Panasonic announces UX180 and UX90 pricing & availability

Video I took of the Faneuil Hall Marketplace tree lighting event in Boston Massachusetts.
It was edited in Premiere Pro CC 2017 and exported to 70Mbps before uploading to YouTube.

It's just a bunch of random shots. Later in the video I decided to walk through the gate to get to the front. It was starting to get crowded and I wanted to get closer shots rather than be too far. The only major editing I did was take away the audio from one clip for copyright reasons. I decided to leave every single clip in regardless if they look bad or not. I like posting videos on YouTube but I also have other things to do with my time so I can't spend a lot of time editing every video.

It was in auto focus the whole time so you could say this was a test on the auto focusing.

Anyway, I found it a little bit ironic that in the projector, you can see some gain in the footage of the professional cameras that the TV crew was using unlike the UX90 that didn't need any gain at all. The UX90 was set to a shutter of 60 so I wonder if they might have had the shutter way too high.

 
Last edited:
The IR mode is pretty cool, although it does require 100% automatic exposure (auto iris, auto gain, auto shutter). But it totally sees in the dark. The UX180's IR mode is also a little advanced over the DVX200, in that you can select whether the color tint will be white or greenish. On the DVX200 it's always greenish.

There are many things the UX180 has that the UX90 doesn't. The 90 is one territory only (60Hz), and only has 50mbps recording modes for FHD, it doesn't have the 16-pole color corrector or the 120fps super-slow-mo, it doesn't do dual-codec recording, really you really do get your money's worth when you spend for the UX180. On the other hand, the UX90 is very little money and for the money it costs, it is quite a lot of camera, especially in that it offers a very wide and very long zoom and incredible battery life.
 
I am looking forward to the UX180 release and resulting footage.

For me the real issue is whether a 1" sensor can satisfy my needs in the same way a aps-c sized sensor can.

Clearly, I recognize that simply on low light, the aps-c would win.

But my needs are more than low light capabilities.

Be well.

Rob
Smalltalk.Productions
 
For me its a shame the UX180 does not have the same focal length as the HC-X1000,they are both 20x zoom but the UX180 loses 100mm in length i believe,i find the HC-X1000s wide plenty enough but losing 100mm for my wildlife would be big,the extra low light ability of a camera like the 180 is what i want.
 
flinty said:
For me its a shame the UX180 does not have the same focal length as the HC-X1000,they are both 20x zoom but the UX180 loses 100mm in length i believe,i find the HC-X1000s wide plenty enough but losing 100mm for my wildlife would be big,the extra low light ability of a camera like the 180 is what i want.
Click to expand...

Everyone has their own needs and for me the extra wide angle is more useful indoors.
 
Another question for Barry. Does focus assist work when the UX180 is recording so that one can get a visual check of focus.
 
It works the same as the DVX200. There are two components to the focus assist, the magnified focus and the focus-in-red peaking. When paused, both work. When recording, the magnification doesn't work, but the focus-in-red does.
 
That's a pity as I use magnify focus assist on my NX5U a lot to check as it is recording. I have peaking on all the time but it is nice to really check an enlarged image.
 
Ron Evans said:
That's a pity as I use magnify focus assist on my NX5U a lot to check as it is recording. I have peaking on all the time but it is nice to really check an enlarged image.
Click to expand...

Yes, particularly with the lower resolution LCD on the UX180. Also, histograms aren't available in UHD 60p, iirc (btw, thanks Barry Green for the DVX200 Guide -- finally finished it a couple of days ago). The waveform takes over the whole LCD, and can't be displayed on the viewfinder.... There are going to be a few annoyances for sure. The Guide encourages the use of an external monitor, which I know you've talked about. That would fix a number of the shortcomings.
 
Yes I have a 7" MUSTHD as well as 5" BM Video Assist. The more I think about these newer cameras like the HC-X1/UX180 or the GH5 an external recording monitor becomes important for a number of reasons. With the built in monitor almost becoming an interface device for buttons, touch focus , timecode counters etc. Cameras with about 3" monitors I find too small for monitoring HD let alone UHD or 4K so the external monitor ( and may as well be recorder ) become important. The internal recorder becomes more of a backup to the external recorder !!! The combination of a GH5 with ATOMOS Inferno or CD 7Q etc make a more complete package with of course much better performance. The HC-X1, I think will be good replacement for my NX5U and FDR-AX1.
 
It would be nice if the LCD was good enough to focus without having to use an external monitor. A couple of my Sonys are almost good enough, but my HMC150s have wretched LCD screens for focussing.
I would expect to use an external monitor/recorder some of the time with the UX180 for some jobs, but for run and gun, the more lean you can run, the better. If the LCD isn't good then I expect focussing 4k especially could be very difficult.
 
In this video from Cinema5D, they said that UX90 & UX180 have same sensor size but the sensors are different. UX180 produce less noise. So we can't compare directly the image quality between UX90 & UX180

 
I think this has been known from the first set of information. http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/ux/index.html The UX90 has a 17.78 Mpixel sensor and the UX180/HC-X1 8.79 Mpixel sensor. The UX90 likely has a 1" sensor from a still camera likely why it is also only 30P UHD similar to a lot of 1" still camera sensors and the UX180/HC-X1 for a more video centric application with less than half the sensor sites to scan allows 60P UHD. Means bigger sensor sites for better low light as Barry has mentioned already. So yes there should be a noticeable difference in performance between the UX90 and the UX180/HC-X1. The UX90 crops into the sensor for UHD but I expect for marketing reasons the UX90 is restricted to 30P UHD. We will have to see what the HD performance is as that will depend on how the interpolation works on the UX90.

That video also mentions that the internal processing is 8 bit 4:2:2 as is the external outputs too. Though for UHD the specs clearly say that then the output is 8bit 4:2:0 HD. No mention of output in standby for UHD .
 
firehawk said:
It would be nice if the LCD was good enough to focus without having to use an external monitor. A couple of my Sonys are almost good enough, but my HMC150s have wretched LCD screens for focussing.
I would expect to use an external monitor/recorder some of the time with the UX180 for some jobs, but for run and gun, the more lean you can run, the better. If the LCD isn't good then I expect focussing 4k especially could be very difficult.
Click to expand...

Focusing is difficult in 4K and with my Sony FDR-AX1 I have found that autofocus is by far the better way to go most of the time. So for me the area touch focus with size adjustment is one of the main features for me of these new cameras. If you really want to focus manually you will need a much larger external monitor with1:1 pixel setup. I think you may find touch auto focus a lot easier. That way it will be in focus and stay there and not hunt as if it is in full time autofocus.
 
Last edited:
With the HC-X1000 i have no problems at all when it comes to the camera being locked on a fast moving target in full AF, in 4K 50p (there is no way you could video for 5 hours+ what I do without doing it in AF), the 90 and 180 should be better than that! But I also always have it on a SS over 100 so i can get perfect freeze frames.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top