Af 105a announced in japan

Yeah, and most of the points early on were dead on.

Highlight handling was not good.
Noise in the blacks was an issue.
Banding was a *****.
---------------and none of these things changed...


There has also been early footage from the BMCC which looks pretty amazing IMHO. When you have a spectacular product there's nothing to fear - even if you have a few glitches early on.
 
Steve Kahn said:
Yeah, and most of the points early on were dead on.

Highlight handling was not good.
Noise in the blacks was an issue.
Banding was a *****.
---------------and none of these things changed...

There has also been early footage from the BMCC which looks pretty amazing IMHO. When you have a spectacular product there's nothing to fear - even if you have a few glitches early on.
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I understand your point completely as these are only tools, not a religion. The problem is that the points you mentioned have been quoted endlessly to the point of absurdity -- so, perhaps it's time to move on.

It's up to the workman (workperson?) to decide the best tool for the job. If this camera doesn't suit you and the BMDCC does, that's totally understandable, but, it begs the question: "Why are you hanging out here?" That's the puzzling thing.

There are tools that I find quite substandard for certain jobs. I don't hang out on their forums and constantly berate them. I use the tool that fits the job and move on. There are many here who find this camera to be the right combination of quality and features to turn out excellent work for certain jobs. For others, it's not the right tool. There are jobs I do that this camera isn't suitable for, but I don't whine about the fact that the AF100 is not an Alexa or a Red or an F55. And as big a fan as I am of the Alexa, it's not always the right tool for the job, either.

This forum should be for people who appreciate the camera and want to share information on how to better use this particular tool. Sure we should discuss both plusses and minuses, but it reaches a state of absurdity when it becomes an incessant gripe-fest.
 
Steve Kahn said:
Yeah, and most of the points early on were dead on.

Highlight handling was not good.
Noise in the blacks was an issue.
Banding was a *****.
---------------and none of these things changed...
Click to expand...

Do not go there. You will be crucified. In these forums it's best to pretend the AF100 is perfect. If you can't get good footage is because you're a bad cameraman, it's not the camera's fault. If you insist in voicing your discontent with the camera you are a troll. (sarcasm)

No wonder Panasonic is not giving any major updates. Everybody is happy or pretending to be, and those who want to voice otherwise are rushed out.
 
John B. said:
I understand your point completely as these are only tools, not a religion. The problem is that the points you mentioned have been quoted endlessly to the point of absurdity -- so, perhaps it's time to move on.

It's up to the workman (workperson?) to decide the best tool for the job. If this camera doesn't suit you and the BMDCC does, that's totally understandable, but, it begs the question: "Why are you hanging out here?" That's the puzzling thing.

There are tools that I find quite substandard for certain jobs. I don't hang out on their forums and constantly berate them. I use the tool that fits the job and move on. There are many here who find this camera to be the right combination of quality and features to turn out excellent work for certain jobs. For others, it's not the right tool. There are jobs I do that this camera isn't suitable for, but I don't whine about the fact that the AF100 is not an Alexa or a Red or an F55. And as big a fan as I am of the Alexa, it's not always the right tool for the job, either.

This forum should be for people who appreciate the camera and want to share information on how to better use this particular tool. Sure we should discuss both plusses and minuses, but it reaches a state of absurdity when it becomes an incessant gripe-fest.
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+1
 
Adamsenoj said:
Do not go there. You will be crucified. In these forums it's best to pretend the AF100 is perfect. If you can't get good footage is because you're a bad cameraman, it's not the camera's fault. If you insist in voicing your discontent with the camera you are a troll. (sarcasm)

No wonder Panasonic is not giving any major updates. Everybody is happy or pretending to be, and those who want to voice otherwise are rushed out.
Click to expand...

It's not that people are rushed out for not drinking the kool-aid, it's the incesant cries of how supposedly horrible the camera is. No one here has claimed it's perfect. And virtually everyone you're implying who's claiming it is perfect are the first to tell you the flaws the camera has. It's just that all of those flaws are either completely irrelevant to us and what we do, or don't outweigh the benefits that the camera presents.

And regarding the argument "But the BlackMagic Camera does XYZ in a similar price range"... has anyone seen Philip Bloom's review of the camera? It is every bit as flawed... if not more so... than the AF100. It just has a very different set of flaws... but those flaws would make it unusable to me, I don't care how nice the potential image is. But I'm not sitting around harping on it. I just recognize that it would never work for me and moved on with it.
 
Adamsenoj said:
Do not go there. You will be crucified. In these forums it's best to pretend the AF100 is perfect. If you can't get good footage is because you're a bad cameraman, it's not the camera's fault. If you insist in voicing your discontent with the camera you are a troll. (sarcasm)

No wonder Panasonic is not giving any major updates. Everybody is happy or pretending to be, and those who want to voice otherwise are rushed out.
Click to expand...
Well if you think the camera takes the picture then maybe you need to look for a different profession. I haven't ran into a camera that isn't flawed in one way or many. But I make them all work one way or another.
 
dustylense said:
I haven't ran into a camera that isn't flawed in one way or many.
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I have, my 30+ year old super16 Aaton - I love that camera, sadly I can't get a budget for film anymore - so maybe that IS a flaw...

As I've said here twice already, a general audience is not seeing the "flaws", they're too busy watching the movie (what a concept).
 
lpowell said:
No, it's boring because you've wandered far off-topic into a monologue that has nothing to do with the upcoming AF100A.
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There would have been no need for my "monologue" if you hadn't made an incomplete statement about bitdepth precision, and hence drew an incorrect conclusion. (You ignored the effects of DSP processing, especially gamma.)

If I disagree with someone, then I believe it's neccessary to explain why, if only out of basic courtesy. I regret you find it makes a "monologue". (Does 9 lines really count as a monologue anyway?)

As for off-topic, it was on exactly the same topic as your post I replied to - will the 10 bit output of the forthcoming AF105A make much diference compared to the current version? How is that off-topic?
 
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BobbyMurcerFan said:
BTW, I think the better argument against 10-bits is that those bits have come from somewhere. So unless you increase the codec's bandwidth, you are increasing the levels of shading at the expense of high frequency detail. Is it a smart trade-off? Honestly, I would probably go to 10-bit only if the codec were around 100Mbps or higher for I frame footage.
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Agreed, and I am not saying that the 4:2:2/10 bit enhancement to the live output won't give any improvement - I'm sure it will, but the question is how much. I think the likelihood is that some people on here are being overoptimistic, but if they want to spend their money on an upgraded model and a decent 10 bit recorder only to find the improvement over the original AF100 isn't that much, best of luck, it's your money.
John B. said:
This forum should be for people who appreciate the camera and want to share information on how to better use this particular tool. Sure we should discuss both plusses and minuses, but it reaches a state of absurdity when it becomes an incessant gripe-fest.
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Well, my interest here was to FIND OUT what the upgrade consisted of, and reach a conclusion from that. My HOPE was that it was going to include a sensor upgrade, because whatever you think of the original AF100, if you want a significant real improvement, that should be the first place to start.

And if the word had been it was getting a quad-HD sensor (8 megapixel), suitable to be read in the same way as the one in the C300 I would have been amongst the first to be shouting it's likely praises. I'd be then fully expecting it's 1080 output to be on a par with the C300, and likely a bit better than the FS100. But in the absence of any such news being shouted out, it seems pretty safe to bet there will be no significant sensor upgrade, and performance comparable to the original AF100.

The original AF100 is what it is - it's neither "horrible" nor "perfect". The question is how much difference the A model will be compared to the original - and here I don't expect a lot. Look on the bright side. Less need to spend a large sum on upgrading to it. Now when the next model does come out with that purpose designed sensor, that will be a different matter........
 
harddrive said:
There would have been no need for my "monologue" if you hadn't made an incomplete statement about bitdepth precision, and hence drew an incorrect conclusion. (You ignored the effects of DSP processing, especially gamma.)
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What I was actually trying to ignore were your impertinent attempts to provoke me into debating your meandering speculations.
 
Guys, please just let the back and forth go. The question of the validity of the usefulness of the 10-bit output can be answered easily enough when the AF105 is put to the test. Until then, it's not something that can be settled by debate, and it's getting personal, so ... please just drop it and move on. Thanks.
 
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Ok so with these updates and the nice new feature set on the blackmagic recorder I am trying to plan and to price. B&H is not showing the camera. Does anyone know when pricing would be available?
 
harddrive said:
Agreed, and I am not saying that the 4:2:2/10 bit enhancement to the live output won't give any improvement - I'm sure it will, but the question is how much. I think the likelihood is that some people on here are being overoptimistic, but if they want to spend their money on an upgraded model and a decent 10 bit recorder only to find the improvement over the original AF100 isn't that much, best of luck, it's your money.

...
Click to expand...

And I really can't argue with what you are saying. A better codec, finer chroma sampling and greater bit depth could each or combined make a significant difference or they could not. We simply don't know. And I do agree that cameras are systems generally built for a particular level of quality in mind. So the ? you seem to be asking is "Will enough of the AF be improved to make higher quality recording worth it?" It IS a VERY fair ?.

I said that noise can be dither that helps smooth the image across ten bits. But it could also be a waste of codec resources or worse, i.e. junk that muddies up the image. It all depends. I've seen examples that clearly show an advantage of using an external recorder (Sony EX-1 with a nanoFlash) and I've seen examples where the external recorder's image looks worse (FS100 with a Ninja). So who knows? There are just so many variables.

IMHO, if you don't like the internally recorded image, then don't buy the camera. B/c an external recorder isn't going to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

I also don't understand the mad love some people have for I frame only codecs? Yes, they are easier to EDIT with. But they are also less efficient and, therefore, will look no better than AVCHD at the same bit rate. So if the goal is IQ out of the camera, I don't see how I frame only achieves that, unless the bit rate is upped very significantly. But again, that's helping the editorial process; you should be able to get equal or better IQ with less bandwidth by using AVCHD.
 
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Cinesota said:
No mention of an upgrade path for current AF100/101 owners.
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I highly doubt there will be one. The only way for current owners who want one will be selling their AF100 for $1,500 and fork out the other $2,500-3,000 for the new model.
For those who think $1,500 is too low, well, before the AF100A was even announced AF100 cameras were already going for $1,700-2,000 on Ebay and packages on this site selling for $2,500 seem to still be unsold.
 
Adamsenoj said:
For those who think $1,500 is too low, well, before the AF100A was even announced AF100 cameras were already going for $1,700-2,000 on Ebay...
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LOL, you undershot the going rate by more than $1000. That really doesn't help your credibility, you know.
 
lpowell said:
LOL, you undershot the going rate by more than $1000. That really doesn't help your credibility, you know.
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First, powell, I could care less about my "credibility" in an internet forum.
Second, I've not only seen AF100 cameras selling on Ebay for that much, I also know somebody who bought his for $2,000, with very low hours. The deals were out there and some of them were still not really selling. I didn't say this was the going rate as you implied by the way. I just said that there were cameras selling for that much, and there were. It doesn't take anybody with a high IQ to see that. Just search this own forum and see how many AF100 seem to be unsold and some for very good prices. Scanning ebay now real quick I could only find these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-A...rofessional_Video_Cameras&hash=item43b3efcea0

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-A...rofessional_Video_Cameras&hash=item19d530633a


I know they may look shady and I didn't read the descriptions, just picked the green ones which means they have sold.

But as I said, just scan this forum or the usual used gears sites and you will see I'm not really of base. And this was before the announcement of the A model.
 
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