AC160 First hands on impressions: AC160 vs HMC150

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Phil1076

Well-known member
I played with the AC160 yesterday at my local store...overall:

-bigger than the HMC150...more "meaty" and bulky, but still well balanced.
-one pound or so heavier than the 150
-LCD is much improved
-XLR inputs are in a much better location
-there's a little latch on the top handle record button which, once locked, prevents you from accidentally hitting the record button again.
-similar menu layout to the 150
-iris ring is now on the lens and is quite large
-the shutter/frame rate selection is on the same little knob
-that knob doesn't always seem to work...there's a button beside it which selects shutter-->VFR-->locked....setting it to "shutter" works fine...setting it to "locked" works fine also...but setting it to VFR works sometimes...spinning the knob does nothing and I found I had to cycle through the choices a few times before it worked....not sure if I was doing something wrong but I'll let it as user error since there's no way that would have passed QA.
-no noticeable jello during panning...I noticed a little when panning REALLY fast, but no one would ever pan that fast under normal circumstances. For all intents and purposes, no jello.
-VFR seemed to work just fine (aside from knob issue)
-the zoom kicks some major ass...will be great for wildlife
-Overall image quality seemed good...I only shot a few minutes and the lighting was terrible, but it looks clean.
-Couldn't test any low light.
-Not alot of dof (as expected).

Assuming that the knob issue was just my user error (I only played with it for about 15 minutes), it seems like a solid cam for events/weddings/wildlife/ENG stuff.
 
Phil, I just received my AC160 today. I agree with most of what you said. I didn't have any problem with the shutter/frame rate knob though. It's operation is similar if not the same as the AF100.

Build quality is very good and what I have come to expect from Panasonic. I haven't had a chance to shoot any footage yet. Just played with the menus and buttons and so forth. So far I really like the overall layout of buttons and controls. Menu is similar to the AF100 and it's great to have the scene file dial back on this cam.
If the image it makes is as good as I think it will be it will be close to perfect event cam imho.
 
Does this model finally have decently slow zoom for the "Presidential Push", like the long discontinued but properly designed DVC30?

What about a decent snap zoom, also like the long discontinued but properly designed DVC30?

Is the zoom motor still so loud it gets picked up by the camera's built-in mics?
 
It has a pretty good slow zoom. I had a DVC30 as well and it may not be quite as slow as it was but it's good. Or it may be I'm really not sure. Snap zoom is not extremely fast. Haven't run any quite audio zoom test yet so can't comment on the zoom noise but seems quite. But I'm still learning the camera and there may be settings I haven't run across yet. Looking forward to Barry's free AC160 book when it's out.
 
Some quick first shots from the 160.



Edit: replaced original video with a color corrected version
 
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Can you tell me what the flip out LCD is like in terms of clarity/sharpness? Last pana cam I used was an HVX200, and I was not impressed with that LCD. Sure, it's big, but it's not super sharp and the peaking wasn't very effective to me.

Does this have better peaking? I like the EX1's, for instance, where the peaking is a different color.
 
It seems to me the LCD is the same one as on the AF100 or close to it. I have never used an HVX200. In the Af100 forum people have commented that one is better than the 200 if I'm not mistaken.

Focus peaking in red works as expected on the 160. Again like the AF100. I set the EVF to B/W and the red pops better.
 
haha, could very well be. I said it was a "quick" test. I had very little time and had to finish fast. I had a warm polarizer on it so that may have helped it look better.
 
Josh Bass said:
Can you tell me what the flip out LCD is like in terms of clarity/sharpness? Last pana cam I used was an HVX200, and I was not impressed with that LCD. Sure, it's big, but it's not super sharp and the peaking wasn't very effective to me.
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As a conservative estimate, the LCD on the AC160/AC130/HPX250/AF100 is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than the one on the HVX200. It's dramatically sharper (I think it's over 4x as sharp) and the angle of view is incredibly wider. With the HVX you pretty much had to be viewing absolutely spot-on angle in order to see anything; rotating the LCD as little as 20 degrees would cause a massive shift in contrast and viewability. On the new cameras you have a pretty wide range of viewing angle.

As far as peaking goes, it's probably only about 700,000 times better. :thumbsup: They really learned their lesson on peaking with the HPX170; even though the 170 used the same physical LCD panel as the HVX200, it was infinitely easier to use for focus because of the much better peaking algorithm.

Does this have better peaking? I like the EX1's, for instance, where the peaking is a different color.
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It has much better peaking, but it also has a colored focus assist too, so you can get peaking in red, or you can use the focus-in-red focus assist which is basically another type of peaking.
 
Barry_Green said:
As a conservative estimate, the LCD on the AC160/AC130/HPX250/AF100 is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better than the one on the HVX200. It's dramatically sharper (I think it's over 4x as sharp) and the angle of view is incredibly wider. With the HVX you pretty much had to be viewing absolutely spot-on angle in order to see anything; rotating the LCD as little as 20 degrees would cause a massive shift in contrast and viewability. On the new cameras you have a pretty wide range of viewing angle.

As far as peaking goes, it's probably only about 700,000 times better. :thumbsup: They really learned their lesson on peaking with the HPX170; even though the 170 used the same physical LCD panel as the HVX200, it was infinitely easier to use for focus because of the much better peaking algorithm.


It has much better peaking, but it also has a colored focus assist too, so you can get peaking in red, or you can use the focus-in-red focus assist which is basically another type of peaking.
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+1,000

The new LCD, combined with focus-in-red, makes nailing focus ridiculously easy.
 
Just did a quick low light, semi-tele 24p focus test. It's not fast but it is accurate and it doesn't wander. It's not slow either just in 24p it has less to work with.
 
Barry_Green said:
It has much better peaking, but it also has a colored focus assist too, so you can get peaking in red, or you can use the focus-in-red focus assist which is basically another type of peaking.
Click to expand...

Barry:

I've looked all over the manual for the HPX250, and cannot see where this is set.

Any suggestions?
 
David Saraceno said:
Barry:

I've looked all over the manual for the HPX250, and cannot see where this is set.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Yep. Look at the thread title... :evil:

Seriously, this feature is in the AC160. It's not in the HPX250. The HPX250 has overall better peaking, because you can set not only the intensity but also the threshold. You just can't set the color. The AC160 has the ability to use either normal white peaking, or the focus-in-red.

But the HPX250 has the magnified focus assist. Overall, for ultimate focus tools, the HXP250 wins.

But, as said, this thread wasn't talking about the 250, it was talking about the 160. They're not the same camera, they're surprisingly different...
 
Thanks.

I thought so, but there have been several comments here that the 130/160/250/100 all have focus in red, but it appears that the 250 does not.

thank you for clarifying it.
 
David Saraceno said:
Thanks.

I thought so, but there have been several comments here that the 130/160/250/100 all have focus in red, but it appears that the 250 does not.

thank you for clarifying it.
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Right -- the 250 doesn't have focus-in-red, and the 130/160 don't have magnified focus assist.

The 130/160 are using what looks like AF100 software and processing inside, whereas the 250 looks like it's using HPX370 processing and software.
 
Sorry but this video's color seems wayyyyy off. It reminds me of old photos I transfer.
I have, on order, a 130. Makes me think I need to cancel my order if the color is going to look like this.

ransom said:
Some quick first shots from the 160.

Click to expand...
 
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