little bobby
Well-known member
There was a preview of an engineering model of the AF100 today at EAR Professional Audio/Video in Phoenix. I was personally hoping for a production model of the camera but I was pretty happy just to be able to play with any version of the camera.
My first impression is that the camera was much smaller than expected. I think that has been said before. The model we saw was mostly functional but I was unable to find out what functions were missing or not working from Steve, the Panasonic rep. He was quite busy talking to all the other guys there so I didn't feel like barging in on him.
The guys at EAR had the camera hooked up through HD-SDI to one of Panasonic's BT 17" monitors and the image was gorgeous. The didn't have any fancy lighting, just one light pointed at a christmas ornament hanging on a microphone stand arm. Not the greatest subject but it provided some great colors and the ability to test out the sharpness and ability to focus using the built-in LCD and the eye-piece. One of the other guys there decided to test out the rolling shutter by panning the camera extremely fast and while it is still present, it is very hard to notice. My feelings on the rolling shutter is that the normal person won't notice it quite as much as we notice it. It is a defect we tend to look for when we're watching footage from a HDSLR, but I think the lay-person will not notice it.
All in all I am excited for the camera. The Panasonic rep confirmed with me that he had heard Dec. 27th as the shipping date. He didn't know how many would be available. I'm just hoping that I have a very good excuse to get one of these things over a GH2...
A few picture from the event...and I apologize for their lack of quality, not a lot of light and my iPhone camera = crap.
You can tell its fairly small in size. Steve has larger hands than mine but they're not extremely large hands by any measure...the camera really is that small.
swapping lenses from a canon lens to a lumix lens.
My first impression is that the camera was much smaller than expected. I think that has been said before. The model we saw was mostly functional but I was unable to find out what functions were missing or not working from Steve, the Panasonic rep. He was quite busy talking to all the other guys there so I didn't feel like barging in on him.
The guys at EAR had the camera hooked up through HD-SDI to one of Panasonic's BT 17" monitors and the image was gorgeous. The didn't have any fancy lighting, just one light pointed at a christmas ornament hanging on a microphone stand arm. Not the greatest subject but it provided some great colors and the ability to test out the sharpness and ability to focus using the built-in LCD and the eye-piece. One of the other guys there decided to test out the rolling shutter by panning the camera extremely fast and while it is still present, it is very hard to notice. My feelings on the rolling shutter is that the normal person won't notice it quite as much as we notice it. It is a defect we tend to look for when we're watching footage from a HDSLR, but I think the lay-person will not notice it.
All in all I am excited for the camera. The Panasonic rep confirmed with me that he had heard Dec. 27th as the shipping date. He didn't know how many would be available. I'm just hoping that I have a very good excuse to get one of these things over a GH2...
A few picture from the event...and I apologize for their lack of quality, not a lot of light and my iPhone camera = crap.
You can tell its fairly small in size. Steve has larger hands than mine but they're not extremely large hands by any measure...the camera really is that small.
swapping lenses from a canon lens to a lumix lens.
