Panasonic announces UX180 and UX90 pricing & availability

firehawk said:
Wow! Dont the UX180 and HC-X1 use the same batteries as the UX90, and therefore can use the old batteries?
Sure would be nice not to have to buy yet another type (and more expensive) of Panasonic battery when I have several of the old kinds still.
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Verified - I put an original Panasonic DVX-style battery in a UX90 and also in a UX180, it fit and powered the camera. It will not fit in the DVX200, but it does fit in the UX90 and UX180. Don't know about the HC-X1.

I don't know if using the old batteries is acknowledged or recommended by Panasonic; I'll try to find out. But it did work.
 
tsioukas said:
Very interesting, as I expected it have some noise, but I think that it's more than I expected :). Of course it was on low light conditions, and something is better from nothing, maybe on normal lighting it has less noise.

Thank you, it was very helpful for me.
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Noise depends on settings, and on light. In extreme low light conditions there can be significant noise, yes. The UX90 has a LOW LIGHT mode that puts it in 36dB of gain and slows the shutter to 1/30. It definitely delivers a bright image in low light, but as you can imagine, 36dB of gain creates a lot of noise. In low gain conditions the noise is much lower. You can also affect the noise with the NOISE REDUCTION menu option, that lets you adjust how much noise reduction is applied.

The AC90 was really not good in low light, I think it's an ideal camera for outdoors use but not great for indoor stuff. The UX90 is much better than the AC90 was in terms of sensitivity. However, the UX180 is quite a bit better still; the UX180 is about 450 ISO so it's a good f-stop faster/more sensitive than the UX90.
 
Camera Expert said:
You'll also be able to see how much 4K crops.
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The crop when going to UHD is equivalent to going from a 25mm lens to a 35mm lens. In terms of sensor size, it is as if in FHD the camera has a 1" sensor, and in UHD it has a 2/3" sensor.

For those interested, the UX180 has no crop in any recording mode, whether FHD or UHD, 24/25/30/50/60, or even in 120fps mode, it always retains the same field of view. It does, however, get wider when shooting Cinema 4K/24.00p.
 
Camera Expert said:
Here's some native 4K30p videos going from 0 to 30 db.
https://we.tl/qE30LQRsI3
Shutter set to 60.
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What is lighting that scene?

This is about what I expected -- 12db of clean-ish gain, maybe 18db on UX180. My assumption is that you've got ~1000 lumens of overhead fluorescent at about 2m (~40lux?). If it's a lot more than that, it's going to make indoor @home-shooting challenging.
 
dnavas said:
What is lighting that scene?

This is about what I expected -- 12db of clean-ish gain, maybe 18db on UX180. My assumption is that you've got ~1000 lumens of overhead fluorescent at about 2m (~40lux?). If it's a lot more than that, it's going to make indoor @home-shooting challenging.
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I shot that in the middle of the night and the room only had 1 lightbulb.
 
Barry_Green said:
I don't know if using the old batteries is acknowledged or recommended by Panasonic; I'll try to find out. But it did work.
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That's what I was trying to know as well since I can see that it works, just not sure if it's recommended. Not a good idea to make the battery fit if it isn't recommended. Panasonic would need to warn people not to use those batteries if it's not really recommended.
 
2 sets of native clips in this. Both from the UX90. 1080p24 and 2160p24. Shutter set to 60. No lights turned on in the room and the window shades closed so that +30 db doesn't get too overexposed.
https://we.tl/d3TkWxbN6u

This will allow people to compare the noise between the clips and also see how much of a crop 4K is on this camera. Like what's been mentioned by other people, the UX180 doesn't have that kind of crop in 4K and so the low light capabilities of the UX180 will be better than the UX90's when shooting in 4K.
 
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Barry_Green said:
Verified - I put an original Panasonic DVX-style battery in a UX90 and also in a UX180, it fit and powered the camera. It will not fit in the DVX200, but it does fit in the UX90 and UX180. Don't know about the HC-X1.

I don't know if using the old batteries is acknowledged or recommended by Panasonic; I'll try to find out. But it did work.
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The DVX200 and HC-X1000 work with the same battery, I would have thought the HC-X1 would go with them. :undecided
 
Phil vG said:
The DVX200 and HC-X1000 work with the same battery, I would have thought the HC-X1 would go with them. :undecided
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According to the brochure, the HC-X1 does use the same battery as the UX180/UX90 and DVX200 and HC-X1000.

It looks to me like the HC-X1 uses the body of the UX90 and the internals of the UX180. So I am going to guess that it will be able to accomodate the CGA-D54 batteries too, just like the UX90 can. However, that's a guess at this point, we'll need to actually try it on an HC-X1 to know for sure.
 
I think the HC-X1 is the UX180 with just the SDI and timecode electronics and connectors different. Looking at the specs the features are identical other than SDI and timecode interfaces.
 
Ron Evans said:
I think the HC-X1 is the UX180 with just the SDI and timecode electronics and connectors different. Looking at the specs the features are identical other than SDI and timecode interfaces.
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The internals appear to be the same, yes. Don't know if all the menu functions and features will be the same. As for the externals, it appears to be living in a UX90 body (the UX90 doesn't have SDI or timecode either, and it has the three RCA jacks for composite video/audio, same as the HC-X1 has). Difference there is the lens though; UX90 is 15x, HC-X1 is 20x.

According to the specs it seems reasonable to conclude that the HC-X1 is probably the same camera as the UX180, but with the aforementioned port differences. The UX90 is a different beast altogether (different sensor, lens, and processing power).

However, again, we don't know what menu options, features, and capabilities the UX180 and HC-X1 share, or in what ways they may potentially be different. The UX180 has lots of things in it that the UX90 doesn't have. We don't know where the HC-X1 fits in that picture and won't know until we can see at least the owner's manual and compare.
 
Yes I agree we will not know everything until the manuals are available but since they share the same features according to their marketing pdf's its likely they will be the same and I am sure not less than the UX90 whose manual is already available. I think that one can assume that the UX180 is the pro version of the HC-X1 and there isn't a comsumer version of the UX90 as there are a lot of consumer cameras with similar specs ( agreed not all ) other than the xlr's and menu adjustments for the pro. But zoom range, sensor size and recording options are all available on consumer cameras at a lot less cost than the UX90. So no need for a consumer version companion to the HC-X1. However the HC-X1 fits right in to the prosumer range that I for one am interested just like the FDR-AX1 or HC-X1000. If anything I think that Panasonic should have charged more for the UX180 and put 12G SDI on it which would have made it really useful and a real competitive product in the marketplace. Maybe there is a product like that in the works!!
 
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What's the go with -

Panasonic AG-UX180 - 1.0" Type CMOS Sensor

Panasonic AG-UX90 - 1.0" Type CMOS Sensor

Panasonic HC-X1 - 1"-Type MOS Sensor

Why not just use the same one for all of them?
 
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Not all 1`sensors are the same, perform the same or cost the same. The UX90 has a 20Mpixel sensor likely from a still camera that would be part of a much bigger volume production and cost a lot less than a more specialized around 9Mpixel sensor in the UX180 and HC-X1 that is more sensitive for just video. Lower volume production and so costs more. But with much better low light, faster read for 60P UHD performance and likely noise level too. We will have to wait and see how they all perform.
 
You'll have to wait to see how they all perform, but you don't have to wait to hear that your suppositions are correct. I've used prerelease versions of both, and the UX180 has better sensitivity, it handles UHD 60p (including with no additional crop), and it delivers substantially less noise for any given light level. It also draws a lot more power (19.7 watts vs. 12.2 watts).

I would presume that the HC-X1 will perform identically, but haven't seen one so cannot be absolutely certain (but am pretty darn sure).

The UX90 is a different camera inside. It does well for its price, certainly, but you definitely get more power and performance if you pay the difference for the UX180 (or, presumably, HC-X1).
 
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Phil vG said:
What's the go with -

Panasonic AG-UX180 - 1.0" Type CMOS Sensor

Panasonic AG-UX90 - 1.0" Type CMOS Sensor

Panasonic HC-X1 - 1"-Type MOS Sensor

Why not just use the same one for all of them?
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Because then they'd all cost the same.

The UX90 is not the same camera as the UX180/HC-X1. They have the same size of sensor, yes, but it's not the same sensor at all. The UX180/HC-X1 sensor appears to be directly designed for video use, and it has beefier processing hardware in it to deliver higher frame rates in UHD, higher frame rates in VFR, etc.

Look at it like this: you could buy a Ford Mustang with a 2.3L 4-cylinder engine, or you could buy a Mustang GT with a firebreathing 5.0L V-8. They look the same on the outside, but under the hood and on the street there's a big difference between them. The 2.3L Mustang will cost less, be slower, and get better gas mileage. Same thing with the UX90 - it costs less, it's slower, and it gets much better battery life. If that's all you need, then it's a good choice. But if your tastes run to the Mustang GT side of things, you pay more and you get more power and worse gas mileage. Same with the UX180 (and HC-X1) - it delivers more sensitivity, faster frame rates, super-slow motion, lots more features, but it costs more and it uses up batteries faster.
 
Barry_Green said:
The UX90 is not the same camera as the UX180/HC-X1.
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Yer, that's fair enough, but its the HC-X1 that is MOS, not CMOS.

I just looked it up again and according to some of the things I've read the MOS sensor is better in low light. It will be great to finally see video from all 3 cameras side by side.
 
Was at a lion dance competition event on November 19. This particular team wasn't competing. It was an extra show for the spectators. The actual teams were a little older. I'll do a highlight video that shows a little of each team. I also have to upload footage I shot of a Tree Lighting event in Boston.

Anyway, this was fully automatic. Don't know exactly what gain setting the camera used automatically but it could have been around 10 to 13. If I was shooting at 1080p, I'm sure the camera would have chosen a lower gain setting since 1080p gives you better low light capabilities since it doesn't have the crop you see in 4K.

Shutter stayed at 60.
 
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