Filippo Chiesa Video

Thanks Barry. There are many of us here that deeply appreciate your hard work on this. I'm fearful that even if we would have seen the BEST this camera could give...the trolls around here still would have attacked. It's sad really. I know how hard the mods work here to keep it civil and productive, but man....it's been a rough couple of days. I'm embarrassed with the comments several members made to Phillip Bloom and he deserves better than that. I know you've been fighting an up-hill battle just to get people to chill and wait for the production model footy...but...it's been more work than I think most people would have put forth. Thanks for that Barry. We appreciate your input for DVXUsers to Panasonic! Thanks also to Filippo...I saw the vid earlier today. Thanks for posting!
 
Barry_Green said:
For my part, I intend to advise Panasonic to not do this again -- well, I mean, not post footage. Bringing in pros to review, use, and comment is a necessary part of the development process. But no, nobody should be posting footage from a firsthand "here, go shoot today" test, because of how the footage is received.

They should instead farm the cameras out to us for a good two weeks, let us experiment to death, dial in our own magic recipes and secret sauce, and then set up our preferred styles of shooting. .
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And here you've hit the nail square on the head. This (the Japan shoot) was a good marketing strategy gone terribly wrong. End result is a huge marketing botch job on what looks to be an excellent product. Panasonic wanted to - correctly - influence KOL's (key opinion leaders, as the marketing folks call them), and create a buzz much like Canon did so successfully with their DSLR's. Unfortunately, for whatever reason - lack of experience, poor planning, overconfidence, naivete - they set themselves up to fail. What they should have done is precisely what you suggest, put the cam in the hands of KOL's while at the same time giving them the tools they need to make the product perform at its best.

It's too bad, because I do believe that this camera will be the best-in-class, but this roll-out is a case study in a poorly conceived and executed social marketing strategy. It's much tougher than it looks, as is evidenced by the last 24 or so hours around here. Do it right, and you've got people doing flips and twists to shell out for the chance to shoot video with moire-laced DSLR's. Do it wrong, and you wind up with threads entitled "I'm still buying one".

I surely hope that Panasonic takes control of the dialog, and that stories about broadcasters and nets placing large pre-orders and some name-brand filmmaker grabbing one of these to shoot a short start to pop up real soon. It's funny, because while they've failed here, they kill in having Jan as a dominant presence on these boards and in the community.

Anyway, end rant, thanks again to the shooters, and worst case scenario, my pre-order gets here that much quicker.
 
DrHST said:
And here you've hit the nail square on the head. This (the Japan shoot) was a good marketing strategy gone terribly wrong. End result is a huge marketing botch job on what looks to be an excellent product. Panasonic wanted to - correctly - influence KOL's (key opinion leaders, as the marketing folks call them), and create a buzz much like Canon did so successfully with their DSLR's. Unfortunately, for whatever reason - lack of experience, poor planning, overconfidence, naivete - they set themselves up to fail. What they should have done is precisely what you suggest, put the cam in the hands of KOL's while at the same time giving them the tools they need to make the product perform at its best.

It's too bad, because I do believe that this camera will be the best-in-class, but this roll-out is a case study in a poorly conceived and executed social marketing strategy. It's much tougher than it looks, as is evidenced by the last 24 or so hours around here. Do it right, and you've got people doing flips and twists to shell out for the chance to shoot video with moire-laced DSLR's. Do it wrong, and you wind up with threads entitled "I'm still buying one".

I surely hope that Panasonic takes control of the dialog, and that stories about broadcasters and nets placing large pre-orders and some name-brand filmmaker grabbing one of these to shoot a short start to pop up real soon. It's funny, because while they've failed here, they kill in having Jan as a dominant presence on these boards and in the community.

Anyway, end rant, thanks again to the shooters, and worst case scenario, my pre-order gets here that much quicker.
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wow that was quite a trenchant analysis. very well done sir
 
Barry_Green said:
I assure you, they don't. We had one day! Most of the guys didn't really know how to run the camera. One of them, Emmanuel, had never even picked one up yet. But he fell in love with it on that first day, to the point where he made a little video of his love affair with the AF100.

For my part, I intend to advise Panasonic to not do this again -- well, I mean, not post footage. Bringing in pros to review, use, and comment is a necessary part of the development process. But no, nobody should be posting footage from a firsthand "here, go shoot today" test, because of how the footage is received.

They should instead farm the cameras out to us for a good two weeks, let us experiment to death, dial in our own magic recipes and secret sauce, and then set up our preferred styles of shooting. Like I said, the wander-around-shooting-a-montage thing is not my cup of tea. I know Philip excels at it, I don't know how the others feel about it. I want a set, actors, and lights, and a production monitor. We had none of that, so obviously I couldn't deliver my best -- and I don't know that we're seeing any of these shooters at their best, and I know they didn't have opportunities to optimize the camera. So I think releasing this footage is counterproductive as it just results in a lot of folks complaining, and that serves no valid purpose.

And next time, when they've developed some new wunderkam AF500 or something, and everyone's "demanding" to see footage -- I'm gonna point folks back to these threads.
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I couldn't agree more. They should learn a thing or two from Canon, at least in the marketing department. Even the highly polished "Reverie' that marked the introduction of the 5D as a combocam was taken off from the servers within days for the fear of pixel peepers venting their knowledge. But it also created an aura and the mistery of the forbiden fruit. On the other hand, the GH1 had a great share of skate park videos and shaky cam torture tests as intro to the market (... and I still bought one). With this shoot, Panasonic are doing one better, but I can see a little counter productive to invite some top notch shooters from across the world and give them no time to prepare and only a few hours to produce something. If it was an exercise to get technical feedback, I salute them and hope they'll do something about the clipped highlights. If it was for marketing purpose, there is no genius in the house.
 
Super8 said:
looks pretty awesome to me.....
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* Seems like all footage has problems with highlights.

Honest opinion " It Looks Nice" , but it is nothing spectacular upon first impression. We all have seen DSLR work that looks that good and I believe even better. Now this is not to say that Dslr footage is not good because it is, but I honestly do not see it as of now.


I hate to bring this up but I must.... Certain camera that cost within the $20k range to me look so much better than anything else at that price range and anything lower. I think the Af100 looks nice, but it's not something at least from what I have seen that looks that much more better than dslr footage.


This is not a knock against anyone, because we thank you for your hard work and talent. This is ONLY on the impression on what I have seen.


Footage looks nice, but nothing spectacular and I have seen better from DSLRs and especially more expensive cameras.
 
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pix2pixels said:
If it was for marketing purpose, there is no genius in the house.
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It was never presented to us as for marketing purposes. It was presented to us as an opportunity to work with the product, with the engineers right there with us. The engineers were sent with us to observe how we used the product, what we were frustrated by, what we were happy with, etc. This was a chance for them to observe.

They never told us that we were going to be used for marketing, they didn't ask us for quotes or sound bites. There was no paycheck exchanged (at least, there sure wasn't for me, and I surely don't think anyone else there was paid). We were their guests. And of the six of us, I think only two of us have any manner of reach or presence online, so it's not like they gathered a whole bunch of bloggers. They hand-picked one user from each of the five major territories of Europe, to get a big cross-section. They had a variety of types of users - the technician, the filmmaker, the corporate guy, the commercial producer.

Obviously any savvy marketing department would try to take advantage of such an opportunity; you'd have to be naive to think otherwise. But to say that this was a marketing stunt, I think does a disservice to what we were there for. We spent almost as much time in discussions with them, as we did shooting. And they never said a word to us about us speaking about or influencing or sharing anything, until after the entire event was over and they'd asked us for our final words, and they heard the praise, they said (obviously) "please feel free to tell the world that."

If it was organized as a marketing stunt, I would call it a dismal failure -- but I don't believe it was organized as a marketing stunt. I believe it was a sincere effort on the part of some very devoted engineers to meet the needs and requirements and requests of their customers. Any "marketing" they get out of it would be a bonus.
 
life4eva said:
I think the Af100 looks nice, but it's not something at least from what I have seen that looks that much more better than dslr footage.
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Understood. I said early on that I didn't expect the AF100 to be leaps and bounds better, or necessarily any better, than a DSLR when the DSLR is in its "butter zone". When it's doing what it does well (the shallow-DOF shot of a person) it's really beautiful, and if the AF100 only matched it, but added all the professional features and workability, I'd be happy.

What I don't like about DSLRs (besides the workability issues) is when the DSLR isn't in its "butter zone", it sucks. Wide-angle shots just don't look good at all. I believe Philip Bloom said "DSLR aliasing is the bane of my existence." So if we had all the good, and none of the bad, then to me that's a great combination. And that's what the AF100 offers.

Put a 7-14 lens on it, and shoot a sweeping panorama or vista, and the results will be substantially superior to what the DSLR can make. That's where it excels in image over the DSLR. Not in general sensitivity or dynamic range; they're comparable generations of technology, and they perform comparably, so we shouldn't be surprised by that. But the unit is engineered to always be a video camera, it's optimized for video images instead of stills, and so it does things well that the DSLR doesn't.

Footage looks nice, but nothing spectacular and I have seen better from DSLRs and especially more expensive cameras.
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Of course more-expensive cameras deliver better results. The AF100 isn't perfect, it can't work miracles and it can't move mountains. But it can deliver excellent imagery that rivals DSLRs at their best, fixes all their flaws, and adds gobs of features (like variable frame rates), all at a reasonable price (depending on what you find reasonable as per your own wallet, of course).

Also, when saying "I've seen better from DSLRs", I'd ask -- have you ever seen better footage from a DSLR shooter that they've posted on the very first day they got their DSLR? Likely not. Give these shooters a couple of weeks with the camera, or better yet a year or two (like the 5D and 7D have had) and then we'll be on fairer footing to go comparing the DSLR's "best" against the AF100's "first."
 
I'd like every person who's saying how much they don't care for the image, to say whether they've looked at it in full-res on a real monitor, like a big plasma. I've looked at each of these test clips on my 50" Panny plasma, and I've looked at the DSLR stuff. There's aliasing all over the place with DSLR, and this camera doesn't do it. And this is a camera you can actually use in real world conditions, when someone is actually PAYING you to shoot, expects to use every shot they're paying you well to make, and not wait 3 minutes to set each one up while hoping to hell you're getting clean audio. And again, this footage seen on a real monitor, is spectacular. If I had seen in on some HD Discovery show, i would have said, "man that looks really nice." So get real people.
 
bhdfield said:
I'd like every person who's saying how much they don't care for the image, to say whether they've looked at it in full-res on a real monitor, like a big plasma. I've looked at each of these test clips on my 50" Panny plasma, and I've looked at the DSLR stuff. There's aliasing all over the place with DSLR, and this camera doesn't do it. And this is a camera you can actually use in real world conditions, when someone is actually PAYING you to shoot, expects to use every shot they're paying you well to make, and not wait 3 minutes to set each one up while hoping to hell you're getting clean audio. And again, this footage seen on a real monitor, is spectacular. If I had seen in on some HD Discovery show, i would have said, "man that looks really nice." So get real people.
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Post makes no sense........ If you or anyone honestly thinks this imagery looks leaps and bounds better than any current DSLR footage you would know that simply is not true. Yes we now have pros using DSLRs that have practically mastered them so we should expect that. I guess what I thought would happen is this AF100 would deliver some new form of imagery never seen before and honestly that is not the case. I'm more than sure with the proper lighting, shooting conditions and then color correction it can look amazing, but as of right now upon my first impression I would say based on image alone it's not that spectacular.

No one is forced to like/dislike anything but I do think us as a community can voice our opinions and I have voiced mine. We do not need to argue or insult one another, this is only my opinion. Personally I would like to see more footage with adequate time in the hands of these professionals to give a better thought on this camera as my judging more than likely at the moment is not 100% accurate.


- Looks nice , but nothing I haven't seen before
- It cost close to 5K
- Give it time to really see what it can do


Hopefully we can see some more footage soon.
 
Hey Boss, what in my post "makes no sense"? And who's doing the ridicule? So asking if you've actually seen the footage, full res, on a real monitor "makes no sense"? Is that what makes no sense to you? Or the part about a camera that allows you to....yeah... monitor audio and record video.... at the same time. Does that make no sense? I'm clearly very, very confused here. And where, where do I claim the image is "leaps and bounds" above DSLR. I said it is beautiful, and does not alias. Please exercise some critical thinking and, please READ, before you respond.
 
All these recent test videos were shot in broad daylight, with direct sunlight sometimes on the subjects. That's where video / electronic imagers perform at their worst people.

I don't know what some viewers are expecting. Are the critics expecting it to look like film, or one of those occassional staged test footage from RED's EPIC?

I'm actually one of the people who don't want controlled shooting conditions. Good shooters can make a Sony FX1 footage look good, or a Canon XL2 like in 28 days. Give it to a bunch of shooters with no preparation for one day - that's my kind of test footage where I know Panasonic is not trying to hide the defects.

Show me the ugliest, raw shooting conditions, in harsh daylight, clipped highlights and difficult lighting ratios. That will tell me something.

Beautiful footage only tells you that someone knew how to control a set environment, and executed well within the limiits of the camera. It doesn't tell you much about the weaknesses of the camera. I'm interested in weaknesses, so all this is good stuff to me.
 
life4eva said:
We all have seen DSLR work that looks that good and I believe even better.
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I don´t know if you shoot with DSLR; it´s simply a pain most of the time. If the AF-100 would only match the 7D but is a grown-up camera (audio, EVF, LCD, waveforms, peaking) it is all we can ask for. I am expecting it to be better though (no aliasing, no moire, better resolution) with similar DOF.

I am also wondering about the highlights and some noise in the blues, but we will find out if it is the settings or the codec. Can´t wait to try one out....
 
One good thing I hope Panny does after all these criticism is provide in one mode with the flattest contrast curve possible. I did saw those highlight clipping, some I think, in the way and situation (run and gun) would have been impossible to control. But some, more disturbing for me on overcast, dull gray light in this video (somehow for now we only have re-compressed version). I am a photographer by profession, I don' t know if you can do with photo camera where you under expose to protect the highlight and bring the detail back with a curve. For sure, it can only be use to a certain extend. I am not sure if the codec would permit that and if using the 4.4.2 hdmi or sdi output as it would be cleaner in the shadows. It would be nice if someone will be able to test the camera when it is out, if we could get better dynamic range from the sdi output. In terms of pure dynamic range from raw from dxo lab the Panasonic GH2 sensor is just a little below the Canons, but far from the new Sony equipped Nikon D7000 and Pentax k5 both around 14 stop!!! Ouch, could we have some one hack one of these, put another olpf :-(
 
I think the Af100 looks nice, but it's not something at least from what I have seen that looks that much more better than dslr footage.
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Actually it should look about the same as the best DSLR footage, not better.

The biggest difference in my opinion is that the situations where the DSLR throws artifacts will not be a problem for the AF100. (That means anything that isn't a close up of a person.) This will result in faster shooting, less wasted time and less retakes. In real production time is money.

I'd order one now to compliment my EX1 if I knew what the ultimate resolution was going to be. Its certainly going to be a better, easier, faster combo than doing a dual shoot with a T2i or Letus on the EX1. I'm looking for resolution equal to the XH-A1 or better, and the closer to the EX1 the better.

From another thread, Graeme is a designer/engineer at Red:

As you say, the true test is the image. A good examination of a camera with a diagnostic chart will tell you how it's designed, what things to avoid shooting and how to get the best out of the camera.

Graeme
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Barry, Nigel, anyone care to send me a chart test capture that I'll keep to myself? :) LOL
 
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i think the af-100 should be taken for what it is. A dslr (meaning gh1/gh2) type of quality without the issues that dlsrs usually come with: rolling shutter, moire, aliasing etc.. (which is a great thing). With better knowledege of the settings and proper lighting it will be pretty good, and safer in both a commercial or indie movie.

now...i just wish Canon could do exactly the same...: )
 
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