AF100 vs AC160

C

cowbananas

Member
Hi all, I've just signed up. I need your advice here....I'm upgrading from two Sony Z1 cameras and while keeping one of them, I've been looking at the AF100 or the AC160 as my main cam.
Here's the dilemna, I shoot 2 cam weddings mainly and sometimes need the auto-focus on the run, (my eyes ain't as good as they used to be) tho' manual focus would be about 60% of the shoot.
Is the AF100 ok for weddings in your opinion, I know the 160 has autofocus issues of hunting but if I had an Af100 with an af lens, would that be ok?
I'm not too concerned about DOF, it would be nice, but with weddings, there's no 2nd take so, yes, auto focus is important to me. Which cam would you go for out of the two given your experience with the 100? There's also an Panasonic LUMIX G VARIO HD 14-140mm/F4.0-5.8 finishing on eBay in 24 hours at a good price (so far).

I have two weeks to make a choice as I'll be buying one of these cameras in Singapore at the end of the month and there are no rentals around my area.

Your advice would be very helpful and thanks!

Chris
 
Good, fast autofocus with the AF100 is currently only available with lenses that are a little on the slow side. It also has manual audio levels only, does not have the AC160's dual-card-recording mode, and depth of focus is much shallower than with a 1/3" chip camera. If you're not after a shallow focus look, in my opinion, there's little motivation to go with the AF100.
 
The auto-focus on the AF100 is a negotiation between the lens and the camera.
There was a firmware revision that just came out from Panasonic that improves
autofocus. But, I would say it's generally slower and less accurate than the 160.
We only use the AF to double check our manual focus .. but, with the AF100's
focus-assist (red edge detection), it's really not that hard to pull focus on it.
Plus, with a good monitor (SmallHD, etc.) it's even easier.

Also, some of the lens motors are quite noisy .. so for wedding ceremonies, that should be
factored in as well.

It's also a harder problem for the AF100 because of the increased sensor size.

I have some friends that do a lot of wedding videos .. and DOF is a big deal for them ..
especially when shooting the bride and groom pre-ceremony. We see a lot of Canon
5D MKII's out there as well as a lot of steadicam (and the clones).

jeff
 
AF100 + Olympus 12mm f/2.0 MFT lens, it has great fast autofocus and is a great companion with the AF100 for wedding and other events.

Get the AF100 because if you are doing weddings, you will have a lot of receptions that are indoors and poorly lit. The AF100 will kill the AC160 for indoors shooting.

Stay away from the Lumix 14-140 in my opinion, unless you are shooting mostly outdoors or sports or something. It's a good long lens but it is SLOW and probably not what you want for weddings, unless it's outdoors.

You'll also likely need one other lens for weddings but I'd recommend perhaps something more like the Olympus Zuiko II 14-54mm 2.8-3.5 - it has autofocus but it's a bit slow, but would be great for the ceremony as your focus won't change dramatically. Then pop on that Oly 12mm most of the time and let the camera do all the focus work.

FWIW I had an HVX200 that I used to shoot weddings on and even though that had a variable zoom and auto-focus, I found the autofocus to be almsot useless unless outdoors in bright sunlight on the HVX200 (at which point the AF100 will perform just as well since you can stop down the lens to get deep focus, then set it to AF on a lens that supports it and you're good to go) and the Oly 12mm will kill it indoors and in lower light for autofocus.

Get a shoulder stabilization system for the AF100 also. There's lots out there. Personally I use the DVTec MultiRig Pro, which I bought years ago but has really been a lifesaver for me on the AF100.
 
Thanks for all your input, guys. Some quite varied opinions but that's as it should be given that we all have different needs. At the end of the day, I wonder if there is a big difference in just the picture quality between the two. Obviously, it depends on the lens for the AF100 (nothing too cheap or expensive, lets say average). Of all the cameras in my budget that are out there, I have narrowed it down to these two for a long while now. By the way, this is a great forum....thanks again. Any more views, keep them coming.
 
Well, they're basically the same camera with a different sensor. I would wager that the images would be competitive, and could do a comparison when I get back from the job I'm on, about a week from now.
 
I used af100 with Nikon 24-70 2.8, gh2 with oly 12mm, and hmc150 to shoot this wedding. Af100 was the rear camera for the ceremony and second angle in reception scenes.

The af100 can be a bit awkward so best as a secondary cam in live action unless you have a lot of practice with it, so hmc150 is one of the last Ccd cams so don't have flash artifacts. Not highest resolution but you tell me how it looks in real life.
http://vimeo.com/35020020
 
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