AF-100 Another DSLR $9,000 4:2:0 is a solution?

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Nick Navaro said:
NOW - My question is - If the 7D did this, could the AF100 handle it too??
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Better. There is nothing a 7D can do, that an AF100 can't do better (except take still photos, of course!)
The 7D is a slightly bit larger sensor so it can get a slight bit wider on any given lens (a relative crop factor of 1.18). But the AF100 will match or beat it in any video task, easily. Better sensor, better filtering, better sharpness, better codec, and way way way better ergonomics and usability.
 
Nick Navaro said:
So would that be a big deal. Say in this stadium shots? Would you lose the wide aspect?
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If you are really on a wide lens, like the 7-14, no. Things will look really really wide. I mean, 7mm is almost as wide as the wide end of a 2/3" zoom. On m43, it will be wider than virtually anyone would like to shoot 99.9% of the time.

And for that 00.1% that you need to go wider...rent a FF35 camera.
 
Barry_Green said:
It doesn't. A 25mm is a 25mm.


Nonsense. The 7-14 is an extremely wide lens, and it's native MFT.


Philip Bloom is one guy, with an opinion. He is not the end-all, be-all answer machine that people seem to want to make him out to be. And his opinions on the AF100 were formed after a very brief usage of a barely-functioning prototype. Cut the guy some slack and wait for him to have some serious, meaningful experience with it before putting his words under a microscope.
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Ok. Well I've got too much information coming from too many places then. It's all so confusing.

I'd buy you a drink too for sure. And I would also actually REALLY like you to just say "you know what, this part (insert function) of the AF100 is not actually that great)"... you don't need drinks from us though eh, as the commission from Panny will suffice. ;-) kidding

Thanks for even taking the time to reply in a civilised manner. Many wouldn't.
 
Nick Navaro said:
Say in this stadium shots? Would you lose the wide aspect? Tell me 2 lenses (wide & functional/zoom) I could put on the AF100, to do it "better"....
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Better than a 7D? Oh heavens yes. Use the 7-14 Panasonic, at 7mm it'll be delivering a wide angle that's wider than the 10-22 Canon EFS, but it'll be rectilinear, and there won't be massive aliasing all over the image! Shoot, wides are where the DSLRs suck the most, because everything's in focus and when something's in focus on a DSLR, it's aliasing. The AF100 is almost immune to aliasing, so wide shots are much cleaner, crisper, and more detailed.
 
Barry_Green said:
Better than a 7D? Oh heavens yes. Use the 7-14 Panasonic, at 7mm it'll be delivering a wide angle that's wider than the 10-22 Canon EFS, but it'll be rectilinear, and there won't be massive aliasing all over the image! Shoot, wides are where the DSLRs suck the most, because everything's in focus and when something's in focus on a DSLR, it's aliasing. The AF100 is almost immune to aliasing, so wide shots are much cleaner, crisper, and more detailed.
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Ok. What f stop is that? Good in low light too?
 
Homunculus said:
dude bloom is a good video creator, i.e. he's a good artist but he's not an expert on technical matters in the least. up until last week he thought the AF100 had the GH1 sensor for pete's sake! and Jan had to correct him. that should tell you how much he knows about the technical stuff. whereas the guys here are professional engineers and programmers telling you what the truth is and you still not listening to them
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Ok. Well I'm not an engineer or a programmer (surprise, surprise), and I don't know what or who the hell anyone is on here. And I respect Bloom for what I know. So do the engineer math and see what's happened here..... For me, he actually used the cam instead and reported on it, not base things just on figures. So I trusted that. just a human thing to do eh?
 
PS and now you can see the kind of stuff I do... So I hate watching all these test shots of f**king fish markets etc!!!! lol So boring! :-D
 
Nick Navaro said:
Ok. Well I'm not an engineer or a programmer (surprise, surprise), and I don't know what or who the hell anyone is on here. And I respect Bloom for what I know. So do the engineer math and see what's happened here..... For me, he actually used the cam instead and reported on it, not base things just on figures. So I trusted that. just a human thing to do eh?
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Yes he used it for 2 days. The guy you're talking to here Barry Green has had the camera for a month and has it in his house right now as we speak. He's probably playing with it as he's typing to you. So who are you going to trust, a computer programmer of 20 years, professional engineer, and 4 time emmy award nominee who has had the AF100 for a month and who has helped DEVELOP IT via direct instruction to the engineers building it? Or a guy who has had it for 2 days and barely knows anything about it
 
Nick Navaro said:
And I would also actually REALLY like you to just say "you know what, this part (insert function) of the AF100 is not actually that great)"...
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Well, it's hard to say that without the product being finished. How do you complain about the viewfinder (like Bloom did) only to find out that -- that's not the real viewfinder! And the real viewfinder is awesome! So you have to be very careful about what you complain about on a pre-production prototype because things can and do change.

That said, I'm not thrilled that it's CMOS. I would much rather that they figure out a way to do this with a large CCD. They didn't, they can't, I understand and accept that, but I don't prefer it. Then again, if they went with CCD, it might not be able to do variable frame rates, so ... you have to take the good with the bad I guess. The thing does 1080/60p after all!

If it has to be CMOS, I wish they would have implemented the flash-band compensation, but they didn't. Maybe that'll come in the future, but if it doesn't happen, I think that's disappointing.

I wish it was 10-bit output. I'd love to pair it with a 10-bit recorder for VFX shots or shots that are going to undergo heavy grading. But it isn't, it's 8-bit. I can't really complain, as all the cameras in this price bracket (or, well, really, all of them under $15,000) are 8-bit, excepting only the EX1/EX3. But I would still prefer 10-bit (I mean, seriously, who wouldn't always prefer "better"?)

I really, really, really, really wish that they'd use the two SD card slots for redundant/duplicate recording. I've been lobbying for that, and I'm disappointed it doesn't have it. I still hold out hope, but I think Jan's already said it's not gonna happen. I think SDHC reliability with good cards is fine, but frankly I'd love to have redundant recording for the ability to hand off footage to a client while keeping a copy for myself, or for those who are going to insist on cheaping out and using off-brand cards. All SDHC cards are NOT created equal, there's some real crap out there and there are actual counterfeit cards, and I think redundant recording would help protect people from themselves as well as provide more flexibility. But for whatever reason, it doesn't have it, and I wish it did.

And I really would like it to have 4:2:2 color sampling. It's twice as much color as 4:2:0. It doesn't make as much a difference in progressive recording, but in interlaced 4:2:0 was horrible, and I got quite addicted to 4:2:2 smoothness on the HPX170/HVX200. I don't want to go to 4:2:0. Then again, to be fair, the 4:2:2 on the HPX/HVX comes at the price of having to lose 33% of your horizontal fine detail, where the AF100 retains that. And while 4:2:2 results in 2x as much color sampling AS A RATIO to luminance, in terms of the textbooks and the math it really isn't THAT much more, once you take into account the additional color samples that come from the 1920 vs. 1280 sampling, the net increase in chroma samples on the HPX is 1.333x. So it makes a difference, but not as much as you'd think, and that goes a ways towards explaining why people are seeing AVCCAM as visually comparable to DVCPRO-HD.

What else... well, I wish it had a power tap output, and it doesn't. Can't really complain because no camera in this price bracket has one, but still, it'd be really useful.

About the only thing that has me actually genuinely disappointed with the AF100 right now is the complete lack of magnified focus assist. That, to me, is a big one, and I don't understand why it doesn't have it and I really exhort them to add it. I'm finding it workable without it, but I hate that it doesn't have it.

Thing is, some or all of these things might be rectified before the model is finalized and it ships, so complaining about things TO THE PUBLIC on a pre-production unit seems like wasted breath. You better believe that I've complained about many things to them in private, and to their credit they've fixed or improved many of those. I'm only mentioning these last remaining ones because they've said (usually through Jan) that those elements aren't going to change.

The AF100 isn't perfect. Coming from a DSLR perspective you might be tempted to think it's perfect, and that'd be understandable, but coming from a professional video camera perspective it's obvious that there are several things that it just doesn't do. And that's why they still sell lots of other models of professional video cameras.

With that all said, taken collectively as a whole, the AF100 is fantastic, it's a breakthrough, and it's the camera that most of us DVX/HVX users have been waiting for since we first heard about 24p on the original DVX100 eight years ago. And I do think that DSLR shooters are pretty much going to think they've died and gone to heaven. I would think a fun test would be to take away somebody's DSLR and have them shoot a project entirely on the AF100 for a couple of weeks, and then take it away and give them back their DSLR. I predict 98% of them will say "aw HELL NO, I ain't goin' back to this!"

you don't need drinks from us though eh, as the commission from Panny will suffice. ;-) kidding
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Well, seeing as there is no commission whatsoever, and they've never paid me a penny to endorse their products, I think I'd have to vote for the drinks... (and I don't drink either!) :thumbsup:
 
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Nick Navaro said:
Ok. What f stop is that? Good in low light too?
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It's f/4. If you want a fast wide lens, those don't exist. Not for full-frame, not for cinema. I don't think you're understanding the compromises that a large sensor involves. If you want fast and wide, you HAVE to go with a smaller chip. You can get a wide f/1.6 if you use a 1/3" camera. But if you want fast and wide on a big chip, that's EXPEN$IVE.

My point on the wide thing is -- even if the lens isn't fast enough, you could bump the gain up a notch to equalize it out, and still avoid the DSLR aliasing mess. And in my opinion, the increase in grain is probably still going to look better, collectively, than the faster lens with the aliasing on the DSLR.

I hope to be putting that to the test after I get my 7-14.
 
Homunculus said:
Yes he used it for 2 days. The guy you're talking to here Barry Green has had the camera for a month and has it in his house right now as we speak. He's probably playing with it as he's typing to you. So who are you going to trust, a computer programmer of 20 years, professional engineer, and 4 time emmy award nominee who has had the AF100 for a month and who has helped DEVELOP IT via direct instruction to the engineers building it? Or a guy who has had it for 2 days and barely knows anything about it
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Truthfully. I'd trust the guy who posted demo videos of what it looks like because apparently the camera doesn't lie. :-)

Luckily I have the best of both worlds now to make a decision. :-)
 
Nick Navaro said:
Truthfully. I'd trust the guy who posted demo videos of what it looks like because apparently the camera doesn't lie. :-)

Luckily I have the best of both worlds now to make a decision. :-)
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yes the 75% complete camera doesn't lie as to what it can do. but the demos don't show a 100% complete camera so the thing that you're "trusting" is in fact illusory and not real
 
Nick Navaro said:
For me, he actually used the cam instead and reported on it, not base things just on figures.
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Understood. But if you search around on these forums a bit, you'll see that I'm the guy who's usually out there testing things hardcore. I'm the guy who's got maybe $5,000 worth of professional test charts. I'm the guy who torture-tests codecs and finds out what the real limits are, so that I can advise people what products will work for them and which ones won't. I'm the guy who broke the news on CMOS sensors because I tested the hell out of them and reported on all the rolling shutter artifacts. Everybody acts like rolling shutter stuff is common knowledge now, but when I first posted that article they were calling for my head.

I don't tell people what they want to hear. I tell them what stuff does. Sometimes that makes me popular, because what the stuff does happens to line up with what they want to hear. Sometimes it makes me quite unpopular (such as when I showed exactly what DSLRs do, when people wanted to be told that a $799 SLR was just as good as a $35,000 Red One kit). But I don't do it for popularity. I lay the facts out there and let the reader decide what facts and issues are relevant to them.

And I don't care what any manufacturer says. I go and test the products and find out for myself. And then I report back here.
 
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Homunculus said:
yes the 75% complete camera doesn't lie as to what it can do. but the demos don't show a 100% complete camera so the thing that you're "trusting" is in fact illusory and not real
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Is the image REALLY going to change tho? Probably not?? I mean the chip is in there, the codec is there.... The 25% left will most likely be features??

I guess Barry is the best guy for this too....
 
and guess what, the vids and write up Bloom did is not his final review. In fact he is flying out next month to do a review on the final PRODUCTION version in Japan at the actual factory where they will be produced. So the only thing you saw from his videos are an incomplete product whereas Barry Green has in is possession right now a MORE complete version. You can verify this by the various photos Barry has posted that show the body of his cam is far better looking and more advanced than the one Bloom had because Barry's is a newer MORE complete (85%) model
 
Nick Navaro said:
Is the image REALLY going to change tho? Probably not?? I mean the chip is in there, the codec is there.... The 25% left will most likely be features??

I guess Barry is the best guy for this too....
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I'm pretty sure I read that the engineers themselves have stated in the past that the sensor is not yet optimized. Think of it like tuning a car, the prototype is likea car without a tuneup. So while there is no guarantees but yes the image could change
 
Nick Navaro said:
Yes, that's exactly what I want. You have to aim high right? :-)
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Well, you can have it. Get an Arri Ultra Prime 10mm lens, it has an f-stop of 2.0. Or, if you need wider, you can get an 8mm, which has an f-stop of 2.8 (so not that fast, about a stop faster than the Lumix 7-14).

Of course, those are prime lenses so no zoom, and they're cinema lenses so no autofocus and no auto-iris. And they're about $20,000. Each.

And they won't work on a 5D, because they're "crop" lenses. The only sensors they work on are S35 or smaller.


You want wide and fast, it exists, but it costs.
 
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