af100 vs 5D mk ii
- Thread starter Angelcyk
- Start date
gustavo_viral
Active member
Im an AF100 enthusiast and i bought one. But i have to say that i kind agree whith this...
Thomas Church
Active member
Unaltered clips.
It's not a scientific remark, but a purely subjective one.
And it's not about DOF either, since I'm not particularly fond of uber-shallow DOF.
I don't know, the 5D footage on the whole seems more organic.
It's not a scientific remark, but a purely subjective one.
And it's not about DOF either, since I'm not particularly fond of uber-shallow DOF.
I don't know, the 5D footage on the whole seems more organic.
Last edited:
Andrew J. Allsbury
Well-known member
Just saying...Used the T2i AND 5D extensively over the past year...and my new AF100 kills it...no comparison (from my pov)
nyvz
Veteran
I apologize, perhaps "pretty useless" is too strong, what I meant was more that gamma curves with hard angles and straight lines in their highlight response seem less-than-ideal. Brian, that looks quite good, and as I don't use panasonic HVX/HPX cameras regularly anymore, it is hard for me to judge these gamma curves practically. I didnt mean to doubt that used carefully you cant create great looking footage, but I would tend to imagine you'd have to be a bit careful in high contrast scenes. I have the same issue with Canon DSLRs with contrast turned all the way down, it lowers contrast but harshens blowouts.
What I want in a gamma curve is one with highlight blowouts so smooth it looks natural. Looking at the curve above, imagine if you extrapolated past the point of white clipping on the right, there would essentially be a horizontal line. Ideally the highlights should be curved in such a way that at or just before the point of blowing out, the highlight gamma curve should pretty much naturally go horizontal itself so there isnt a hard angle in the curve when it goes completely horizontal. Seems very odd to me that its so hard to get a camera that will do this properly... It's surprising to me that Panasonic wouldnt design their cine gamma curves like this, in fact the non-cine curves look to be better at this. I really would prefer not to have to choose between harsh blowouts (cine gamma) and a knee (non-cine, uses a hard angle at the point in the gamma curve where the knee begins, and that weird angle will always be there no matter how subtle).
nyvz
Veteran
Can you elaborate? kills it in usability? in resolving power? latitude? lens choice?
Homunculus
Carbonite Member
Barry said 10.5 in a pre-production model, someone else mentioned 10 or less. I forget if it was Leo Ticheli or someone from the "A Verse Before Dying" shoot (Stephen Mick maybe?)
But no one has done definitive tests yet apparently which I hope someone does soon.
In the video comparing Af100 and GH2 (with GH2 stacked on top of it) AF100 seemed to display greater dynamic range but similarly the GH2 seemed washed out like its exposure was off (ISO or aperture set too high) so it's hard to say until someone does a far more thorough and scientific test
Thank you for the very helpful feedback on my video/blog post. I confess that the diffraction issue caught me snoozing ... Part of the issue was that I was lazy and stopped down instead of putting an ND filter on the 5D2. In future tests, I'll be more careful to keep away from the tiny apertures. Also, the 1/2 stop of increased sensitivity makes a lot of sense, as I am otherwise unable to account for the significant difference in highlight exposure, given equivalent exposure settings.
I did some testing of the AF100 gamma curves this morning, as well as a quick test to see if an AF100 clip can be graded to match an ungraded 5D2 clip. Given a very simple, non-moving shot, I found the answer to be a categorical YES.
Video alone: http://vimeo.com/18466491
Blog w/embedded video and still frames: http://vid35.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/the-af100-platypus-gamma-test/
By the way, it was a little tangential to my gamma test, but for my first test of gamma settings, I used a simple spot-lit gray background, and the banding was AWFUL, as you'll see in the video. I don't think the 5D2 would be any better, but just thought I'd mention that you're not seeing Vimeo compression (at least, not entirely), it really was that bad. I posted a PNG file on the blog so that you can see it at full 1080p resolution.
I did some testing of the AF100 gamma curves this morning, as well as a quick test to see if an AF100 clip can be graded to match an ungraded 5D2 clip. Given a very simple, non-moving shot, I found the answer to be a categorical YES.
Video alone: http://vimeo.com/18466491
Blog w/embedded video and still frames: http://vid35.wordpress.com/2011/01/05/the-af100-platypus-gamma-test/
By the way, it was a little tangential to my gamma test, but for my first test of gamma settings, I used a simple spot-lit gray background, and the banding was AWFUL, as you'll see in the video. I don't think the 5D2 would be any better, but just thought I'd mention that you're not seeing Vimeo compression (at least, not entirely), it really was that bad. I posted a PNG file on the blog so that you can see it at full 1080p resolution.
cowpunk52
Veteran
Thanks for doing the comparisons, Vid35. Even imperfectly done tests have a lot to glean from.
I can't say I'm terribly surprised at the banding on the spotlight test. That's pretty standard for 8-bit gradients, and that's a very severe gradient. But the dithering is actually pretty good!. Even if it was recorded in 10-bits, an 8-bit display would look like that - and almost every display is 8-bit.
Great job with the CC; you really nailed the 5DII look with the AF100.
I can't say I'm terribly surprised at the banding on the spotlight test. That's pretty standard for 8-bit gradients, and that's a very severe gradient. But the dithering is actually pretty good!. Even if it was recorded in 10-bits, an 8-bit display would look like that - and almost every display is 8-bit.
Great job with the CC; you really nailed the 5DII look with the AF100.
Cbrianchester
Carbonite Member
Yea, I've noticed this as well. I was about to start a thread on it, but it would probably just be taken down... like some others I've seen. But I'm glad to see other people are noticing it as well. What is it about the AF-100 that looks so video-like? Low-dynamic range? Too smooth of motion? It's really wierding me out. Even the GH2 looks more film-like. Did the AF-100 sensor come from the same place as the GH2? If not... maybe the photo division is farther ahead in sensors in terms of DR and sensitivity? I didn't really expect the AF-100 to have better DR than the 5D and 7D honestly though. The 5D is a light sucking FF monster and the 7D has all that micro-lensing stuff. Canon makes some really advanced sensors. Even in video mode, all that ability to expose and capture a wide range of light-values trickles down regardless of compression. Being recorded to H.264 does not change the characteristic inherent to the sensor. I'd be surprised if Panasonic's first attempt at a large-sensor video camera out performed the top end of Canon in terms of latitude and sensitivity.
PaPa
Major Contributor
Cine D will give you the benefit of the largest dynamic range the camera iscapable of. If you don't like the way the blowouts look, simply add your own curve in post. The point is that it gives you flexibility.
astigmatic
Well-known member
I noticed this as well..but everytime I start to doubt I just watch this clip
http://vimeo.com/18277535
and realize it's about the correct exposure for your gamma curve. Cine-D flat baby! I love color grading, my favorite part of editing. So for me this cam beats my 7d in that regard.
oh yeah, I've been forced to watch Bravo tv's reality shows becaue my wife is addicted to them. DSLR footage is everywhere. I'm starting to associate the DSLR look with crappy reality TV. So I'm actually glad the AF100 doesn't look like dslr footage.
Last edited:
Homunculus
Carbonite Member
that clip is all landscapes. Gh1 annihilates the canons at landscapes also but it's in the rendition of the skin tones that the canons (5d/7d) seem to have some inexplicable 'mojo' that beats out the Gh1 and looks more filmic. I'll be honest I've seen a few filmic things so far from af100 that impressed me with the skin tones, but I am just saying, do not compare shots of landscapes/architecture as the much higher resolution will trick your eye into thinking the footage is better. let's be honest most of us here want to shoot narrative work with characters (and thus skin tones) not pastorals
Homunculus
Carbonite Member
just to give an example, watch the footage of af100 compared to 5d of the cars on the race track (that older footage). AF100 looks ten times better and more filmic with the landscapes, cars, etc whereas 5dmkii looks video-y and seems to have poor dynamic range.
but then footage showing actual people and skin tones, the comparison gets much closer
but then footage showing actual people and skin tones, the comparison gets much closer
Unfortunately, that hard clipping is an inherent limitation of digital sensors. When the electron content of an individual pixel gets to a certain maximum level (called "full well"), shining more light on the sensor does not produce any extra signal. This is unlike film, where exposing over-exposed film did still give a little extra signal, up to several more stops, which is what produces the film-like soft blowout we know and love.
To combat this in-camera, all one can do is to underexpose the image, protecting the wells from filling up, and then turn the gain up on the mid tones to compensate for the under-exposure. This amplifies the noise, and it is a tradeoff made by the camera designers how best to trade off between the highlight roll-off and the gamma curve to produce acceptable pictures.
RED's HDRx solution to this is very clever, incidentally- to produce a second, shorter exposure in the time when a film camera would be moving the film, and record that second data stream alongside the original, allowing one to recover highlight detail in post because you have the "right" exposure and a suitably underexposed frame to blend together in post.
The only other way to deal with this is to make sensors with larger full-well capacity (thus increasing the light level at which blowout occurs) and lower noise (thus increasing the amount the signal can be boosted in the mid-tones before the noise becomes unacceptable). As heat is a primary source of noise, this is why so much of the Alexa is devoted to cooling (and why Astronomical camera chips are almost invariably cooled, because they are looking at very small signals over long integration times to beat down the noise).
At the AF100's price point, the sensor was never going to be as low noise as the chip in an Alexa. The different gamma curves give you some control over where the noise/rolloff tradeoff is to be made, at least. If you are in very controlled lighting conditions, you can use the cine-like curves which do relatively little to the signal from the chip, but if you are in an uncontrolled contrasty or changing light situation you may want to protect your highlights and live with some moderate increase in noise. If using the cine-like curves, you should underexpose by half a stop, according to the manual, which puts the mid-tones in about the right place on the curves, by the way.
Cheers, Hywel
astigmatic
Well-known member
Oh i know what you mean, but more so with the 5d than the 7d. That large sensor is just hard to beat. But shooting flat on the af100 should allow you to bring up better skin tones in post. I'd def like to see more color graded footage of people.
We definitely found the Canons gave lovely results on skin tones right out of the camera (compared with our HVX200's). However, knowing what I was aiming for I now have a recipe for getting a very similar look in the grade.
Crush the blacks a bit, raise the mid tones, and warm them slightly. Cool the shadows very slightly. I usually dial down the green a little, too. Add a secondary in Colorista II aimed at the skin tones with a little negative pop (-5 is usually enough) as we are shooting beautiful women and they just look better with a little local decontrast.
I've found that those settings are almost the same for most lighting conditions, so I routinely apply them to every clip, then start from there for the rest of the grade. Sure, it is nice to get that out of the camera, but if one has a prescription for it, it isn't so bad to fine tune the skin tones in the grade this way. I'm hoping that I can quickly find a good "standard grade" for AF100 footage too. (I do the same thing for my stills photos- I have my "standard look" settings in Hasselblad Phocus which I use as the starting point for all my RAW processing).
Cheers, Hywel.
starcentral
Veteran
line moire, aliasing, overheating, skewing, high potential for shaky footage when handheld... AF100 vs 5D mkii? AF100 hands down!
The 5D might be good for vimeo and youtube (and people who think shooting with a wide open f-stop is cinema) but for theatrical release the AF100 is simply a progression of the DVX100 & HVX200 and it will be a matter of short time until you see some releases shot with the AF100. With the 5D I'm not saying it "can't" be done, as with any amount of trouble ANYTHING can be done, but I'm saying there will be few and far using the 5D for theatrical release.
P.S. I'm glad I sold my PS Technik mini35 when I could still get $5000 for it that's all I can say. The AF100 will be on my shopping list... and I do own a 7D for 35mm stills and have 4000 snaps on it and ZERO minutes of video.
Last edited: