AC160 First hands on impressions: AC160 vs HMC150

130 vs EX1

130 vs EX1

Vaughan,

Good luck on the wedding, please report back what your thoughts are about the 130, I would love to hear the picture quality between the 130 and Sony EX1!




 
I would love to hear how it does at the wedding as well. I have been looking at the 130/160 for a while now and wondering if they would do well for weddings (in addition to other things).
 
Mike Warren said:
The XL2 is 3.5kg (7.8 lbs) including battery and lens, and the AC160 weighs about 2.4kg (5.4lbs) excluding battery, probably about 3kg with battery. People are reporting that it feels nicely balanced and not too heavy.
Click to expand...

It works out to 5.9 lbs including the battery. It does not feel too bad at all to me. Although I just got it today, and thus have not yet had any opportunity to do any long shooting with it handheld.

I would have to think that its almost 2 lb improvement over the Canon XL2 would indeed be a noticeable improvement.
 
I've got to say that the Automatic White Balance on the AC130 is superb indoors. Far, far superior to any consumer camcorders that I have ever used, including the Panasonic HDC-TM900K that I used for awhile earlier this year and way better than my current Canon Vixia GF 10. Autofocus appears to be fast and accurate, even indoors in mediocre lighting. So I give the camcorder an A+ on both AWB and Autofocus.

I think that I have got a pretty good handle on using the camcorder. I do have a volunteer event tomorrow, and I think I've got the camcorder down enough to use it on a non-paying shoot like this.

I guess that I may be old-fashioned, but I really wish that companies would always provide a full printed manual with their products. I don't know what Panasonic was thinking, to print just the short setup manual, but then only provide the rest of the docs in the second manual as an Acrobat file. The second manual is only just over 100 pages long, so that is only 50 more pieces of paper. Makes you literally have to take the camcorder to your PC to go over things.

In box opening videos for the Canon XF100, I've noticed that Canon provides a large fully printed manual for that camcorder. And it only costs $3,000, compared to $3,800 for my AC130. Heck, even my $1,400 Canon Vixia HF G10 came with a fully printed manual. So I have to give Panasonic an F on documentation, as I really prefer printed docs.

Is it only us old dudes that feel this way about having printed manuals? Or do any of the younger guys here feel that way too?

In any event, so far I am feeling very encouraged and positive about using this camcorder. I've got an audio-technica BP4029 Stereo Shotgun Microphone installed on it, and it is working very well.

A lot of what I shoot does involve covering political events. Some are partisan, and others, like this civil rights town hall, are not.

Does the ban on discussing politics in the forum also apply to posting footage that might contain any political content? If so, I may have to wait awhile to post any work. As my next two planned shoots are both political in nature.

I do shoot other types of events, so I'll eventually have some other stuff to post. In fact, I'm sure I could think of some ideas.

Is there any problem with sharing videos of pastries and candy? There is a sweets and pastry shop that I've offered to shoot some video of.
 
Last edited:
I may be considered old at 32, but I think it is very lame not to have a printed manual. If for no other reason than having an emergency on set and needing to look something up, what if you never printed the PDF out? On the other hand, at a certain point, when you've used a camcorder, you've used a camcorder. At the professional level (or prosumer if that's your view), you pretty much find that every camera has the same controls and functions, just in slightly different places. They usually even have the same names. So chances are unless you're brand new to cameras you'll be able to find your around just fine without a manual, even having never used a given cam before. Most of the time. Until you come across the Black Smoke Muskrat Fetus item in a menu and have no idea what it does.
 
I'm in agreement with you concerning printed manuals. I have lots of devices and cameras and some aren't used frequently , so I find myself forgetting certain things and its much easier to use a paper manual, especially in the field.
I'm 30 also so it's not just the old guys that feel this way. Maybe the old fashioned guys, lol.
That's good news to hear about the white balance and focus of the 130. I've been looking at that camera for a few months, trying to decide.
 
Hmc 150 versu Ac 160 -

So far i have shot 5 jobs with the 160 low lite, variable kelvin setting, 22 zoom, uncompress audio, spot focusing.double slot sd card all what i like about the ac 160
what i notice is the auto focus on the 160 it get out of focus easily compare to hmc 150 i can shoot with it on auto in a run and gun situation. Another problem it seem to be back focus problem with ac 160 in manual focus and the iris wide open i focus on the cake and zoom wide it look like it out of focus. So now i shoot manual iris and keep the iris setting to 2.0.
I do not see and problems like this in this forum so it might be my camera.
Here is the video of the out of focus.





Is any body getting result?
 
Last edited:
My Ac160 is doing the same thing. I was shooting closeups of a face almost in full frame and I could see the AC160 was going in and out of focus???? Nothing else in the shot that the camera could try to focus on. I will try to post some video, but if this is the case that is not good..... This is the whole reason I purchased the AC160, my Sony FX1 seems to do a much better job with no problems what so ever.
 
Here is the close up shot and as you can see at time :10-:11 and around :13-:14 the focus snaps in and out. I did notice on other shots that where definitely wider. I sure hope this is an easy fix. If this was not a practice shot, I would be in big trouble!!!!

 
Last edited:
yes ic that my camera same problem, is this because the first bacth of new model camera always have some sort of glicth?
 
I don't know? But, we have to get this sorted out. This is definitely an issue for sure. I would hate to be doing a wedding like you and have this happen to the bride and grooms face. Hopefully Jan or Barry can shed some light on this issue.
 
So my question, is it better to wait for the second batch? When will that be, after the first of the year? And what are you guys going to do about this? Let us know if us know if you find results.
This really "bites". Tried to use a nice PG word.
I hope panasonic talks about this, or they will loose customers.
 
Yes, I have not contacting them yet on what they will do to resolve this. I just started to work with my Ac160 and it was obvious that it was not correct. When I saw this post I jumped on it, because now I know it is not just me or my camera. I will be contacting them tomorrow to see what is up. I am wondering if the Hpx250 has the same issue with the auto focus - meaning a lens issue- or if it is the different hardware in the camera. I will keep everyone posted. If anyone has an explanation, please let me know:cry:
 
i could try to bring it back but i might be getting a new same problem camera B&H policy is eather send camera to panasonic or give me a new one if there is some thing wrong with the camera it hard to prove the focusing problem cause they will check it under good evan lighting in there store so focus will work fine .

dstar on that job i use manualy focus and iris for vows and reading so only out of focus was un important stuff.
 
Yeah, I will also contact B&H photo tomorrow. If more people expose this, they can't say it is just with your camera. Yes, I would hate to exchange for another with the same issue. There is definitely an issue with it. Keep me informed of the resolution and I will do the same. This sucks!!!
 
Just to keep in mind... the variation in maximum Iris opening across the zoom range is a bit more drastic than in most cams (because of the long zoom!)... so I wonder if the DOF of the wider iris as one zooms out is enough to produce these effects? (The ones related to manual focus, not the ones related to autofocus!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top