Panasonic announces UX180 and UX90 pricing & availability

The message for a faster iris has been given repeatedly, that I can assure you. Over the years we've seen some slight improvements in the Lumix lenses, the original 14-140 was f4-f5.6, the newer one is like f/3.5-f5.6. They did come out with some fixed 2.8 zooms, but they're extremely short range (about 3x zoom).

I am reminded of this quote from Adam Wilt's review of the DVX200 over on dvinfo.net:
How much more would a constant-aperture 13x f/2.8 4/3” lens cost? It’s hard to know for certain, but compare any vendor’s f/2.8 constant-aperture zooms to their non-constant or smaller-opening counterparts.

For example, the Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lists for $1800 while the 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR is only $500; even the 24-120mm f/4G ED VR is only $1100.

In the Canon lineup, the 24-80mm f/2.8 II is $1800; the smaller-aperture 24-70mm f/4 IS is $850 and the 24-105 f/4 IS is $1000.

In Panasonic’s micro 4/3” lenses, the 35-100mm f/2.8 is $1300 while the 35-100mm f/4–5.6 is a mere $400.

Constant wider apertures are hard to build (read: expensive and bulky) and the jump from f/4 to f/2.8 seems especially difficult. Panasonic’s choice of an f/2.8–4.5 max aperture seems like a sensible compromise to me.
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One thing he didn't clearly specify is the weight difference. That first example, the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8G, weighs 3.4 pounds by itself! The 24-85 3.5-4.5G offers more zoom range and weighs 1.02 pounds. Or with the Lumix lenses, the constant f/2.8 weighs 3x as much as the f/4-5.6 lens does. When you're looking at a total camcorder package that weighs 4 pounds all-in, lens weight is a huge consideration. A constant f/2.8 over 20x zoom range? I can't imagine what that would weigh. I have to assume that it would weigh at least 3x as much as the current lens, so we'd be talking about a handheld camera that weighs 9 to 12 pounds, right? Not appealing at all. One of the main things I really like about the UX180 & UX90 is that they trimmed the weight down, it's a full 1/3 lighter than the DVX200 and that makes all the difference.
 
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Mine arrives Monday. Unfortunately, my daughter punched the diving board on a reverse (gainer) 1-1/2 pike last night, so she is going to be out of commission for awhile (and anyway, the well is closed until January). We will be taping a Bach piece for her college arts submission, but that likely won't happen before Christmas. If her hand repairs itself, I'll get some shots of diving in January.

Until then, I'll want to get some practice in. Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to look at, though keep in mind my newness to this class of camcorder -- as much as I'd love to give an opinion comparing the camera to some other one, that's not something I'm going to be able to manage :)
 
Thanks tsioukas!
Is that just in the default settings, I love how well the first video is staying in focus for that constant motion.
 
Some more videos that i found. Every day they post more videos.


And one more that it confuse me (it says that they use Panasonic AG-UX180 & AG-MC200G) but the shots are mixed. I don't know about quality but the effect on the building (at the end of clip) it's just amazing :)

 
Some quick thoughts based on a very brief (10 min) interaction with the HC-X1.
1) "Wow" the reaction I thought I would have had when I bought my TM700 and didn't, because running around in my (pretty dark) house made for a very grainy intro to that camera. Not the case here. Unbelievable good -- I'm going to get a good recording of her Bach, as soon as her hand doesn't look like she was in the ring with Rocky. I won't need full sun, one 100W-ish light bulb worked fine (as long as I was at F2.8), so getting a decent light setup is going to be pretty simple.
2) "Give it back" -- the SDXC slots are a definite problem. If there's a reason to send the camera back, it's them -- the cards didn't click into place until I pushed them in, yanked them out, and pushed them in again. They still won't really pop out. Both slots are a hair on the small side (I put in a pair of 128GB sandisk extreme pros). They click in, but out is still a struggle. I would hate to be swapping cards....
3) "Hey, neat" -- when I (still not quite believing the light performance) took a peak at one of my overhead lights and the camera told me to use a 1/4 ND. [Also "ick", as I noticed the amount of spider webs in there ... there's an awful lot of zoom.]
4) "Bummer" -- finding out that the camera ramps *immediately*. Given how wide it was, I was hoping for a little something at the bottom, but yeah, no.
5) "Not as heavy as it looks" -- before I put the battery in (wife concurs, though she thinks I'm crazy anyway).
6) "Holy crap, that's heavy" -- after I put the battery in (I bought a much larger battery, which is what I put in). I'll definitely be using the tripod, thank you very much. But then, that's why I bought it.

I'm more of an audio guy than a video guy, and if I was only doing theater kinds of work, I'd likely have put money into a pair of Schoeps and a proper mic tree. That turns out not to be the case, though, and I find myself in need of more resolving power. What I can tell you is my more immediate response to the camera turning on was "what is that whine"? When you're staring into the camera (which is the only way I'm going to hold it when I'm supporting the camera) one's ear is right next to the fan -- the air noise isn't bad, but the intermittent whine was annoying. I'm hoping that that'll dissipate somewhat as the fan seats. Y'all shouldn't worry too much, my wife couldn't hear a thing, it's just where my sensitivities lie (hence the intro).

In low light, and in whatever auto mode it was in, the camera seemed a little heavy on the greens, but an in depth analysis of the video is NOT where my sensitivities lie, and I wasn't really paying attention. The AWB is far better than what I'm used to (which isn't saying much), and I'm going to have to take a bit of time to judge well. Batteries spent the night charging, I'll try to get some around-the-house shots this evening after work.
 
I have decided to go with the hc-X1 and it arrives today, I just wanted to know if I can load the updates and scene files for the ux180 into the X1. The pro updates tend to be faster and more frequent than domestic updates.
Hopefully I will be able to make comparisons between my px270 and dvx200 before I sell my px270.
 
The good news is that the SDXC slots are not at all a problem anymore. I have no idea what happened two days ago, but they were perfectly fine last night. *Weird*

The bad news is that while the camera is quite sensitive, there's a lot of high frequency noise (which is naturally invisible on the LCD, :sigh:). Cine-V is noticeably worst. I ventured in to try and change a few settings, but it's going to take me weeks to be comfortable with all of the knobs. Initial videos of my textured, off-white walls definitely swam, and the effect was not assisted by a computer that can't keep up with 4k video (post-processing was ALSO not assisted by this...). The fastest x264 encoding I could get was about 1/16th real-time. Also, found out the hard way that youtube doesn't deal with 4k60p, but the video that resulted had no noise, so I'm going to have to upload raw to google-drive and share shorter clips that way.

The high-pitched whining on the camera is not the fan, it's the auto-focus. Turn that off, and no more problems (I can also watch the focus hunt when distance is displayed, and it correlates well to what I hear). Tried the headphone jack -- astonishingly loud, but also irritatingly delayed. I would not be able to monitor a concert, and I would find it distracting to use in an interview setting. It's probably well-synced to the video, but there's a lot of processing going on there, and a couple of frames is a long time....

My apologies -- work kept me busy, and the pre-holiday rush is a little crazy, so these are really quite uninteresting, but if you want to see raw files.... I believe all of these are 0db, open iris, 4k60p.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedQkdXZTlGT2dTWjA
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedeDBJVERlcnJ1Qnc
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpeddmdHN1VWaW52NnM
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedTlcwRFB6VFdjTEU
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedd3NPMW1kaFVIbjQ
 
New to the forum. Lots of research led me to buy the UX180. Delivered yesterday and looking forward to testing it out over the holidays. I run a YouTube channel called 'Essential RC', basically anything radio controlled. Looking forward to seeing if the 20x zoom and OIS can help me smoothly track a radio controlled 200mph+ turbine powered jet. ;) Attending an event on the 30th and will share results soon after.

Dom
https://www.youtube.com/c/EssentialRC
https://www.facebook.com/groups/EssentialRC

p.s. Thanks to BarryG for the quite excellent DVX200 series on YouTube. Really helped my decision process.
 
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Barry_Green said:
I haven't tried to match an AC90 to a UX90. I will say that they have different sensors (obviously) and different inherent color tone, as is to be expected from different cameras with different lenses and different sensors. Neither the AC90 nor the UX90 have the adjustability of a DVX200 or UX180, so painting them to match exactly is not going to be nearly as easy as it would be with a DVX200 or UX180. However, it's possible that with some time and experimentation you may be able to get them acceptably close to each other; I just haven't tried.
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On balance, as I will need to edit together thongs like two camera interviews and that I found a new AC90 at about 40% below list (and less than 1/2 cost of a UX90) I grabbed the last (new) AC90 anyone had in stock. Life with two identical cameras is going to be easier than two with completely different sensors, different menus and options. You just know that you will need to change some settings on both cameras due to a surprise change 60 seconds before a start and it will be a lot easier if they are the same. Dito editing in a rush afterwards. Not having to jump though more processes for colour matching and scene setting will be better too.

Thanks for the advice though Barry.
 
I'd caution against leaping to conclusions, it's more probable that I'm doing something dumb (like staying indoors), but yeah, I was surprised to see all that when I popped the video into my NLE.

Here are a few more
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedNnpsRW9sU1B4a1U -- using FilmLike3 gamma curve. It's darker, yes, but cleaner as well.
and then a comparison between HD 100M and UHD 150M (I think I was in Cine-D for these). The closest room is lit with a 100W-ish bulb, the hallway has a pair of 850 lumen overheads, and the far room is unlit. I move the focus between the three which makes it a little easier to tell what's going on.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpeddXVoclNsQXdCTXM
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedVDVUY3U0eHl3TTA

There's a clear difference between FHD and UHD imo.
 
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dnavas said:
Tried the headphone jack -- astonishingly loud, but also irritatingly delayed. I would not be able to monitor a concert, and I would find it distracting to use in an interview setting. It's probably well-synced to the video, but there's a lot of processing going on there, and a couple of frames is a long time...
Click to expand...

There's a menu setting to address that. You can set the headphones to output a live signal (no echo), or a delayed signal that matches the video output. Panasonics have had this feature since the DVX100B back in about 2005, and it's one of the first things I do with any new Panasonic, is set the HP OUTPUT menu to LIVE.
 
quick grabs of outdoor shots before heading south, demonstrating how much work I have to do in the yard, and also why I'm not leaving home without a tripod :)
Camera was in all auto, though I had to muck about with ND filter settings, given the brightness outdoors.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedY3dWbnhWUDlBck0
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedRlJZNkV0QlVnN3c
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5uYsNiRVpedam1uV3pRU3l6bjg

The grass looked fine, the wheelbarrow in the third not so much. I'm wondering to what extent I'm now just looking for problems. ;/ That said, the results look very different from the UX90 vids, so I'd be extremely interested to see some UX180 UHD60p shots.
 
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