Ikonoskop A-Cam DII vs. Panasonic AF100

Matthew Bennett

Matthew Bennett

Well-known member
And now for a completely useless but perhaps interesting comparison.

FACES:

Ikonoskop A-Cam DII vs. Panasonic AF100.

Both grabs from 720p web videos. IKON was 8bit proRes, Panny was mp4 I think. Both downscales from 1080p sources.
The IKON feature some lovely pink Swedes, the AF100 German footage features some lovely pink Germans.

I'm sure the features of each grab will be apparent to all. What I'm interested in is perceived sharpness....
The IKON is a native 1080p Kodak sensor, imaging through a zeiss lens, files are RAW DNG.
The AF100's sensor is.. undetermined, but I'm assuming the pixel count is bigger that the 2/3 inch IKON. (correct?, yes I know it's micro 3/4, but we don't yet know the exact specs, right?)

For all those vastly more knowledgeable than me... why the big difference in perceived sharpness?

Compare_AF100_720p.jpg


Compare_IKONOSKOP_720p.jpg
 
Motion blur (I believe the Panny shot was a dolly), Lens (Panny was using the 14-140 Lumix $800 zoom lens), aperture, focus point, lighting. Apples to oranges.
 
There is the question of 1:1 pixel on the ikonoskop, as i am under the impression the af100 performs scaling.

For many other reasons, I think I'm growing to like and prefer a 2/3rd inch with cmount to a larger sensor, for making movies. I'm am quickly feeling the impracticality of shallow dof, I'd like to have the option to have a smaller sensor size, and match s35mm with very fast s16 lenses. There was a good paragraph (now deleted) on the merits of a 2/3rd sensor, but the author was removed (dunno why non my business).

Also, the ikonoskop was said to cip to magenta.

Still, I like it as an overall concept. It has been my dream cam for a while. There are crazy 16mm zooms out there that are pretty effin fast to make up for sensor size. It's like 16mm, so I'm convinced, but I don't know what the 1:1 pixel will do to resolution after demosaic.

I of course am no expert with raw, worked with it in motion a few times, and haven't really delved.

The ikonoskop, comparing his glasses to the sharpest strands of her hair, I would say looks sharper.

T
 
Actually I picked a frame from the Panny footage where the dolly came to a dead stop... so unfortunately motion blur is not the culprit.

I think they both look fine, but shouldn't the Panny be sharper theorectically, with more pixels to draw on?
 
That's what I was thinking, but then that would be up to the downscaling process and how compromising it is? Just speculating. I would imagine the panny to look sharper than the ikonoskop coz of the 1:1 thing, but then that loss of resolution (due to bayer) would be in chroma resolution. So, yeah you're absolutely right, I would imagine the panny to be sharper, and I think it all depends on the scaler.
 
Actually, when you look at the detail on the skin the Panny IS sharper and yet more organic. Look at the noses and foreheads.

Its on the clothes, etc that it looks out of focus, and that's because of the extremely shallow DOF.
 
I can't imagine you could directly be able to definitively tell which camera is sharper with different subjects at different distances in different lighting conditions different lenses and different distances from the camera. But if we are doing rough guesses the Ikonoskop looks much sharper to me while the af100 looks like it is using a lot of false detail or uprezzing or something it looks similar to DSLR's resolution.

Though as I said in the first sentance making a comparison like this and making conclusions on the cameras performace based on just this would be plain misguided.
 
Not to sound harsh our anything, but there is very little point in trying to draw any type of conclusion comparing two scaled and compressed images.
 
Yeah, if you look closely, it seems at if the AF-100 shot is focused on his nose, thus the eyes (which we are naturally drawn to) are out of focus. Looks like those little bumps on his nose are the sharpest thing I see. Maybe it's just me.

Not sure of the settings/ distance/ lenses/ f-stop was at on their shots. Think about it. If you are shooting at F5.6-F8 you are going to have a sharper image (usually) where 1.2-2.8 is usually a little softer. Again, a lot of this is the lens, but the the general censuses, especially on still lenses.

The bottom line with this comparison, it that its not a comparison at all. but then again, I claim to be no expert at all. Just my 1 cent!

Happy Thanksgiving! Umm.. That pie in the over is smellen good!

Bp.
 
There's too much you don't know about these shots to do a proper comparison. Plus, you'd probably need to use the same lens on both cameras with the same lighting, among other things, if you really want to do it right. Also, was the Panny lens being focused using a follow focus or auto focus. Likely, a follow focus or even someone just pulling focus manually without a follow focus, but either way how can you be sure the focus was even 100% accurate. It also looks like the Panny shot has a more narrow depth of field (compare the tip of the nose, to the eyes, to the back of the hair/shoulders) than the Ikon shot. You just can't compare these shots and come to a proper conclusion.
 
THe bottom image is slightly over exposed compared to the top image
eg the skin tones

Consequently...The top image has more detail to "examine" in the frame
 
Interestingly, the A-Cam DII is one of the cameras I was looking at. Downloaded the video with "faces", and I like the feel of the image. It's softer and more organic.
 
I hesitantly started noticing this after downloading all of the af100 footage and comparing it to my gh1 & gh2, I think panasonic may have used an overly strong OLPF in the af100 to be absolutely positively sure that no one would ever see moiré/aliasing in any situation as it was a huge marketing point for them. Where as many other HD camera makers allow some aliasing (lighter olpf) in order to get as close as possible to the maximum resolution of the sensor (f35/genesis - ex1/3) .

For what its worth comparing GH2 (in reference to the af100, as they are probably a very similar sensor);

GH2 (20mm pancake 1080/24p mode, smooth, -2 on sharpness)

1080p->720p rescaled jpeg:
720%20jpeg.jpg


1080p .png if you want to see full res



Im not trying to bash the af100, i just was trying to see the difference in detail compared to my gh1/2. (ill look at this more as soon as I get my hands on an af100)
 
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Hunter, I'm not sure what you're trying to show with a single image from a GH2. You don't have the same shot from an AF100 as comparison. The GH2 and AF100 are completely different cameras, different sensor, different codec, different electronics. Similar is not the same, especially when you're talking about more than one element in the mix. You're trying to compare apples and oranges. And don't forget that no one has seen footage from the AF100 that's final production and in a controlled environment. The amount OLPF you're referring to could very well be adjusted in software too, and the software definitely wasn't final according to Barry and others that used the cameras in Japan.
 
But Mike I don't see anything wrong with Hunter's comparison to the shot the OP had of the AF100. If anything the OP's comparison shots are more like apples and oranges. The AF's image is blurred out except for the face...whereas the 2/3's camera (understandanbly) was all in complete focus due to a smaller sensor. Hunter's shot just brought everything back on a leveled playing field (closeup with background slightly out of focus). With that said...I think his assumption (or theory) about Panasonic possibly using a much stronger OLPF filter in the AF100 than the DSLRs is quite possible. Whether they are the same sensor..."or not"...we do know that they are both micro 4/3 sensors which makes them "similar" enough...at least for me. There is no reason one can't compare them on that basis alone...(forget about all the other possible technical differences). jm2c
 
hunter richards said:
I think panasonic may have used an overly strong OLPF in the af100 to be absolutely positively sure that no one would ever see moiré/aliasing in any situation as it was a huge marketing point for them.
Click to expand...
This is a theory I have as well, I need an af100, gh1 and gh2 to test it though.

I am confident, that even without an OLPF, you could shoot on a GH13 with 1.33 anamorphic lenses, master at 4k and print to film. No one would ever see aliasing until the final blu-ray. Not that I'd ever use the GH1 if I was renting hawks. lol
 
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I'd say my opinion, but I'd just get attacked..... oh hell I'll do it anyway (I love America)

I have no doubt in my mind that the DII is a sharper image no matter what depth of field you compare it too. With all the footage that I've seen and from some of the footage I've downloaded from the DII its clear that the DII has a superior image detail than the AF100. Even with compression and all of that, which you guys scream over... Compression of a very sharp image will not blur it unless you are doing a high rate of compression. Screen grabs from your monitor (be it Mac or PC) are not highly compressed enough to effect sharpness. Also scaling down will not effect sharpness, if anything it will make it sharper from its higher res image.

I did my homework with the DII a while back when it was first coming out, because I was working on something as well. They did a great job with the sensor, but I hated the direction they were going in for the body and view finder. They produce a very nice image, its quite close to a 16mm film look in its own way.

Anyway back on topic, I see what the original post is talking about. And after seeing all the AF100 footage from multiple camera men, who have used different compression settings from different sites, all the footage looks the same. Theres NO way they all just happen to have used the exact same compression setting that dulls down the image... Lets get real, maybe its just that some cameras hold more detail than others? why make something its not.
 
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Ian-T said:
But Mike I don't see anything wrong with Hunter's comparison to the shot the OP had of the AF100. If anything the OP's comparison shots are more like apples and oranges. The AF's image is blurred out except for the face...whereas the 2/3's camera (understandanbly) was all in complete focus due to a smaller sensor. Hunter's shot just brought everything back on a leveled playing field (closeup with background slightly out of focus). With that said...I think his assumption (or theory) about Panasonic possibly using a much stronger OLPF filter in the AF100 than the DSLRs is quite possible. Whether they are the same sensor..."or not"...we do know that they are both micro 4/3 sensors which makes them "similar" enough...at least for me. There is no reason one can't compare them on that basis alone...(forget about all the other possible technical differences). jm2c
Click to expand...

And I stated that you can't correctly compare the two images in the original post either (see my earlier post), just like you can't use Hunter's image as a guide for how the AF100 will perform. It's a different camera. Similar sensor, yes, but it's still different. Similar is not the same. In the past, just because 2 cameras used 1/3" CCDs could you say they were similar? No, because there's more to it than the sensor and the sensors aren't exactly the same anyways. The image is going through a lot of other steps after the sensor and those are going to be different in each camera. Again, apples and oranges any way you look at it.
 
Nigel did say the resolution was similar to an EX1, which can be superb. I'm waiting to see actual resolution charts before I assume the AF100 is soft. There are too many assumptions and variables at this time.
 
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