af100 vs 5D mk ii

A

Angelcyk

Well-known member
just on picture alone and including audio and body. How does the af100 match up to the 5D mk ii?
 
why don't you check the several videos available directly comparing mk2 and af100 and decide for yourself? click on the af100 forum and at the top af100 footage and look through all the posts there (there's not that many only 2 pages or so i think) there are 2 or 3 videos directly comparing 5k2 and af100 shooting the same footage. actually more like 3 or 4 i guess if you count leo ticheli's studio tests
 
Angelcyk said:
just on picture alone and including audio and body. How does the af100 match up to the 5D mk ii?
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Are you asking to know if the two can be cut together reasonably well? I'm curious too, and will conduct my own 5DII/T2i/XHA1/AF100 frankenfootage comparison.
 
mkfotos.com said:
Are you asking to know if the two can be cut together reasonably well? I'm curious too, and will conduct my own 5DII/T2i/XHA1/AF100 frankenfootage comparison.
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just go into the af100 footage forum. there is footage of the 2 intercutting already 5dmkii and af100. intercuts OK for the average viewer but with a trained eye you can spot the difference
 
The first night I had my AF101 I took some test clips in a really bad lit kitchen. When I later watched that footage from my BR player it had such a fine detailed image with a very nice dynamic range. It was really stunning for me coming from Canon DSLR shooting. One strength on the 5D or 7D is very nice colours like on all Canon cameras. But I'm confident I'll colour profile my AF camera to achieve the same colours or hopefully better.

The thing is once I've set up my AF it's a camera I can trust not having all the pit falls of a 5D or 7D and still look as great or even better than the Canons at their best.
 
mkfotos.com said:
A friend's initial comparo/review: http://vid35.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/af-100-vs-5d-mark-ii-first-impressions/
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Interesting. Pretty surprising that his conclusion is that the AF seems softer than the 5D, since I would hope that that is one big plus it should have over the 5D. Then again his conclusion isn't surprising given that his test involved setting his f-stops to f/16 and comparing a FF35 camera to a m4/3 camera without accounting for diffraction. The first shot in the test seems to have a ton of contrast loss between the two cameras, and not in a way that looks like it could be from differing gamma curves. What have others found regarding sharpness on an AF100? I have seen some amazingly sharp videos coming out of the GH2 so I would hope for the same from an AF100, but is this the case?

It is immediately visible how little highlight latitude the AF100 has compared to the 5D if you look at the fountain in the first shot. Is everyone seeing the same thing who has used this camera? That has been the main reason I have not more seriously considered buying an AF100, because every sample video I have seen from pre-production AF100 cameras and now production AF100s have exhibited incredibly hard white clipping. (Also color that looks a bit odd and really odd near clipped highlights) I was slightly worried about this initially but figured it was due to Gamma curves not being finalized or people using non-cine gammas. Now it seems like people have had some time and are even using Cine D and the highlight clip is still as terrible as I had feared. Hopefully someone can show me otherwise as I havent had the opportunity to use the AF100 yet myself.
 
nyvz said:
Pretty surprising that his conclusion is that the AF seems softer than the 5D, since I would hope that that is one big plus it should have over the 5D. Then again his conclusion isn't surprising given that his test involved setting his f-stops to f/16 and comparing a FF35 camera to a m4/3 camera without accounting for diffraction.
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Bingo on the diffraction issue. Af f/16, that definitely becomes an issue on a m4/3 camera. I've found f/11 to be the sharpest, after that things can get pretty soft. Comparing the two cameras at that aperture was not a sound decision. At normal working apertures, the AF100 will easily and soundly outresolve the 5DII.

nyvz said:
It is immediately visible how little highlight latitude the AF100 has compared to the 5D if you look at the fountain in the first shot. Is everyone seeing the same thing who has used this camera?
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What seems clear to me is that the AF100 is slightly more sensitive than the 5DII at equivalent ISO's. This is also well documented when comparing the GH1's sensitivity to the Canon's, as well. The AF100 shot is about 1/2 stop over exposure compared to the Canon, which is to be expected given equivalent settings.

Also, remember that Cine D is notorious for not giving any rolloff in the highlights. It's a very flat (linear) gamma curve that is not forgiving at the top, but it will give you the widest DR. Great care should be taken when using it in situations that you don't have control over lighting.
 
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cowpunk52 said:
What seems clear to me is that the AF100 is slightly more sensitive than the 5DII at equivalent ISO's. This is also well documented when comparing the GH1's sensitivity to the Canon's, as well. The AF100 shot is about 1/2 stop over exposure compared to the Canon, which is to be expected given equivalent settings.

Also, remember that Cine D is notorious for not giving any rolloff in the highlights. It's a very flat (linear) gamma curve that is not forgiving at the top, but it will give you the widest DR. Great care should be taken when using it in situations that you don't have control over lighting.
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I wasnt aware that is what Cine D was known for. I remember it in the HVX being a brighter, lower contrast gamma. I thought the whole idea is that it had brighter midtones so you'd expose lower and there would be more highlight compression and more highlight detail, and I thought the whole idea behind cinegamma modes was to HAVE highlight roll-off like film (hence "cine") as opposed to other gammas that just use a knee-style curve in the highlights which gets very clippy very quickly. I remember you had to be careful about noise on Cine D on the HVX for this reason... Or am I just projecting my EX1 picture profile knowledge onto Panasonic scene files? So what scene file setting on the AF100 do you think would give better highlight performance?


BTW another piece of info that would be of interest is whether the 5D had HTP on or off... If it was off, that means it could've potentially had yet another stop of highlight latitude compared to the AF100.
 
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nyvz said:
I wasnt aware that is what Cine D was known for.
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nyvz said:
BTW another piece of info that would be of interest is whether the 5D had HTP on or off... If it was off, that means it could've potentially had yet another stop of highlight latitude compared to the AF100.
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Well, not really. HTP drops the ISO by one stop and uses +1 compressed exposure compensation to get back the brightness while preserving highlights. You'll get a lot more noise, and no real extra dynamic range. The camera is just boosting the mids and darks back up. The 5D has maybe 8.5 stops of DR in video. The AF100 has 10.5 stops of DR. No amount of in-camera finagling will give you more on either one.
 
cowpunk52 said:
Well, not really. HTP drops the ISO by one stop and uses +1 compressed exposure compensation to get back the brightness while preserving highlights. You'll get a lot more noise, and no real extra dynamic range. The camera is just boosting the mids and darks back up. The 5D has maybe 8.5 stops of DR in video. The AF100 has 10.5 stops of DR. No amount of in-camera finagling will give you more on either one.
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Yes that is why I said "highlight latitude". The recent conversation has been about the comparison of the af100 and 5d's handling of highlights. I personally am far more sensitive to a camera's highlight handling than noise. Yes you can always under expose and do a similar thing in post, but then you have to do it in post and you cant be sure what it'll look like until post, I have always preferred to use HTP on the 5D and 7D except for very unique circumstances. From my personal tests, I found the 7D to be over 9 stops in the neutral picture style capturing video and imagine the 5D to be at least that, probably more.

Well this is why I'm confused, I have seen no images from the af100 that look like they could possibly have more latitude than a 5D. I would love to test the af100 myself, but so far I am only going on the dozens of videos I have seen online, all of which look (very subjectively of course) to me like no more than 8 stops of latitude not to mention really ugly highlight clipping. I'd love to see images from the AF100 that demonstrate its potentially 10.5 stops of latitude and reasonably nice looking highlight roll-offs but I have not as of yet been able to find any such evidence online.
 
cowpunk52 have you confirmed or verified AF100 10.5 DR? Everyone is still throwing around that number based on Barry's initial tests of a PROTOTYPE when Barry himself said that that number could very well go DOWN (or up) in the production model due to engineers perhaps being required to lower DR in order to have a more uniform picture quality with less noise etc. as of yet i have not seen any definitive tests that confirm AF100's true DR and from what my own eyes can see I do not see it as being any higher than the DSLR's like canon as NYVz has said, just look at the new video someone just posted directly comparing af100 and 5dmkii in an outdoor sunlight setting. The 5dmkii exhibits higher dynamic range very clearly in that video although I am dubious as to that particular video's setup since it seems perhaps AF100 was more over exposed either via higher ISO or wider aperture or both.
 
nyvz said:
Yes that is why I said "highlight latitude". The recent conversation has been about the comparison of the af100 and 5d's handling of highlights. I personally am far more sensitive to a camera's highlight handling than noise. Yes you can always under expose and do a similar thing in post, but then you have to do it in post and you cant be sure what it'll look like until post, I have always preferred to use HTP on the 5D and 7D except for very unique circumstances. From my personal tests, I found the 7D to be over 9 stops in the neutral picture style capturing video and imagine the 5D to be at least that, probably more.
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DRS on the AF100 will do something similar, but work much better. You'll still be introducing a lot of extra noise. The thing is, it's really just boosting your darks, but not capturing the detail within them.
 
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Homunculus said:
cowpunk52 have you confirmed or verified AF100 10.5 DR? Everyone is still throwing around that number based on Barry's initial tests of a PROTOTYPE when Barry himself said that that number could very well go DOWN (or up) in the production model due to engineers perhaps being required to lower DR in order to have a more uniform picture quality with less noise etc. as of yet i have not seen any definitive tests that confirm AF100's true DR and from what my own eyes can see I do not see it as being any higher than the DSLR's like canon as NYVz has said, just look at the new video someone just posted directly comparing af100 and 5dmkii in an outdoor sunlight setting. The 5dmkii exhibits higher dynamic range very clearly in that video although I am dubious as to that particular video's setup since it seems perhaps AF100 was more over exposed either via higher ISO or wider aperture or both.
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Unfortunately, I cannot confirm 10.5 stops of DR. But if Barry says he saw 10.5 stops on a chart, then I believe him. Of course, it could theoretically go down, but I don't believe Panasonic would do that. I have a camera on pre-order with EVS in Burbank, as soon as it's delivered, I'll know for sure.

Definitely in that test video the AF100 is over exposed compared to the Canon. Presumably, as I stated before, the m4/3 chip is a little more sensitive at equivalent ISO's, just like the GH1 is.
 
cowpunk52 said:
DRS on the AF100 will do something similar, but work much better. You'll still be introducing a lot of extra noise. The thing is, it's really just boosting your darks, but not capturing the detail within them.
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Boosting noise, boosting darks, yes please. No matter what you do, getting a useable image off of a linear light sensor you have to boosting the shadows/noise immensely compared to what's coming off the sensor but for the purpose of getting a usable image. If you don't boost it enough, for example, leaving 3 stops of latitude over middle grey and 7 under, which appears to be part of the issue with the AF100, then you'll really never get a pleasing image in most situations. I understand why people are so afraid of noise, but I'd be much more afraid of having a camera that can't produce images that are neither underexposed nor blown out. If the sensor has 10+ stops of latitude and is placing most of those stops in the shadows, you're never going to see most of that latitude when exposing "correctly".
 
BTW thanks for reminding me about Cine-D, I havent used an HVX in years. From those lines it looks like Cine-D isnt brighter but it is lower contrast. Why do the other gammas end so much higher? From the look of it, there isnt a clear choice for gamma... I'd prefer something with highlight rolloff but without too much extra contrast, maybe like cine-v with the pedestal brought up... As expected all the non-cine gammas are probably pretty useless for non-news work given their hard knee.

(where is that graph from? your own tests? It's pretty hard to tell much about details without axis labels)
 
I have to say that I've watched every single AF100 video posted online, and so far there hasn't been a single one that has the "mojo" that 5D footage has.

Yes, it has less technical problems and so on, but the footage doesn't "pop" or look as filmic as 5D footage does.

I'm hoping that someone can create a Scene File that truly makes the AF100 sing.

Because at the moment I'm not very tempted to get one.
 
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