AF100-Successor in 2015!!!!

combatentropy said:
And here we diverge. Some want a large cameras, even shoulder mount, and I respect that. Totally fine for many professional assignments. But in many other circumstances, it is unwieldy, overly attention-getting, and somewhat dorky.
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I'm just back from seeing an FS7 in the flesh, and what did strike me is how it's possible to strip it down to end up with a box that is very comparable in size with an AF100 - certainly no more "attention getting". You can take off the arm and handgrip, top handle, mic and viewfinder and remount the latter two in a more compact form if you want - or leave them on for better ergonomics. You have the choice. I didn't find the fully rigged arrangement "dorky" - I did feel it would help prevent wrist strain when hand holding.

It may not be perfect, but it's the closest thing that actually exists at the moment to what people on this thread are saying they want. No native 4/3 lens ability, but it does have things like the XDCAM 50Mbs codec as well as all the HD/4k XAVC offerings - and a lot of broadcasters actually want XDCAM 50Mbs at the moment.
We should not underestimate the importance of DSLRs' size in their appeal. I think it would sell more if they made one like this mock-up by roxics.
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There's a few things in that mockup that I don't want - and amongst them is a 20Mp sensor. It may give a better stills mode - but will likely bring other compromises, such as making 14 stops DR less likely.
 
ggrantly said:
I wonder what Panny is doing with the hpx600, cause isn't that the cam we are really talking about? It is a smaller sized shoulder mount, large chip, I-Frame, P2 cam with a bunch of nice features. It's also near 20k with a decent lens.
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Sorry, but the HPX600 is 2/3", not what would normally be considered large chip.

Unlike most other 2/3" cameras, it's single chip which must put it at a sensitivity disadvantage compared to other 2/3" cameras. If you're going to 2/3", that tends to mean quite expensive lenses and it then seems a waste to match them with a single 2/3" chip.
 
harddrive said:
I'm just back from seeing an FS7 in the flesh, and what did strike me is how it's possible to strip it down to end up with a box that is very comparable in size with an AF100 - certainly no more "attention getting". You can take off the arm and handgrip, top handle, mic and viewfinder and remount the latter two in a more compact form if you want - or leave them on for better ergonomics. You have the choice. I didn't find the fully rigged arrangement "dorky" - I did feel it would help prevent wrist strain when hand holding.

It may not be perfect, but it's the closest thing that actually exists at the moment to what people on this thread are saying they want. No native 4/3 lens ability, but it does have things like the XDCAM 50Mbs codec as well as all the HD/4k XAVC offerings - and a lot of broadcasters actually want XDCAM 50Mbs at the moment.
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Agreed. The original AF100 also was a bit ungainly but is easy to reconfigure to very small or very easily shoulder-mountable configs without a lot of tinkertoy action. The internal recording of broadcast formats is the single biggest check box I need in my next camera. Right now, the FS7 checks that box and multiple others.
 
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combatentropy said:
The original AF100 was three times too big, and so is the FS7, in my opinion.
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So, what form factor would you like to see something like this in? I can't imagine what a camera with all of the features of a PX270 would look like, at a 1/3 the size of an AF100.

Shawn
 
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combatentropy said:
The original AF100 was three times too big, and so is the FS7, in my opinion.
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I respect your opinion, but I think then you're looking for something other than what this thread is really about - whether an AF100 successor is likely any time soon, and what people think it should be. Given what's been said before, (such as XLR etc connectivity, s35 chip) I just don't see it being the size you want without serious compromise in other respects.

If that's the size you want, I think we're talking about the GH4?
 
I answered this a few posts ago.



That is about one third the size of the AF100. Several in this thread have said a PX270 sans lens, which would still be about half the size of an AF100.

 
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harddrive said:
I respect your opinion, but I think then you're looking for something other than what this thread is really about - whether an AF100 successor is likely any time soon, and what people think it should be. Given what's been said before, (such as XLR etc connectivity, s35 chip) I just don't see it being the size you want without serious compromise in other respects.

If that's the size you want, I think we're talking about the GH4?
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Yeah, I'm wondering about that... the GH4 is about half the size of the AF100, and that seems small for the sort of camera we're talking about. The only video cameras I can imagine which are a third the size of the AF100, are the GoPro and the various "tube" type cameras, like the Canon Vixia.

Shawn
 
combatentropy said:
I answered this a few posts ago.
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Ah sorry, I must have missed this. Maybe I'm just hung up on specific dimensions, but I'm still not sure you can pack the features of a PX270 into a body that's even half the size of an AF100... then again, I'm not a product design engineer, so what do I know. :-)

Shawn
 
harddrive said:
If that's the size you want, I think we're talking about the GH4?
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The GH4 is 1/9 the size of the AF100.

AF100
6.4 x 7.7 x 11.4" = 562 cu. in.

PX270 (with lens)
6 15/16 × 6 23/32 × 12 15/16 = 603 cu. in.

PX270 (without lens, rough guess)
6 15/16 × 6 23/32 × 7 = 326 cu. in.

XA-20 (closer to what I had in mind)
4.3 x 3.3 x 7.2 = 102 cu. in.

GH4
5.2 x 3.7 x 3.3 = 63.5 cu. in.


This are rough numbers, because obviously these cameras have curves and stuff so that they're actually smaller than simply multiplying their dimensions. Nevertheless, the AF100 is a fat pig. Something like the XA-20 is more what I had in mind. The PX270 without a lens still would be a huge improvement.
 
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harddrive said:
Sorry, but the HPX600 is 2/3", not what would normally be considered large chip.

Unlike most other 2/3" cameras, it's single chip which must put it at a sensitivity disadvantage compared to other 2/3" cameras. If you're going to 2/3", that tends to mean quite expensive lenses and it then seems a waste to match them with a single 2/3" chip.
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Understand the hpx600 is a single chip. So how does the chip size of the 600 compare to a gh4 or a c100 for example?

Grant
 
ggrantly said:
Thanks Matt! There really is quite a difference. I guess my HPX600 comments are pretty much crap.
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Just to add to what Matt and Barry have said, beware of comparisons which aren't like for like in terms of aspect ratio. In the case of Matt's (very instructive) diagram, the 4/3 figure is given for the 4:3 aspect dimensions. For video, we're interested in 16:9 and that means the actual usable area is about 75% less than shown. (It actually depends on the camera. The AF100 was a straight crop of the 4:3 sensor - such as the GH3 were better, in 16:9 they cropped the top of the 4:3 image but were a little wider. They effectively maintained the image diagonal dimension.)

Practically, every doubling of sensor area corresponds to a stop in aspects such as basic sensitivity, depth of field etc. (With all else equal.)

In ball park figures, and talking about 16:9 modes, a 4/3 sensor is about 4x the area (2 stops) different to 2/3", and an s35 is about 8x (3 stops).

So if you were at f2 with 2/3" for a certain depth of field, you'd need to be at f4 with 4/3 and around f5.6 with s35.

It therefore follows that s35 doesn't ALWAYS mean shallow depth of field cf 2/3" - just stop down about 3 stops for equivalence. But s35 can give you a shallow ABILITY that is impossible practically with 2/3". If at f2 with s35, 2/3" would need a theoretical f stop of around f0.7 to give dof equivalence! (Which you'll never get! :) )
 
combatentropy said:
The GH4 is 1/9 the size of the AF100.

AF100
6.4 x 7.7 x 11.4" = 562 cu. in.

PX270 (with lens)
6 15/16 × 6 23/32 × 12 15/16 = 603 cu. in.

PX270 (without lens, rough guess)
6 15/16 × 6 23/32 × 7 = 326 cu. in.

XA-20 (closer to what I had in mind)
4.3 x 3.3 x 7.2 = 102 cu. in.

GH4
5.2 x 3.7 x 3.3 = 63.5 cu. in.


This are rough numbers, because obviously these cameras have curves and stuff so that they're actually smaller than simply multiplying their dimensions. Nevertheless, the AF100 is a fat pig. Something like the XA-20 is more what I had in mind. The PX270 without a lens still would be a huge improvement.
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The PX270 is able to get away with the smaller body because of it's placement of the LCD and one XLR. Beyond that, I wouldn't expect anything the size of the XA-20, let alone the GH4. The PX270 has two SDXC/microP2 slots, a normal sized P2 slot, internal ND filters, HD-SDI, TC in/out, Genlock, multiple USB slots, and a much larger LCD and viewfinder. 4k is going to require multiple 3G-SDI outputs. It's also going to need batteries much larger than the GH4's to power it. That all is going to take up a lot of real estate. Just look at how big the YAGH!!!!!!! is for as little as is actually contained in it... and it still requires external power. Plus, the PX270 and AF100 have vastly more external switches and controls compared to the XA-20 or GH4. I would much prefer having a bigger camera with everything at my fingertips, than a small camera where I have to hunt through a menu every time I need to adjust audio. And compared to my HMC150, it really isn't that big... I'm used to full sized shoulder mount cameras, so I guess it's all a matter of perspective :)
 
I wasn't saying that I want something the size of a GH4. I said I wanted something about a third of the size of the AF100, which would be something between the XA-20 and the PX270. Someone told me that I must want a GH4 because a GH4 is a third the size of the AF100. All that math was just to show, no, the GH4 is much smaller than a third of the size of the AF100. No, I do not want something the size of a GH4.

I think that once you decide you're making a handheld camcorder instead of shoulder mount, then you want it to be as small as possible while keeping these things:

- that you hold it with your hand sideways, like you do with the PX270 and other handheld videocameras. I think this is more comfortable than the way you must hold an SLR.

- that there be room for XLR jacks and a reasonable set of controls so that, like you said, you don't have to go digging through menus for everything. That being said, I believe this may take less room than some might think. A shuttle wheel (like some cameras have to control the iris) and a selector button to change whether the wheel is changing frame rate, shutter speed, or ISO, would be the main control I'd use.

Other than that, I think manufacturers should shrink-wrap the camera's body, so to speak, to the specifications, and make it as small as possible. Canon did a fair job of it with their EOS Cinema cameras. I just think the XA-20 and ones like it are the ideal. If the engineers shoot for it and end up having to make it a little bigger, so be it. I'm just saying to ask them to try and see what they come up with, rather than saying that the AF100 body is fine how it is.
 
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