AF100 / AF101 - initial report

Why do so many people comment on what the camera looks like? Isn't that the lest important issue? Or are you one of those people that spends $800 on a T2i and then $7000 on worthless overpriced matte boxes and fallow focuses that essentially do nothing but make the camera "look movie studio like"?

It looks fine just being a block with a hole for a lens. What else do you want... a spoiler and under-body neon's?
its not that i cant settle below an amazing blonde , i dont mind a decent looking brunette , but this is big fat mom !! .

lol no seriously , i know the looks doesnt matter , but for 6 $ ~ i think they could design it better but yeah it doesnt matter .
 
It will be the first professional camcorder able to shoot such a frame rate at FullHD resolution...
If no line-doubling or some other interpolation technique is applied I think this new sensor has a huge work to do.
A great and unique feature, anyway.

Oh, BTW, any info about sensor's scanning mode?
I mean: does it line-skip as in HDSLRs or does it scan the full 12 Mpixel area for a later downconversion to 1920x1080?
If the sensor can't do standard 1080/60p, I'm not sure how it can do 1080/24p @ 60 fps VFR, unless it's some sort of burst mode that it can't keep up for long.

Can we confirm that it isn't just uprezzing the 720p VFR modes for 1080p?
 
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I AGREE

man this thing is gonna be sooooooooooooooo coool!!!!

now just gotta bust my ass on projects so i have enough money to buy it :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

only disappointment is the 2.0x crop like the gh1. was hoping for a 5d full frame but alas! still going to be amazing
 
I like the shape and look of this camera. It looks like I'll be able to rig up much of my dslr rig I'm putting together with the AF100 as well. It's simple, at least there are no racing stripes.
 
Dude, I grew up in Las Vegas. And I >never< saw stuff there, like they have here.

Was shooting in downtown and we walked by a cafe that had a "no smoking" sign. Well, at least, that's what I thought it was: it had a picture of a cigarette with a circle and a slash through it." And I thought -- wait -- this is Europe, I thought you were >required< to smoke? So I looked closer and it said "Smoking allowed. No tobacco."

Ah, I get it...

But yeah, that was the tame stuff. Amsterdam is not a shy town.
LOL

As matter of fact, it is not. After Amsterdam only Hamburg, a second home. But I am in Rome these days. If you'll decide to fly a couple of hours and come to Mediterranean, let me know via PM. It would actually be nice to finally meet you in person beyond the forums.

E. :-)

 
hey barry, imma ask again.. colored peaking? im guessing its not there eh
Sorry, didn't necessarily see every question. All those responses were typed out at 2:00 a.m.-ish.

There was no colored peaking in the unit I tested. However, I pushed heavily for such a feature, and again, this camera is only 70% done, so -- will it be there in the final version? Maybe.
EDIT - on the show floor they demonstrated to me that there indeed *is* colored peaking! So either I missed the feature entirely in the menus, or it was enabled in that prototype but not in the one I used? Either way, doesn't matter, it <does> have colored peaking![/EDIT]

I hope people understand the way that a preview/review on a prototype has to be done -- I won't be talking about things that don't work, or software features that are missing -- that feedback goes to the engineers, not to the public. I will talk about what is there, and what works well, but if something doesn't work there's no purpose in waving a red flag to the forum because it could be a complete non-issue to the end user, because they still have a chance to fix or add or improve. And, this being the Internet, sometimes things get a little blown out of proportion and flames get fanned and the next thing you know everyone's up in arms about something that may actually turn out to be nothing.

On the other hand, there is the danger that even though something is enabled in a prototype, that doesn't necessarily guarantee that it will be featured in the finished model. If they discover some bug that they can't fix or something, they may have to disable a certain feature in order to make a 100% reliable product. So everything I have listed as being "in there" should be understood by everyone to be "likely" to be included in the finished version, but not necessarily "guaranteed". I think everything I've discussed will make it into the final released product, but the only way we'll know for sure is when the product is actually released.

More formally and with legalese: I am not a Panasonic employee, I do not speak for the company, and my words cannot be taken to bind the company to any obligations. Any purchase decision has to be made based on the printed specifications released by the company themselves. Until then, "everything is subject to change." Or, put another way, just 'cause I said it's in there, doesn't guarantee that it will be in the final released product. Probably will be, very likely it will be, but not guaranteed.

So -- the camcorder is not perfect. There are features I'd love to see added, there are things that weren't working properly yet, etc. I have given much feedback to the engineers about those issues (which is, after all, the whole point of having someone test an unreleased product). But I can say that between what's in there, what they've said they'll add in, and when they perfect what it's already doing pretty well, that makes me very optimistic that this will be a major hit.
 
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I get that FF35 is the stills standard, (5D) and mft is close to s35 which is the motion picture standard.
Well, not really -- the motion picture standard has traditionally been Academy 35mm, not S35. S35 is bigger than normal. Normal 35mm cinema film is a 22mm wide frame, and S35 is a 24mm wide frame.

My question is, which crop should I pick? Is a cinema lens 50 different than a stills 50?
There is no difference. A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. If you put a 50mm stills camera lens on a movie camera, and then replaced it with a 50mm cinema lens, they will look exactly the same.

does a stills 50 give the same fov as a cine 50 on a motion picture camera's frame?
Yes, when both are used on the same camera, they will deliver identical FOV and DOF results.

I get the crop factor, but i don't know which crop i'm working with.
Which is why I call the crop factor a "crap factor". It just causes confusion. I say ignore it and instead think in terms of a cinema prime lens set, which would include a 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. Those are the most common focal lengths used in cinema shooting. Who cares what the lens looks like on a still camera? You're not using a still camera, you're using a cinema camera, so use cinema focal lengths. An extended cinema set would add 18mm, maybe 21mm, and 100mm. With those 7, you've got a pretty complete set.

My objective is to match motion picture frame, or half frame as i read, and that would mean i'm cropping for 1.18 when i pick glass?
Correct, but almost irrelevant. The cinema crop factor is so minor that you can just about ignore it. I mean, if you put a 20mm lens on a cinema camera and shoot from 10 feet, you could get the same results on an AF100 by either a) using a 23mm lens, or b) use the same 20mm lens, and shoot from 11.8 feet back instead. Really it's no big deal. It's very slightly different, but it's not some big scary thing you have to worry about. You just use either a very slightly wider lens or set the camera very slightly further back.
 
Oh, BTW, any info about sensor's scanning mode?
I mean: does it line-skip as in HDSLRs or does it scan the full 12 Mpixel area for a later downconversion to 1920x1080?
No information was given. But, let's be clear -- no actual information has ever been given on how DSLR sensors work either. No engineer or chip designer who is "in the know" has ever confirmed that DSLRs "line skip." We THINK they do, it seems a reasonable guess based on the end results, but we don't KNOW it to be so.

Secondly -- does it really matter? If you get 1080p resolution with practically no aliasing, do you care if it does it through line skipping, or scaling, or osmosis, or refraction, or teleportation, or black holes and time travel? I don't. I just want a great sharp problem-free 1080p image. So far it looks like it delivers that. If it does it through line-skipping, then they do a darn good job of line-skipping.

Again, though, final judgement must be reserved for the final product, final judgements cannot be made off of a barely-born prototype. I haven't put it up against a 4K res chart, for example, so my judgement on the sharpness is not based on empirical scientific data (which would be pointless to gather at this stage anyway) but rather it's based on looking at crisp sharp 1080p HD on a 1080p monitor and saying "dang, that looks S H A R P".
 
<----------biting his nails waiting for Barry to drop it.
Oh, you don't know the half of it. During the press conference they had one there on a display so I went over and grabbed it and I was wildly waving it around and then I got to the point about discussing monitoring options and I wanted to show the HD-SDI so I pried open the cover and ... yanked a chunk of the camera off. Because it wasn't a camera at all -- it was a mockup! So I broke the mockup, in front of the entire broadcast industry press. A little embarrassing... :) And as I was waving it around I could feel the lens getting a little wobbly, and I thought any minute now that was gonna fall off. So, yeah, lesson learned -- find out whether you're demonstrating a functional version, or just an expertly-crafted mockup!
 
Oh, you don't know the half of it. During the press conference they had one there on a display so I went over and grabbed it and I was wildly waving it around and then I got to the point about discussing monitoring options and I wanted to show the HD-SDI so I pried open the cover and ... yanked a chunk of the camera off. Because it wasn't a camera at all -- it was a mockup! So I broke the mockup, in front of the entire broadcast industry press. A little embarrassing... :) And as I was waving it around I could feel the lens getting a little wobbly, and I thought any minute now that was gonna fall off. So, yeah, lesson learned -- find out whether you're demonstrating a functional version, or just an expertly-crafted mockup!
sorry for your embarrassment, but i laughed at this story.:embarasse
 
Ok, I get it. It's not fully functional.

So, since it's 70% complete, and considering it's now "used," I'm prepared to offer $4,000 for your prototype. Lemme know what they say.
 
Well, not really -- the motion picture standard has traditionally been Academy 35mm, not S35. S35 is bigger than normal. Normal 35mm cinema film is a 22mm wide frame, and S35 is a 24mm wide frame.


There is no difference. A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. If you put a 50mm stills camera lens on a movie camera, and then replaced it with a 50mm cinema lens, they will look exactly the same.


Yes, when both are used on the same camera, they will deliver identical FOV and DOF results.


Which is why I call the crop factor a "crap factor". It just causes confusion. I say ignore it and instead think in terms of a cinema prime lens set, which would include a 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm. Those are the most common focal lengths used in cinema shooting. Who cares what the lens looks like on a still camera? You're not using a still camera, you're using a cinema camera, so use cinema focal lengths. An extended cinema set would add 18mm, maybe 21mm, and 100mm. With those 7, you've got a pretty complete set.


Correct, but almost irrelevant. The cinema crop factor is so minor that you can just about ignore it. I mean, if you put a 20mm lens on a cinema camera and shoot from 10 feet, you could get the same results on an AF100 by either a) using a 23mm lens, or b) use the same 20mm lens, and shoot from 11.8 feet back instead. Really it's no big deal. It's very slightly different, but it's not some big scary thing you have to worry about. You just use either a very slightly wider lens or set the camera very slightly further back.

My god. thank you.

it's the next day here too, i jus saw how many q's i asked. finally. confirmation.

that af100 is small huh. my favorite thing about it so far. :)

and i dont think it's fugly at all.
 
thanks for all the info Barry!

I dont know if its been said but is the AF100 coming with some kit lens?
Lets hope the price drops a little...
And did I read right? the sensor is NOT the same as in the GH1 ??? its bigger???

I am definately getting one of these instead of another GH2 .....and I am very very much intereted in the P2 version of it like you suggested.


enjoy Amsterdam and if you ever come to Berlin, let me know.....
 
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