How well does the AF101 perform handheld?

A

ade4all

Veteran
Hi - has anyone tried using this camera handheld, no support, just barebones camera & lens?

I'm thinking of getting one of these little beastly beauties but would really like to know/see how they perform handheld - looking at ergonomics, ease of use....

Im hoping a benefit over using dslr is that at points i can just grab the camera & shoot, no need for a pimped out shoulder support with extra audio recorder & whatever else needs attaching to make the damn thing work

If anyone has tried this out, please let me know how it feels in hand, how does it compare to a dslr - is it as comfortable & intuitive as say the pana hmc151 handheld or is it a tricky little bugger to work with whilst using manual focus, aperture etc.

I know the af101 is going to work at its best in controlled environments, with support, but although much of my documentary work has this luxury there are occaisions when i need to/would prefer to grab the camera as light weight as possible & just go with it....

Am imagining having to use lenses with image stabiliser for such scenarios - waiting to see if the rumour of a new lumix 12-50mm 2.5-3.3 becomes reality soon (hoping it actually morphs into a constant aperture lens though - but thats another discussion altogether) or if i will keep my canon legacy lenses & stump up for the soon to arrive birger mount next. I do have the 14-140mm & some fd lenses for my gh1 but love the range & aperture of 17-50mm 2.8 on my canon 550d when run n gunning indoors

If anyone can shed some light on this I'm all ears, or if you could point me to some footage or feedback somewhere on line I would be trully grateful, not found much so far

Thanking you

p.s. is there any footage with canon fd lenses, am thinking this camera will make those lenses purr but again have not found any footage yet?
 
If you have a small-ish lens mounted (the 14-140 Lumix or the Voightlander 25mm, for example) the rig is very light and ergonomically quite comfortable for the way I like to shoot - with the camera against my shoulder or hip, using the LCD to frame and focus. Everything is pretty much where you want it to be, except for the record buttons. The one on the right is hard for me to reach if my hand is in the grip (annoying!), and of course there is no record button on the handle, because it's removable. This is a minor inconvenience.

The thing that is more troubling is the focus feedback. There is no "expanded focus" as there is on the HMC150. I cannot for the life of me understand why they omitted this, and I dearly hope it can be added (mappable to one of the user buttons) in a firmware update. The red-outline focus assist is great - when it works. If there's a nice hard contrasty edge it shows up and lets you grab focus quick, but some of the time you can rack around and never see any red. Extremely frustrating. If you turn on the EVF DTL, you'll see more red, but then your focus is less accurate because the red is too generous. I already got burned by that once. The safest way that I've found to focus is to turn the color all the down on the LCD and then use the red focus assist. The drawback of this, of course, is that you have to go into the menus to get the color back in your LCD. If I could assign B&W LCD to a user button (more firmware dreams!), that would be how I'd work.

The biggest lens I've put on the camera is the 14-35 f2 Oly zoom. It makes the camera a little front-heavy, but it is still quite usable for handheld work. Of course there is no OIS on that lens...

As mostly a doc shooter, I think for now I'll still be using my HMC150 for crucial run and gun stuff. You just need the zoom range, stabilization, expanded focus and additional depth of field in those situations. That said, with the 14-140 on, the AF100 is not too bad for more relaxed run and gun, though at night you'd have to jack up the ASA a lot and live with some noise. If/when the 12-50 comes out, that will be somewhat of a game-changer...
 
great feedback, thank you loads....yes i think that new lens - if it arrives, will completely change things as to the AF101s viability for all kinds of documentary film making (at least for my style)...would make me feel alot more comfortable taking the plunge to this camera. The focus assist functions without 'zoom in' was another big worry for me, and i think thats a great idea to have b&w lcd or vf for an assignable user button.
Anyway thanks again for the insight, this camera has got me quite excited like no other for its potential in doc film making
 
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