Canon 7D vs Pasonic AF100 - Skew, DR, etc..

Thomas Church said:
Overall I have to say I'm disappointed with AF100 footage so far.

Out of the box it doesn't have the same mojo that the Canon DSLRs have.

It's good that it seems that Scarlet isn't too far off now. Working units at NAB, I think we might see it until the end of the year.
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Here's my definition of Canon DSLR's "Mojo:"

1. Terrible, shot-killing moire which limits wardrobe and location, and can pop up unexpectedly. This alone is a deal-killer for an A-camera.

2. Profound banding; not the subtle kind, but obvious lines that look like a 1950's TV.

3. Image quality deterioration which can go unnoticed before the camera shuts down due to over heating requiring changing to backup bodies.

4. Jello movement.

5. Aliasing - a nasty little bugger...

6. Limited frame-rates.

7. Requires double-system sound.

8. Poor ergonomics and controls.

9. Properly fitted out costs as much or more than the AF100 which is a better motion picture camera in every way.

Do you disclaim this list of liabilities to your clients prior to shooting with Canon DSLR cameras? In my opinion it's disingenuous not to.

As for Scarlet, the first model (subject to near constant change, of course) is to be a 2/3", fixed lens camera. If you don't need a very wide or long lens, or a very fast lens, or the 35MM looking DOF, it could serve you well.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
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Ticheli said:
Here's my definition of Canon DSLR's "Mojo:"

1. Terrible, shot-killing moire which limits wardrobe and location, and can pop up unexpectedly. This alone is a deal-killer for an A-camera.

2. Profound banding; not the subtle kind, but obvious lines that look like a 1950's TV.

3. Image quality deterioration which can go unnoticed before the camera shuts down due to over heating requiring changing to backup bodies.

4. Jello movement.

5. Limited frame-rates.

6. Requires double-system sound.

7. Poor ergonomics and controls.

8. Properly fitted out costs as much or more than the AF100 which is a better motion picture camera in every way.

Do you disclaim this list of liabilities to your clients prior to shooting with Canon DSLR cameras? In my opinion it's disingenuous not to.

As for Scarlet, the first model (subject to near constant change, of course) is to be a 2/3", fixed lens camera. If you don't need a very wide or long lens, or a very fast lens, or the 35MM looking DOF, it could serve you well.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
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You forgot Moire's twin sister Aliasing......
 
Mark Smith said:
You forgot Moire's twin sister Aliasing......
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You are quite right; there are so many liabilities it's hard to stuff them all into one basket; I added it to my list with Ian's apt description.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Ticheli said:
Here's my definition of Canon DSLR's "Mojo:"

1. Terrible, shot-killing moire which limits wardrobe and location, and can pop up unexpectedly. This alone is a deal-killer for an A-camera.

2. Profound banding; not the subtle kind, but obvious lines that look like a 1950's TV.

3. Image quality deterioration which can go unnoticed before the camera shuts down due to over heating requiring changing to backup bodies.

4. Jello movement.

5. Limited frame-rates.

6. Requires double-system sound.

7. Poor ergonomics and controls.

8. Properly fitted out costs as much or more than the AF100 which is a better motion picture camera in every way.

Do you disclaim this list of liabilities to your clients prior to shooting with Canon DSLR cameras? In my opinion it's disingenuous not to.

As for Scarlet, the first model (subject to near constant change, of course) is to be a 2/3", fixed lens camera. If you don't need a very wide or long lens, or a very fast lens, or the 35MM looking DOF, it could serve you well.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
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well, you're right, this camera is far from being perfect. But it's everywhere, in commercials, music videos, tv shows, cinema, .... It seems people like it and want to use it because there's something unique in the image with always a lot of pleasing shots. That's my definition of mojo. AF100 is nice, for sure, but it needs better footages to make everybody want it. It's about feeling, not pixel count, or moire, or whatever. drawbacks are acceptable if they are counterbalanced with something greater. sorry for my english ....
 
so according to this test apparently 7d (and thus most likely 5d) have higher dynamic range (by a little bit) than af100? can someone please test this more thoroughly as it is quite disconcerting
 
I just completed the dynamic range test. Setting the chart at perfect exposure at ASA 800 with the lens at T5.6. Going down in ASA one step at a time, I never lost differentiation between the two darkest bars all the way to 200 ASA. Going up, in ASA one step at a time, we did not lose differentiation between the two brightest bars until we hit 3200 ASA.

We did have DRS 1 selected.

I did not run the test with our 5DII; that camera will earn it's keep making beautiful stills or being used as a crash or B-camera where it's small footprint trumps other concerns.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Homunculus said:
so according to this test apparently 7d (and thus most likely 5d) have higher dynamic range (by a little bit) than af100? can someone please test this more thoroughly as it is quite disconcerting
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Try looking at it again. It showed the AF100 having substantially more DR than the 7D.
 
All I have to say is when checking the skew between the 2, the bottom camera had way more pronounced skew. Thats the AF100?? If so thats not so good.
 
I think that it is too early to say there isn't similar issues with the AF100 that you'd deal with a DSLR. I have both an AF100 and a 7D so I have first hand experience. The issue is that people are still experimenting in how to get the best results out of the AF100, whereas with the 7D at least, we've had a long time to get the best we could out of the camera.

1) Jello. Both cameras make it. AF100 seems to be a tiny bit better, but I am not seeing night and day better. I've got a pretty good test coming to give real numbers based on the exact method used by provideocoalition.com to test rolling shutter. It's definitely not as fast as say a Red One.

2) Banding. You can make the AF100 band really easily, by removing too much noise from the signal. Comparing footage shot with both exposed to the same level, the 7D has more noise in it that acts as a dithering to the gradients. I am trying to allow a little more noise back into the AF100 so that for me it matches that 7D. Some simple tests I have done have broken up the banding, but I am still testing. (There is a lot of settings!)

3) Aliasing. I think the lamp shot shows that aliasing can still be a concern on the AF100. I am personally not sure why that light produced such a large alias around it. In my own shots, I have not seen this happen yet, so maybe it was setting dependent or related to sharpening. Again, we've only had the camera for at most two weeks so it is really too early for me to say what we have to live with, and what we don't.

That said, compared to even the 7D, moire and colored aliasing is gone (although the GH13 and GH2 don't have that either). I've also used VFR at 60fps and it looks great to me. 720p mode on the 7D is unusable to me almost always, although we've used it sparingly.

Audio, no question there :)

The other issue is of course Dynamic Range, well, it's quite subjective, and given one you see detail in the blacks and the other you see details in the white, they are clearly not exposed the same. The problem is the curves in the mids. If you match the exposure in the mids, at least on the curves used in these tests, you see that they expose differently at the top and bottom. Therefore, testing should be made with the other curves as well, and if you really want apples to apples comparison, you expose either from the bottom and see how far the top goes, or expose from the top and see how far the bottom goes. I too find more shadow detail in the settings I am using, but I am using one setting (Cine-V) and the roll-off of the top is pretty extreme in this setting.

You have to remember, both cameras final depth is 8-bit. So regardless, you've got to tune your image to get the best 8-bit image you can get.
 
So both being 8 bit, to lower the af100 banding, you might recommend lowering the coring to not soften the noise in the lower regions to help reduce some of the banding?

for what it's worth I think the camera has some serious mojo.
 
This to me has some movie magic mojo:

17064859496033304448305.jpg
 
I think it is a bit absurd to test the Dynamic range of any Dslr at high iso. It might be different in the video world, but maximum dynamic range is attained mainly in the lower iso of the camera. Just look at the test from all the photo camera review sites.
 
I agree, however for me 800iso if a perfectly suitable iso for me to shoot my stuff. I think the test still tells some useful information.
 
Danielvilliers said:
I think it is a bit absurd to test the Dynamic range of any Dslr at high iso. It might be different in the video world, but maximum dynamic range is attained mainly in the lower iso of the camera. Just look at the test from all the photo camera review sites.
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We chose 800 ASA because the camera goes down only to 200 ASA; had we shot the test at native 400 ASA, we could not have pushed the DR at the bottom.

I'm sure we would enjoy seeing your DR tests.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
 
Ticheli said:
I just completed the dynamic range test. Setting the chart at perfect exposure at ASA 800 with the lens at T5.6. Going down in ASA one step at a time, I never lost differentiation between the two darkest bars all the way to 200 ASA. Going up, in ASA one step at a time, we did not lose differentiation between the two brightest bars until we hit 3200 ASA.

We did have DRS 1 selected.

I did not run the test with our 5DII; that camera will earn it's keep making beautiful stills or being used as a crash or B-camera where it's small footprint trumps other concerns.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo
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ok what does this mean? how many stops of dynamic range does the af100 have?
we need relative figures either head to head with a DSLR or a range like 10stops 9 stops etc that we can compare.....it seems utterly bizarre to me that almost a month after the camera is released htere is still not a single accurate figure for dynamic range? are people hiding something??
why can't someone do a quick chart test shot and tell us the dynamic range of this camera?
 
Barry_Green said:
Try looking at it again. It showed the AF100 having substantially more DR than the 7D.
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Where? Can you point out the specific part where you see that? I will watch it again but remember someone in the thread specifically pointing out that more detail was visible in a blow out on the 7d. and I remember another recent test showing 5d and af100 side by side (the building, fountain, outdoors etc) where 5d looked like it had more dynamic range as the af100 was blown out in places the 5d wasn't. although as I've pointed out numerous times that particular test seemed dubious as the settings on the af100 must not have been ideal (aperture/iso) as it seemed TOO blown out even for the af100.
 
Having owned DVX100s, an HVX200 and an HPX170 I have to say that this camera (AF100) lacks something that those cameras had.

You can run your charts and restate the stats all day, but the bottom line is (and it saddens me to say this) that this camera has no mojo. I've been reviewing clips for weeks and it all looks really "videoy". The images look as plastic as the body (or Hollywood on a Saturday night). I honestly hate to say it, but the 5D/7D footage looks more organic to me.

Sure they have some major issues, but to me the the way the AF100 handles highlights is appalling. Your clients may not know anything about moire and dynamic range, but they do know when they see an image that they like and that is the reason for the recent success of the 5D. When shot right it can produce magical images.

Camera and lens choices directly effect your style/look and reflect your taste, so sadly I canceled my order last week and I will continue to shoot my HPX170 and my 7D until the time is right to jump in.

Thank you Panasonic for years of good images, but I think it's time we went our own ways.

Pete Mack
http://www.bigmamoo.com/
 
What I did end up noticing is if I expose both cameras for the highlights, although the 7d resolves better transition into clipping, the af100 gives me better handling in the darker regions with less noise. But I also see a great deal more banding, which I really am not a fan of. I can deal with noise, but color bands during different shade transitions is bothersome.
 
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