the focusing features of these camcorders. But I think that some people will take this development as being a tacit admission that the original AC130 and AC160 had focusing problems.

I think that many people will reserve their judgement about this upgrade until users actually have it in hand, and we can start getting some feedback about it.
 
I think so too..My old HMC80's had expanded focus assist!! I certainly don't want to have to shell out $600.00 (2 cameras at $300 each) just for an upgrade so I can expand focus assist...With my loupe mod over the LCD I have an EVF 3 times bigger than the LCD anyway and manual focussing even just by eye and even with the current focus assist is really simply and accurate. Hopefully an update will help those who need the expanded assist. The autofocus issue is mainly a workaround for me as I don't zoom into big number much!! I guess we will have to wait and see what the details actuallu are next month before wildly speculating???


I'm sure Jan will keep forum menbers updated too!!


Chris
 
Mike Warren said:
The article doesn't mention auto focus at all. I guess we'll see when to first forum users get the new upgrade. I like the expanded focus assist.
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It mentions faster push-auto focus, and this leads me to suspect that there will be general autofocus improvements that will not be touted.



Lance, I do think it's elegant. It gives everyone what they want without needing to address whether the original camera was flawed or not. Now there's a new improved model, and a great upgrade path for current users. I say Bravo because Panasonic found a creative way to get a better product into the hands of users quickly without opening the can of worms of liability for issues of a flawed camera. Those who don't use autofocus can save the effort and expense of upgrading. I really think everyone wins, and that's a great achievement. A deft maneuver that I don't see many other companies pulling off.
 
Phil, Chris… as you mention, the Highres LCD and red peaking are so good that expanded focus assist isn't that necessary… I wouldn't call this a feature that shoulda been there; the trade off between say an HMC LCD with expanded focus or an AC LCD without definitely favors the AC. If you don't want it, you don't need to pay. What's the problem?
 
ullanta said:
It gives everyone what they want without needing to address whether the original camera was flawed or not.
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That may well play a part. The problem is that profit margins on electronic equipment are no where near as high as they were in the past. Doing a general product recall would be impossible as there is not enough profit to cover it.

I know the focus issues have stopped me from wanting to buy one, so this new version may bring back my interest. I'm not so worried about auto focus (I was bough up on cameras without AF), but if it's on the camera, I expect it to be usable. But the main focus issue that bothers me is that focus goes out during fast power zooming.
 
Hey Mike

Mine isn't too bad with moderate zooming but the big issue I found was if you zoom in to a subject the autofocus does it's job but then after 5 minutes starts hunting!!! If you give it "new material" to play with it works fine!! It's just a semi-zoomed in static subject starts the hunting process almost as if the camera logic becomes bored and starts looking for new things to focus on!!! I do Rental Home video reports and shoot those wide and that really works the autofocus over but it never seems to fail..I'm constantly moving the camera...quite fast over walls (poor contrast!!) and windows and it keeps up with me ... for me it's ONLY been a static camera on a fairly fixed subject for a long time when it goes crazy!!! (a wedding ceremony is 20 minutes and they basically stay in one place!! Locking to manual works great and the push auto also seems quick for me!!! I cannot see anything on push focus that needs to be changed...only static focus hunting!!!

I can certainly live without the enhanced assist ...with the big LCD magnified 3X with a loupe you can nail focus everytime...using the EVF however with such a tiny image, I might see an advantage there to having a magnified image to focus on!!


Chris
 
The issue I'm talking about (and I can't find any of the sample videos at the moment) is when you zoom in to a subject at around infinity, focus manually, and power-zoom out at maximum speed. Because the lens isn't parfocal, the camera has to dynamically correct the focus as the focal length changes. At slow to moderate zoom speeds, the focus can keep up with the zooming, but not any fast speeds. Unfortunately, I have no way, short of a plane trip, to actually put my hands on one of these cameras, so since I don't really need a new camera, I'm holding off. I also need to overcome my resistance to hand held cameras. :)
 
I thought i saw somewhere that there is a hardware upgrade, where the camera has to be returned to a dealer for the auto-focus to be fixed.
 
i dont think the enhanced focus features on ac160 and ac130 is a hardware upgrade because the HPX250 gets that via firmware upgrade.
its just another way to make some extra cash
 
dxl said:
i dont think the enhanced focus features on ac160 and ac130 is a hardware upgrade because the HPX250 gets that via firmware upgrade.
its just another way to make some extra cash
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The Panasonic article linked by ullanta in the original post says it's a hardware upgrade.
 
dxl said:
i dont think the enhanced focus features on ac160 and ac130 is a hardware upgrade because the HPX250 gets that via firmware upgrade.
its just another way to make some extra cash
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The HPX250 is different hardware inside. It always had the expanded FOV assist, it is 10-bit throughout, and it costs more because of those things.

The 130 & 160 absolutely do need a hardware change to implement the "A" upgrades.
 
ullanta said:
It mentions faster push-auto focus, and this leads me to suspect that there will be general autofocus improvements that will not be touted.


Lance, I do think it's elegant. It gives everyone what they want without needing to address whether the original camera was flawed or not.
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As far as "It gives everyone what they want", how can you possibly say such a thing, when no one has yet got their hands on this upgrade yet to try it out?

In my opinion, you are most definitely engaging in exaggeration and speculation. To me, the jury is still out, until we actually see how well the upgrade works. That will be the acid test.


Does anyone know if Panasonic actually has the new AC130A and AC160A available in their booth at the show this week, for people to checkout? If they do, then perhaps some folks can check them out and give us their impressions.
 
Chris, I was fascinated by the work you did with the 3X loupe.

I would prefer for my work to have a loupe that would fit on the viewfinder. There are many gadgets that fit on surgeon eyeglasses.

Did you ever look into this?

I have found BTW based on suggestions by others that making the viewfinder image B/W seems to make focusing easier.
 
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Re the "A" upgrades.. I do see the point with customers who have 2 AC 130/160 cameras but for a someone like me who has only one, I am not going to complain about a 7% upgrade fee for a feature that improves focus, even though I rarely use auto-focus. I phoned in today to get in the queue for the upgrade.
 
Regarding the loupe...my cams prior to this were HMC80's (actually HMC82's cos we are PAL) and Panasonic decided with that model to put the LCD in the EVF housing and then add a magnifying eyepiece and it was really brilliant!! The only other manufacturer to use this is Sony on the EX3 as far as I know....Now, the EVF already has a loupe and the issue for me being older is that it basically only magnifies a tiny 1/2" LCD so it's still not that big!! Using the LCD I'm now taking a 4" LCD and magnifying it 3X ....so it's like being in a movie theatre!!! It's the big screen experience!!! I do use the EVF when I have one cam on the tripod and after the LCD+ Loupe it's really, really tiny!!! My "final design" was to just use the Hoodman 3" loupe without the extension bit for wide screen and make my own foam board extension housing so I cannot see any reason why you couldn't make a long one for tripod use so it comes up near the handle.

Regarding the update yeah $600 is a lot to pay if I don't even know what I'm getting so some more comprehensive information after NAB would be great! I can certainly live with my cameras as they are anyway!!

Chris
 
LanceOregon said:
As far as "It gives everyone what they want", how can you possibly say such a thing, when no one has yet got their hands on this upgrade yet to try it out?

In my opinion, you are most definitely engaging in exaggeration and speculation. To me, the jury is still out, until we actually see how well the upgrade works. That will be the acid test.
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Sure, in the sense that you mean. We'll need to see what the actual improvement is, no argument there. But I was talking just in the sense of Panasonic's manner of providing these upgrades.
 
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