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

LanceOregon said:
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.
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Yes they had the 160"A" in the booth. they only told me the upgraded the recording capability- never mentioned focusing upgrade.
JVC has produced an interesting camera to compete with the 160. I think it's call HM600 (and a wireless digital file transfer capable camera call the HM650 model). It lacks time date stamp so I scratched that off my list pretty quickly. It has a better f-stop range, though.
 
What I hope to see, is some tests and product videos on the 130A when they come out and hopefully redo the autofocus tests we did a few months ago.

If this fixes the problem of the tests I did a while ago, this will be an awesome camera for my needs.

Thank-Jeff
this was my old HMC150 VS 130 test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvQsC_AAaf8
 
Wow..I hate to interrupt..but my problem is a little bit different. I own 2 AC-160's for documentary work. I live in Mexico..my cameraman is in Ohio. He is very happy with unit, but I decided to upgrade 160's. Problem I'm having is I cannot find a service center!! I'm serious! Panasonic web-site does not recognize AC-160 as one of their models. I tried to go to a "Pro" site..still no recognition. If I do decide to get this upgrade (which I'm having second thoughts about at the moment!)..how do I find a service center?? Camera is around the Akron/Cleveland area. Thanks for help!
 
Have You already registered your camera on the Panasonic site? What is your problem? Was your camera imported illegally to your country? You should ask your dealer about this contraband?
 
I can understand that being from Russia..you don't have a grasp of English. Understandable. I said I live in Mexico..camera and cameraman are in Ohio (US). Camera(s) are registered with Panasonic..purchased from authorized dealer in Austin, Texas. Don't know why you choose to use words like "contraband"..well, I sorta' do know why. Go in peace, my son.
 
Hi, Mike.. I have been going over various posts on manual focus issues on the AG-AC160A. I did a recording a week ago where I verrrrry slowly zoomed in using a remote control (studio 1 productions). The client complained that at the zoomed in position the focus was soft. Your post seemed to imply that the focus should have stayed under these conditions "At slow to moderate zoom speeds, the focus can keep up with the zooming, but not any fast speeds"

Just now I discovered that the 160=>160A "expanded focus assist" (a magnifier) only works at the LCD and not at the EVF. This makes the feature useless in my opinion for many outdoor sessions.

I have been running my EVF in b/w using red peaking which is OK so long as there objects in the scene that are able to light up.

The real perplexer is reported distance at the camera is overstated by 9 feet when you are about 50 feet away and during limited testing it seemed to increase to 13 feet at 65 feet. All of this makes tape/laser measurements pointless.
 
kwkeirstead said:
Hi, Mike.. I have been going over various posts on manual focus issues on the AG-AC160A. I did a recording a week ago where I verrrrry slowly zoomed in using a remote control (studio 1 productions). The client complained that at the zoomed in position the focus was soft. Your post seemed to imply that the focus should have stayed under these conditions "At slow to moderate zoom speeds, the focus can keep up with the zooming, but not any fast speeds"
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Yes, assuming you were in manual focus, and that you used the standard cinema focus method of zooming in, focusing and then zooming out.

Zoom lenses work by changing the relative positions of groups of lens elements inside. The problem with this is that any change to the positions of the elements also changes the focus.

In still camera zoom lenses this situation is just accepted and you focus at whatever focal length you want to take the picture at.

However, zoom lenses for video and cinema need to be able to retain focus as the focal length is changed.

The only way to do this is to have 2 groups of lenses moving during zooming, one to correct the focus shift of the other. This adds quite a lot of expense (and some size and weight) to the lens.

With the advent of auto focus and processors that can work fast enough, manufacturers realised that they could use a cheaper single group zoom design and dynamically adjust the focus based on the actual zoom position. The microprocessor reads the current zoom position and adjusts the focus accordingly. The down side is that the focus motor has to track the zoom position in a non-linear fashion. This coupled with delays inherent in any servo system and the resolution of the zoom position sensor will cause minor errors, especially as the zoom speed increases.

Just now I discovered that the 160=>160A "expanded focus assist" (a magnifier) only works at the LCD and not at the EVF. This makes the feature useless in my opinion for many outdoor sessions.
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That is a silly omission.


The real perplexer is reported distance at the camera is overstated by 9 feet when you are about 50 feet away and during limited testing it seemed to increase to 13 feet at 65 feet. All of this makes tape/laser measurements pointless.
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I have no experience to definitely explain that, but it may be that the resolution of the mechanical focus position detector is not high enough to be accurate, but if that was the case, I don't know why they bothered to include it.
 
kwkeirstead said:
Hi, Mike.. I have been going over various posts on manual focus issues on the AG-AC160A. I did a recording a week ago where I verrrrry slowly zoomed in using a remote control (studio 1 productions). The client complained that at the zoomed in position the focus was soft. Your post seemed to imply that the focus should have stayed under these conditions "At slow to moderate zoom speeds, the focus can keep up with the zooming, but not any fast speeds"...
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I am not sure what you're talking about focus keeping up. On manual focus there is no change to focus until you re-adjust. Zoom in - get your focus -- zoom out and everything will stay in focus as you zoom in. If not there is a problem.
Now auto focus is a whole different thing. I have lots more lazy auto focus clips I will upload to youtube in the near future.
 
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