On the silver screen....

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fighton4life

Member
Does anyone have any knowledge of how the AF100 footage looks when it is projected onto a movie theatre screen? I am seriously considering this camera and plan on creating some short films to submit to festivals; however I want to make sure that it would look good projected onto a screen of that size.
 
Thank you both for the quick responses! I am currently looking into purchasing some very fast Canon EF/L lenses. The Zeiss are a bit out of my range at the moment. One last question: I have read a couple reviews about the AF100 and some of them have said "It's an HVX200 with the ability to swap it's lenses." How true do you all think that statement holds? I just sold my HVX with the intention of buying this camera and I would not want to be spending $5,000 on a camera that produces nearly identical quality (disregarding the newly added DOF that can be achieved).
 
It has all the same menu controls and basic layout as the HVX. The image quality is about four notches up though. The AF100 can be configured to be nigh unto completely grainless if you want, something that wasn't possible with the HVX. The HVX could show noise at 320 ISO, the AF100 can go to 3200 ISO and show about the same amount of noise as the HVX did. The AF100 footage is sharper too, not quite EX1/HPX370 sharp, but close.

It is certainly in the same general flavor as the HVX/HPX170 as far as colorimetry and such, and it has the variable frame rates for slow-mo and fast-mo (but in 1080p instead of 720p this time)... I think most folks would say the AF100 footage looks more pleasing than the HVX200 footage, regardless of DOF, and when you add the shallow DOF to it you get a pretty great combination.
 
Ah. Okay, that makes sense.

Oh, I have one last question that I forgot to ask in the previous post. What about noise? One thing that I hear from quite a lot of people is that it is a "noisy camera". From some of the things I have seen, it looks fantastic. However from all of the real-world reviews, I keep hearing that it is very noisy. Thoughts?
 
Bella-Drama.jpgNick-Film-Look-3.jpgBella-Film-Look.jpgNick-Film-Look.jpg
I can echo these sentiments as well, but I think the AF100 can look rather substantially better than the HVX. I am preparing to shoot a feature, and did some test shots at a farm where I previously shot a short with my HVX/Letus. I will add that I used the Nanoflash to record at I-Frame 180mb/s, and I believe this makes a substantial difference in color detail. I then added some grading and a Genarts Saphhire Film Effect in Avid, which I further tweaked. I have included some frame grabs. The detail is soft, but sharp - the colors look great on my calibrated plasma. It's in another class above the HVX in overall quality, with the Nano. But, even using the Nano at very high bitrate does not totally remove the posterizing/banding I get in some images. And I am a bit concerned about how that might show up when projected. But for the money, for now, it can't be beat. And I find the image, though less "perfect" than say the F3, more organic and filmic. Much as I think the HVX was against its Sony competitors. Ans yes, some settings combined with dark areas produce ungodly noise. Other settings virtually no noise at almost any ISO.
 
Taylor Rudd said:
Excellent grabs, bhdfield.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Taylor. I should note that as jpgs on my computer screen, the images seem somewhat softer than they appear on my monitor. But honestly, I am stunned by how closely the image matches the look of film, after grading. I think the older Nikon primes are a good match for this camera because they tend to round out some of the tendency of this camera to become harsh in contrast and detail. Maybe like a Cooke lens or something (at least in my imagination). btw - I think all of those grabs were from my Nikon 24/2.8.
 
You know, there is only one true way to prove to people how something looks on the big screen.... show a whole bunch of them that footage on a big screen!

i run a film festival in NY and we had a 25footish diagonal screen, with a XGA projector which had decent specs. and i can tell you i saw footage from the red one, 5d, and 7d, and some of it looked fantastic, and some of it like garbage. i could easily tell you that part of the garbage was from poor lighting and no grading, and other from cheap lenses.

what could be a fun idea is to get a bunch of people together in the NY area to chip in for a theater rental for a few hours, bring a bunch of footage from everyone, and have a little fun with it.
 
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