New Panasonic 4K 60P Camcorder HC-X1000

Panasonic will be demoing the X1000 camera at the main Henry's store here in Toronto starting Friday at 11am.

I am going to bring some SDXC cards with me, just in case they let me shoot some footage with it.

I'll make sure I ask about the bit-depth and color format of the HDMI out while I'm there.
 
I love the camera, hate the price and hate the size of it. It'd be nice to have this in a PX270 like body with a better sensor for 5k instead of an AC90 like body for $3500.

OR, have the camera priced at $2500.
 
Josh Bass said:
Garrr. . .no SDI? I wanted my next cam to have SDI and HDMI.
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I concur. At $3500 that was a big mistake, especially since they keep insisting on slapping RCA on the side of the cam for whatever reason.

Jarek Zabczynski said:
No P2/AVC either...
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Which is also sad given the price. Not that a P2 cam would ever cost $3500 new, but with much of the features being a snatch from the AC90 it should be cheaper since it doesn't have either.
 
$2500 would be the sweet spot for sure. I personally like the AC90 form factor so I have no doubt that I would like this new camera handling wise. Built-in selectable ND, integral lens cap, 4K. Those are some pretty nice things. I wish the lens had the same type of lens setup as the EX1 with selectable hard focus, iris, and zoom stop.
 
TheDingo said:
Panasonic will be demoing the X1000 camera at the main Henry's store here in Toronto starting Friday at 11am.

I am going to bring some SDXC cards with me, just in case they let me shoot some footage with it.

I'll make sure I ask about the bit-depth and color format of the HDMI out while I'm there.
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cool thanks

if I wasn't busy at that time I would have considered going down myself
 
The PX270 has it, has been a handy feature, only took them 12 years after Sony implemented it. :)

zijital said:
Wow, I completely missed that (obviously). I was looking at the image looking straight down the lens & didn't see any indication.

Welcome to the lens shutter party Panasonic. We've been waiting for you.
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zeke said:
Not liking the 1/2.3 sensor at all. That's what you find in sub 1K point and shoot cameras.
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Are you seriously going to dismiss the massive pile of 1/3" prosumer cameras that have been around for quite some time providing a large chunk of what you see on TV?
 
Darren Levine said:
Are you seriously going to dismiss the massive pile of 1/3" prosumer cameras that have been around for quite some time providing a large chunk of what you see on TV?
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Yes but to be fair aren't all of those (or most) 3MOS or 3CCD sensors as opposed to single sensors?
 
So I got to play with the FZ1000 and X1000 cameras this morning...

FZ1000

I was curious to see what the 4K 30p video looked like from this camera so I loaded one of my own SDXC cards and shot some footage in the Henry's store, which was horribly lit with some sort of industrial lighting. Overall I was quite impressed with the video image, though you have to tweak the camera settings to get something "normal" looking. The stock "standard" setting was super saturated and a little over sharpened, but I'm sure this could be fixed if you spent some time with the recording settings. The Camera's EVF is great, clean, clear, and the peaking makes it easy to manually focus. I could see using this camera as a low-cost B-roll camera as long as you can live with shooting 4K at 30p. The only thing I did not like about this camera was the motorized zoom adjustment which was a bit creaky as you went from wide to full tele. It might have been the camera I was using, I'm not sure.

X1000

I was able to use my Sandisk Extreme Pro 95MB/sec SDXC UHS-1 card to shoot 4K 60p footage at 150 Mbps. The camera complained that my card was not an approved card for 4K 60p, but it still let me format and shoot 4K 60p 150 Mbps footage with it. Overall the X1000 camera feels like a super beefy handy-cam, it's a really solid feeling in your hands and most of the controls are very easy to use once you figure out how to adjust them. The only thing I could not figure out was how to turn off the auto-exposure adjustment, as I was trying to over and under expose the video image but the auto-exposure kept compensating to bring things back it what it thought was "normal". I'm sure it's a simple thing, but with no manual to work with I was stumped. ( the Panasonic reps had no experience with this camera, so they had no suggestions for me ) I asked about the HDMI output and was told by the Panasonic reps that it's 8-bit 4:2:2, so no 10-bit out from this camera.

Checking the 4K 60p footage I shot in the crappy industrially lit Henry's store ( using stock camera settings because there was no time to adjust anything ) the footage looked good, but I would say the FZ1000 4K 30p footage I shot today looked a little better, which I think has to do with camera settings and not figuring out how to get rid of the auto-exposure control. With almost every Panasonic camera I've shot with the default camera settings are always horrible. I'm not going to post any footage I shot as I don't think it would accurately represent what this camera can produce with good lighting and proper settings.

One last thing, I was told that the X1000 camera would be available in stores in the first or second week of October, so I expect proper camera tests should pop-up on the web very soon.
 
Auto-anything definitely is something to avoid on the Panasonic AG-AC160A. The focus hunting probably is the most annoying but Push Auto (a manual procedure) does allow you to get a focus quickly. I do most of my recordings using a remote (Studie 1 Productions) that handles start/stop, focus, iris and zoom

I like the stowable LCD, too bad no SDI.

The 5 axis stabilizer probably is a big improvement.

As for the weight, I suppose I could get used to it.
 
Darren Levine said:
Are you seriously going to dismiss the massive pile of 1/3" prosumer cameras that have been around for quite some time providing a large chunk of what you see on TV?
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4K on that small of a chip is going to have problems with low light. It does look good when downsampled to 1080p in the camera. Not dismissing it, just not agreeing with the design. I'll wait to see real world tests.
 
R Hudson said:
$2500 would be the sweet spot for sure. I personally like the AC90 form factor so I have no doubt that I would like this new camera handling wise. Built-in selectable ND, integral lens cap, 4K. Those are some pretty nice things. I wish the lens had the same type of lens setup as the EX1 with selectable hard focus, iris, and zoom stop.
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Agreed. At $2500 it'd be breakthrough and I'd buy two of them. Even with the roll on forever type rings in the lens. What makes it hurt so much is that this camera doesn't have features you'd find in any camera above $3000, and all of the missing features that you'd expect from a sub $2000 cam.

I'll have to REALLY see if this camera is going to be in my bag to replace my aging HVX200.

zeke said:
Not liking the 1/2.3 sensor at all. That's what you find in sub 1K point and shoot cameras.
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I wouldn't mind the sensor if the body matched anything from the AC160A and up. Sadly, it's really just an AC90 body with a improvements and a 4k chip.
 
What features is it missing (in your opinion) besides sdi? Im comparing it to a used ex1r...thats my gold standard for right now
 
TheDingo said:
I think it's 8-bit 4:2:0, but I'm not 100 percent sure. ( I am going back to Henry's this afternoon, so I'll ask if I can find a Panasonic rep )
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"Funny" but it's 2014 and we're still getting 4:2:0 cams (at multi fat stack prices) from all of the majors. It's sort of like they KNOW we'll buy this crap again and again as they incrementally upgrade. :Drogar-Mad(DBG):
 
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