Jan on AG-AF100 Video Interview

salient points (at least to me, these might have been covered in the features request thread)

- She keeps sayin 4/3 mount, not Micro 4/3
- Price around $6000 (down from "under $10,000")
- ND filter (built in)
- Released in December
 
djkarn105 said:
salient points (at least to me, these might have been covered in the features request thread)

- She keeps sayin 4/3 mount, not Micro 4/3
- Price around $6000 (down from "under $10,000")
- ND filter (built in)
- Released in December
Click to expand...

Doesn't really matter, the sensor size is the same for 4/3" or micro 4/3. In any case you will need an adapter to mount all lenses, except for micro 4/3 lenses. Olympus and Panasonic are putting most of there efforts into the micro 4/3 lenses.

BTW, I guess Jan answered the question about if there will be a lens included in the $6000 price.... No.
 
Actually, there's nothing new there -- that was recorded at NAB back in April.
 
It is a micro 4/3 mount, in the picture it has 11 contact pins in the mount. M4/3 is more easily adapted to other lens mounts as it has a very short flange focal distance.
Standard 4/3 mount has only 9 pins and enough flange depth to house an SLR reflex mirror. Jan refers to the standard 4/3 mount in the video as an Olympus mount. Olympus developed both standards. She also says it mounts the same lenses as the GH1, something that would not be possible for a standard 4/3 mount system.
 
I wonder how the 4/3 system will do in the long run. I assume it was created because Canon/Nikon had more than 80% of the SLR market, an oligopoly even Sony and Olympus could not penetrate. And a very profitable market with vendor specific mounts. The key behind the oligopoly was the incompatible lens system which kept Canon and Nikon users dedicated to the respective companies and isolated. After all these decades and with the wide selection and low cost of available lenses that earned their development costs years ago, no new company could even think about competing. So, the new system lenses had to be significantly incompatible with Canon/Nikon so that the users could be locked to the system once they got the first camera. Then, the 4/3 lenses could be more expensive and the user would keep coming back for new products compatible to the lenses already purchased.

So:

What is the equivalent lens for a 4/3 system lens? If the 4/3 camera and the full frame camera have the same number of pixels, the full frame camera is 2 stops more sensitive (4x larger pixels in area) and has 2 stops more shallow DOF. An ISO equally clean at 4x the sensitivity.

An 25mm f2.0 on a 4/3 X megapixel camera will have the same performance with a 50mm f4.0 on a full frame X megapixel camera for shallow DOF and low light. The crop factor is exactly 2.

Now lets see pricing:

A 4/3 35-100 f2 is 2300 euro
A Canon 70-200 f4 is 650 euro and will get same low light and same DOF
A Canon 70-200 f2.8 is 1200 euro and it will get 1 stop better low light and more shallow DOF. Or you could stop it down and match the 4/3 lens performance in both areas.
A third party f2.8 is cheaper.


A 4/3 14-35 f2 is 2000 euro
A Canon 24-70 f2.8 is 1200 euro and it will get 1 stop better low light and more shallow DOF. If you stop if down to f4 it will match DOF and low light.
A third party f2.8 is cheaper.

4300 euro vs 2400 euro for the two very useful lenses that do 28-200mm in full frame and 24-200 equivalents in 4/3 system. And that will be for f2.8 lenses on the full frame, more shallow DOF and better low light by 1 stop.

That's a 1900 euro difference. For that kind of money one could get a very good camera, instead of an entry level model.

Canon 5D II + 24-70 f2.8 + 70-200 f2.8 = 2000 + 1200 + 1200 = 4400 euro.
Canon 5D II + 24-70 f2.8 + 70-200 f4 = 2000 + 1200 + 650 = 3850 euro.
GH1 + olympus 14-35 f2 + olympus 35-100 f2 = 800 + 2000 + 2300 = 5100 euro

I don't understand how this could work. The entry levels models for 4/3 are indeed quite affordable, but lenses are not. One cannot really adapt lenses from other systems easily, lens functionality is lost and they will also be 2x softer in still mode.
 
One could also get a Canon 550D for 700 euro. With the f2.8 L series lenses it would match the DOF of f2.0 on 4/3 system, it would probably make up for the 1 stop loss in the aperture using its large sensor, and it would only cost 3100 euro vs 5100 for the 4/3 system equivalent. Or a 1400 euro 7D for 3800 euro vs 5100 for 4.3.
 
Btw, this will work well on the AF-100:

14-140 f4-f5.8 800 euro

and as an upgrade:

14-35 f2 2000 euro, 4x lower ISO compared to the 14-140
35-100 f2 2300 euro, 4x to 8x lower ISO compared to the 14-140

About 5,000 euro in lenses but it will cover everything and produce DOF slightly more shallow than 2/3" and 16mm film with f1.2 lenses. It's two lenses instead of one and it will not get to 140mm but two lenses is not that bad.

For matching the 140mm, one will need an olympus 150mm f2 prime which is 2400 euro. About 8x lower ISO if you need it, compared to the 14-140.

7500 euro in lenses total, but capable of low light and very shallow DOF at all zoom points from 28-300mm. It will make many shots possible.
 
IF the 4/3 and ff have the same amount of pixels. Thats the key word there...

I agree to some extent but you can still adapt cheaper 3rd party lenses..

4/3s is doing well in the stills world. specially the micro 4/3

If canon releases something similar to the af100, that would be intersting to see
 
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dcloud said:
IF the 4/3 and ff have the same amount of pixels. Thats the key word there...

I agree to some extent but you can still adapt cheaper 3rd party lenses..

4/3s is doing well in the stills world. specially the micro 4/3

If canon releases something similar to the af100, that would be intersting to see
Click to expand...

A GH1 is 12.1MP. A Canon 5DII is 21.1MP. Lets say that's 2x. That's still 1 stop of light gathering advantage. 4x sensor area, 2x megapixels, pixels 2x as large in area. In this case f4 will match f2 in DOF and f2.8 will match f2 in low light. So, with f2.8 lenses it will match f2 low light and f1.4 DOF in 4/3. Since the lenses are f2, it's still at an advantage of shallow DOF is an advantage and it costs less.

This only applies to still mode of course. Who knows what they do in video mode to get 1080p.

Video mode will not be affected by the lower resolution lenses of the full frame format, because the output resolution is smaller, so adapted lenses will work fine.

Is there aperture control with adapters? I thought the mounts are just mechanical mounts. You need a manual aperture ring on the lens?

Chances are the lenses of the larger formats will not be faster. Or they could be equally expensive when they are equally fast. You have f2.8 on full frame and f2.0 on 4/3 for the common zooms. You are better off getting the lens designed for 4/3 with their electronic control.
 
nikon can be adapted with cheap adapters...canon or other electronic lenses cannot.. (unless someone releases a live lens adapter like redrock.. (redrock could actually just adapt the current live lens to a m4/3 one

if canon or sony releases something similar to the af100, im sure it will be priced a lot higher
 
Otis Grapsas said:
I don't understand how this could work. The entry levels models for 4/3 are indeed quite affordable, but lenses are not. One cannot really adapt lenses from other systems easily, lens functionality is lost and they will also be 2x softer in still mode.
Click to expand...

Well, not exactly. With m4/3 you can use manual Nikon or Canon FD lenses. You won't be able to put them on Canon DSLR due to short focal flange distance.
I understand your point about full-frame lenses being softer on m4/3 - all in all they were designed for bigger image circle and doesn't have to meet such strict requirements to resolve similar number of lines per mm given the sensor size. But remember we're talking video here, not stills. Who cares about loosing auto focus and automatic electronic aperture? Canon FD lenses, especially fast primes, are very cheap, mechanically and optically excellent with butter smooth focus ring, correct rotation direction and very long throw (normal focal length and telephoto ~270 degrees). Their aperture ring can be very easily modified to allow continuous, step-free adjustment. They allow you to pull focus, something that's hardly possible with modern autofocus Canon glass. I think they are sharp enough for 1080p video. If if they weren't, comparing such rig to Canon DSLR wouldn't be very correct - above certain level the sharpness doesn't give anything but more aliasing.
 
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