Image feel - not entirely satisfied

When the HVX200 first came out, it was going for $450/day. Of course, when the Red One came out, folks were asking $1200/day, and now it's down to as little as $100/day for a starving owner/operator...

The market will determine what an AF100 goes for. Many places put the EX3 at $400/day, on down to maybe $300/day. AF100 should be comparable, I'd think.

But you don't want to be a rental house unless you're a real rental house. So don't represent yourself as such. Just go along as an owner/operator and you should probably be able to command some decent rates in the first few months, until market saturation hits.
 
Hey, are you already back from vacation?


Jan_Crittenden said:
Here's what you do, find a dealer that is closer toyou and tell him your situation. Put a pre-order in with him and try it out whenit showsup. If it passes you buy it. If not then don't. Make these arrangements ahead of time. This may cost you a bitmore.
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Homunculus said:
yeah in fact I recently DP'd a short for a director on my GH1 and he shot a few months prior with another DP a short on Red One. My gh1 short looks much better and anyone I ask says the Red One short looks atrocious (it really does...no idea why, blown highlights everywhere, poor exposure..bad colors....) so I know it's all in the hands of the user as well.

But one thing you must rmember is that, one of the reasons for the antsyness is not that I can't wait til december 27, but the fact that if I wait til dec 27 to make the decision that means I may not have a camera until february or later and I plan to shoot a project in maybe january so I need this baby before then! Jan herself said if AF100 is not pre ordered there's good chance you won't see this thing for a few months. And I can only assume that pre-order slots will fill up eventually so sure I can wait until december for final production footage but then I may be Sh## Out of Luck. Which is why I've been beasting so much on trying to get to the bottom of the footage discrepancies in futile efforts to try to decide whether to pre-order or not.
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So put your pre-order money down with a retailer that won't ding you if you cancel your order after you've seen some footage and you don't like it.

Most will refund the $250 you put down now.

All this angst must be driving you to super-saver sized bottles of Maalox though.

ETA, Damn, Jan beat me to it form her vacation!
 
Barry_Green said:
When the HVX200 first came out, it was going for $450/day. Of course, when the Red One came out, folks were asking $1200/day, and now it's down to as little as $100/day for a starving owner/operator...

The market will determine what an AF100 goes for. Many places put the EX3 at $400/day, on down to maybe $300/day. AF100 should be comparable, I'd think.

But you don't want to be a rental house unless you're a real rental house. So don't represent yourself as such. Just go along as an owner/operator and you should probably be able to command some decent rates in the first few months, until market saturation hits.
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HVX200s still rent for $300 day in "shoot-ready" form in my neck of the woods, kitted out with 3 batteries, 2 32G P2 Cards, P2 Store (why? no idea), cables, DV8 Tripod, Matte-Box, Monitor.

And you know what? I still rent 'em when I need them! While a long term rental relationship has lowered my rental cost - it doesn't mean the camera still isn't renting like hotcakes. There have been days I call (recently) where there are none available for shoots well in advance. No 200s, no 500s, nothing!

I can only imagine how well the AF-100 will do.

On the other hand people are scared of the AG-3DA1 (can we get a sub-forum for that puppy?) kit at the moment. I've pitched several projects with it already. No takers yet thought!
 
I'm not an expert at scrutinizing different footage to understand characteristics of different recording tools. Looking at the comments here about the Crews footage, which seems to be more favored than the bloom footage I wonder:
- The Crews footage is of an attractive woman bathed in very soft light, shot under moderately relaxed conditions.
- The Bloom footage is him walking around in London, on a short autumn day, mostly testing how well the camera does in wide angle pans.

Both then go through a heavy vimeo recompression mashup. What are we acutally talking about when we say we don't like or "feel" either of the footage? How much does it have to do with the camera, really?

Also, how long until we get a plugin for FCP that can add moire and aliasing to our footage, so we can get that "dslr look" with our new cameras :)
 
the difference is the crew.tv didnt tweak the settings. they just shot it out of the box
Philip bloom however did some stuff like sharpness down to 7 and other stuff we dont know
 
Yeah - in one place he said he turned the sharpness down as he didn't know the camera and does that with all his cameras. But in another he says the camera was given to him with the sharpness already turned down. Don't know what's up with that. - However he does also say he will test different sharpness settings when he gets the camera again.

All of this is kind of arbitrary though. I'm not sure I understand the point of handing out pre-production cameras to people to shoot with, as you then have to rapidly follow along behind saying 'it's not a finished model'.
 
Homunculus said:
yes maalox has been my closest friend thanks to af100
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If any camera drives you towards any meds even only virtually I recommend the following: Search for an old 35 mm manual crank camera - build in the 1910's or so (I highly recommend an old wood frame Ernemann) - load it slowly with black & white stock and start cranking a bit (hum the "Radetzky"-march while cranking, helps to keep the speed) ... this has a more soothing effect than any medication can give you.... and it reminds you that a camera is a camera is a camera is a camera .... and that all what was considered modern in it's time will be out of date in no time .... nothing more, nothing less.... and breathe...... ;-)
 
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ive forgotten the usuall settings for panasonic cameras anybody here could help remind me the best scene file settings for dynamic range? ive totally forgotten ever since i sold my hmc150
 
Barry_Green said:
When the HVX200 first came out, it was going for $450/day. Of course, when the Red One came out, folks were asking $1200/day, and now it's down to as little as $100/day for a starving owner/operator...

The market will determine what an AF100 goes for. Many places put the EX3 at $400/day, on down to maybe $300/day. AF100 should be comparable, I'd think.

But you don't want to be a rental house unless you're a real rental house. So don't represent yourself as such. Just go along as an owner/operator and you should probably be able to command some decent rates in the first few months, until market saturation hits.
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I agree this camera will be popular and few AF cameras circulating so it will make some money the first months. It's really a no brainier to have a pre-order put.
 
Just a quick question regarding image.

It has been quoted so far that the af100 delivers approximately 10.5 stops of lattitude. Do we know yet of that is the number when the camera is straight out of the box? After Cine-D or dynamic range stretch is activated?
 
I don't think that anyone has yet done the necessary testing with a finished camera to determine DR with the AF100 in any mode.
 
Feeding this camera through a truelight system into a Ki-Pro might yield some very pretty results.

I think everyone is expecting a Red One or Alexa for $5000.

That, my friends it ain't.
 
I understand, my inquiry, more accurately is that Barry did some testing and came to a conclusion that the camera seemed to be approximately 10.5 stops, however I do not recall seeing if that claim was made with a standard setting, cinelike v, cinelike d, etc..
 
Dan_Kanes said:
Feeding this camera through a truelight system into a Ki-Pro might yield some very pretty results.

I think everyone is expecting a Red One or Alexa for $5000.

That, my friends it ain't.
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why not? Red one debuted 4 years ago at 17500 price point. why can't current technology come close to something that is 4 years old at a much lower price point? Moore's law guarantees that this is possible. After all, a computer that was 5000$ 4 years ago is less powerful than a 1000$ computer that is able to be purchased today so why can't a camera that is 5000$ today be just as powerful as one that cost 17000 4 years ago? Not much of a stretch when you think of it that way is it?

Now Red MX is another story.
 
Homunculus said:
why not? Red one debuted 4 years ago at 17500 price point. why can't current technology come close to something that is 4 years old at a much lower price point? Moore's law guarantees that this is possible. After all, a computer that was 5000$ 4 years ago is less powerful than a 1000$ computer that is able to be purchased today so why can't a camera that is 5000$ today be just as powerful as one that cost 17000 4 years ago? Not much of a stretch when you think of it that way is it?

Now Red MX is another story.
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You want to know why not?

Corporate politics. That is the answer. That is the only answer. The reason Red has been able to make any difference in the industry is that they are radically different. Some might even consider them crazy. Panasonic is not crazy. They aren't even radical. They do push more boundaries than any other video camera company - but they are far from radical. How are they supposed to sell an AF-500, or AF-3700 if the $5000 camera does everything. They readily admit that. The Red One was probably 5 or more years ahead of its time (with growing pains to match when it came out) Only now is everyone else even getting the concept.

Finally - Moore's Law. This relates to computing power. Cameras both are and are not computers.

I would propose Kanes' Law:

Every 3 years a Panasonic camera is introduced to market that changes the face of digital cinematography in the more commonly affordable "prosumer" market. It will not cost less than $3500 and not more than $6000. Other companies will slowly offer their versions, but it will be too late because other technologies will have come to light that thereby render the others obsolete - and despite other cameras higher technical specs, the price point will be $6000 or higher - and offer inferior or equal functionality to the panasonic equivalent. All will complain and fret over minute technical details. The cycle will continue.
 
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good post mate. but let me just also say that to prove my point that if they wanted to they COULD easily release a camera at similar price point just as powerful as original Red One. How do I know this? Well because RED ITSELF is doing this. The scarlet that was supposed to be released 1 month from now is more powerful than original 17,500 Red One! And the Scarlet's intended price was about 6000-7000$ or so (I know it recently went up when they introduced HDR to it but ignore that for now). So the point is, Red itself has proven that they have technology at half the price that is more powerful than original Red One. So when people ask how I can possibly expect AF100 to be anywhere near Red One, well that's how because I know for a fact it's possible at that price point if someone truly wanted to do it, but as you suggest it would ruin their deliberate planned obsolescence sequence and things of that nature
 
i mean why does the lowest priced POS Kia car accelerate faster than many "Hot Rods" of the 60's. that's the whole point of innovatio, the human race continually creates better faster and greater performing things at lower price points as technology improves. so I don't see any reason why something as powerful as 5 year old technology can't be released at half the price that that technology 5 years ago cost....
 
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