Another county heard from

M

Mac

Well-known member
I ordered an AF100 in January, but held back the actual purchase until the dust settled. I've read all of the posts - Chevy vs Ford defensive, obstinately positive and nit-picky negative. I received my camera two weeks ago.

Here are my initial observations, for what they're worth.

First, to qualify my judgement, I primarily make documentaries, and have been doing that for a long time - long enough that I'm old, and inflexible and opinionated. And I'm not a technically-oriented person, I can't agree with or dispute the opinions of those who are. I base everything on how the camera feels organically, and how the picture looks on the screen. Pixels are for the leprechauns.

I prefer to handhold most of the time, so the first thing I bought, a month before the AF, was a Cineroid EVF so I could design and build a bracket for it.

The next consideration was a lens. Although I will use my Leica-R lenses as primes, I obviously needed a zoom. That horse has been beat to death, so I won't comment other than to say that I decided on the Zuiko 14-54 because it's the cheapest, is f2.8 wide, and I can toss it in the case as a backup when (oh, please) a functionally better, light-weight, T2.8, 5:1 parfocal zoom is available.

My first day I set up the camera (BTW, I prefer CINE-D, always have, always will) and took it while I walked my dog in the forest on a sunny day. I chose the forest because - lots of leaves - I wanted to torture the codec - and lots of exposure variation. I shot 60fps, 24fps, color and B&W. The images are excellent…

NO IMMEDIATE NEEED FOR AN EXTERNAL RECORDER - WHEW!

I say "whew" because if you're using an accessory EVF, you depend on the display - to confirm that you're recording, dial in WB, assure that your not VFR, and, with a varifocal lens, set focus…

BUT TO USE AN EXTERNAL RECORDER YOU WOULD NEED TO TURN ALL EXTERNAL OSD OFF.

Be nice if you could select to leave it on for HDMI only.

The 14-54 lens is attractively sharp, and with a big gear and FF you can stay in focus by dialing in the footage, but…

MANUALLY FOLLOWING F STOP IS OUT OF THE QUESTION WITH THESE ZOOMS.

That clunky 1/3 stop exposure change going from shade to full sun makes me want to throw the lens in the ocean.

And, I discovered one thing that I haven't seen mentioned, but maybe I've missed it…

IF YOU'RE SHOOTING VFR AND CHANGE SCENE FILES, THE FRAME RATE DOESN'T FOLLOW THE SCENE FILE CHANGE.

Then last weekend I shot a TV spot and, as I mentioned elsewhere, the Cineroid died and I had to finish with my HPX500. That gave me an unexpected (but not appreciated) opportunity to compare the two.

The P2 camera still wins in richness of color, but the AF is the undeniable winner overall. I can dial in the AF to come close and, for a TV spot at least, they can match pretty well. There's still something very super16-like about the pictures from that 500 though…

As for post, I use FCP, and have had no problems at all. I've read complaints about the time it takes transcoding to ProRes, but I didn't think it was any different than with P2, certainly not objectionable.

And, for what it's worth…

I'M NOT SEEING SERIOUS BANDING ISSUES AFTER GRADING, EVEN WITH CINE-D.

However - those SDHC cards? How do you keep track of them? After the comforting, solid, robust feel of P2 cards, those things are laughable.
 
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Nice post.

Mac said:
I've read all of the posts - Chevy vs Ford defensive, obstinately positive and nit-picky negative.
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Nice writing!

Mac said:
However - those SDHC cards? How do you keep track of them? After the comforting, solid, robust feel of P2 cards, those things are laughable.
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A watch pocket?

How did you setup the AF to match the 500?
 
How did you setup the AF to match the 500?
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I'm ashamed to say that, because I was pressed, having had to unexpectedly change horses, that I just shot with my normal scene file, without even testing.

As I said, I prefer CINE-D, and CINE matrix, and have always dialed down DETAIL-4 and MASTER PED-4, so I just did that to both cameras.

There's a little difference that's not perfectly "gradable", but they don't intercut within a scene. The 500 is just more robust looking, like an old leather chair. The AF is a little chromium for me, but I'm getting used to it.
 
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I dropped my little pelican case with cards in it while the case was open. Cards scattered in the darken room..... I found all of the cards save one until a few days later when I tore the room apart and found the last card in the farthest corner of the room from where the case drop occurred. Would have never happened with p 2 cards.
 
Ouch.. scary... Here's another question... How do you label your cards? I mark numbers on them with a Sharpie, but on the deep blue you can't see the numbers after a week or so.

I just bought ten 8GB cards and, like many others I've talked to, plan to "archive" the original cards from important shoots and/or clients and store them like tapes . But where? In what? And how do I know what's on them...

A nice aftermarket "accessory" would be a professional storage album or, even better, small cassette-type boxes with edges that are designed for labeling. Maybe something already exists? If so, I can't find it.
 
Mac said:
There's a little difference that's not perfectly "gradable", but they don't intercut within a scene. The 500 is just more robust looking, like an old leather chair. The AF is a little chromium for me, but I'm getting used to it.
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I observe the same thing between HVX201 and GH1....havent found a satisfactory easy way yet, posted the issue many times, asked, never got an answer.....I guess its a top secret not for public trick when I read all those " AF intercuts nicely with xyz" posts...or those " HVX with GH1 as B-cam" threads/posts....
They just look so different, its hard to find out where to start tweaking.....
 
Mac said:
Ouch.. scary... Here's another question... How do you label your cards? I mark numbers on them with a Sharpie, but on the deep blue you can't see the numbers after a week or so.

I just bought ten 8GB cards and, like many others I've talked to, plan to "archive" the original cards from important shoots and/or clients and store them like tapes . But where? In what? And how do I know what's on them...

A nice aftermarket "accessory" would be a professional storage album or, even better, small cassette-type boxes with edges that are designed for labeling. Maybe something already exists? If so, I can't find it.
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I bought a Sony PDW-U1 drive and store all my footage on inexpensive XDCAM discs. It's a really great solution for backup.
 
Mac said:
However - those SDHC cards? How do you keep track of them? After the comforting, solid, robust feel of P2 cards, those things are laughable.
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On a shoot, I usually take three 16GB SanDisk Class 10 SD cards and two or three cameras. After the takes for each scene are wrapped, I back up the SD card to a portable HyperDrive Colorspace UDMA hard drive:

http://www.hypershop.com/HyperDrive-COLORSPACE-UDMA-Casing-Only-p/hdcsu-000.htm

You can buy these with an installed drive with up to 750GB for $600. I ordered the empty unit and plugged in my own 500GB drive I bought at Amazon for about $60. What's great about this device is how it does an unattended incremental backup of the SD card with zero hassle. That allows me to routinely swap cards and backup between scenes. When not in use, the HyperDrive lives in the dashboard of my car, where the cigarette lighter/USB adapter keeps it charged up.
 
havent found a satisfactory easy way yet, posted the issue many times, asked, never got an answer
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I think this is a subjective thing, and there seems to be a RASHOMAN effect at play - everyone sees it differently - Hell, I even see my own efforts differently from day to day. My lazy solution in terms of Scene Files is to stick with what I know, as I said above, and "fix it in post" if I need to. With these two cameras (HPX500 and AF100) I apply a little Tiffen Diffusion (the great old 55mm filters, bought out by Tiffen) to the AF footage and bump up the chroma some. Basically, dumb down the AF.

It's ironic, because I bought all this stuff to stay up-to-date, and there's a big part of me that still prefers the look of the HPX500 - and DVCPRO HD.
 
Could you elaborate a bit more on why you prefer the noisiest settings on the camera like Cinelike and Cine-D? I realize you balance out the dynamic range and latitude stretching of the Cine-D with the Master Ped in the negative but I just want to hear your thoughts.
 
I come from the film world, I graduated from the UCLA Film Dept in 1967. I "grew up" shooting 16mm B&W and High Speed Ektachrome, often pushed to ASA 800 or more. I shot at Love-Ins and rock concerts and peace marches where it was so dark I couldn't even see through the viewfinder. That was the excitement of filmmaking for me.

Noise is such a minor thing to me compared to all the other factors involved that I literally don't care about it. In fact, I kind of like it - it often looks nostolgically like film grain.
 
Mac said:
I come from the film world, I graduated from the UCLA Film Dept in 1967. I "grew up" shooting 16mm B&W and High Speed Ektachrome, often pushed to ASA 800 or more. I shot at Love-Ins and rock concerts and peace marches where it was so dark I couldn't even see through the viewfinder. That was the excitement of filmmaking for me.

Noise is such a minor thing to me compared to all the other factors involved that I literally don't care about it. In fact, I kind of like it - it often looks nostolgically like film grain.
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Refreshing!
 
Mac said:
However - those SDHC cards? How do you keep track of them? After the comforting, solid, robust feel of P2 cards, those things are laughable.
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I use a peilcan SD card case. It hold 8 cards, is big enough not to lose, and fits in a pocket. Not to mention it is a bullet proof as other pelican cases. Best solution I have found for my SD cards. Love it, and every AF100 user who shoots with SD cards should have it. For under $20 you cant go wrong.

http://www.thepelicanstore.com/Pelican-0910-SD-Card-Case-1037.aspx

on edit: I just saw that shooter recommended the same one, so yea.... +1.
 
Thanks, I just ordered one from B&H along with the ten 8GB cards. But, still, HOW DO YOU LABEL THESE THINGS? I assume it's a bad idea to stick anything on them, but there should be a quick way to distinguish them....
 
I labeled mine with dots (on top and bottom) and dashes (on the back, so you can see them through the door) using a metallic silver paint sharpie.
 
Mac said:
Thanks...
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No problem. The easy way to get the dashes is to stack all the cards together neatly, draw a vertical line across all of them, remove one, draw another line, and so on, until your last card has ten dashes on it.
 
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