EVA1: Panasonic AU-EVA1! Announcement and latest updates

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morgan_moore said:
The upper mids fall in a hole on occasion - Mainly a hole dug by lack of zooms costed in line with the camera. Zooms having a métier on midrange commercial production. Hollywood and students have time to tinker with primes :)

Sony have addressed this and panny would need to too.
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Hence the prevalence of low-midrange 1" format cameras with fixed servo zooms. It is much cheaper to build in a good quality matched compensated low cost zoom than to build an interchangeable mount zoom with comparable performance. Sony's new e-mount zooms are an effective intermediate cost approach for their larger format cameras. Apparently this is possible only due to the shallow back focus depth of e-mount.
 
Razz16mm said:
Hence the prevalence of low-midrange 1" format cameras with fixed servo zooms. It is much cheaper to build in a good quality matched compensated low cost zoom than to build an interchangeable mount zoom with comparable performance. Sony's new e-mount zooms are an effective intermediate cost approach for their larger format cameras. Apparently this is possible only due to the shallow back focus depth of e-mount.
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I see a lot of whining and frustration over on the Sony FS5/FS7 forum though about the cost and perceived lack of build quality and slow speed of Sonys servo zooms for those cameras. Nice that Fujinon and others are beginning to come out with some really nice lenses for Sony E-Mount. I have just read Adam Wilt's very nice review on the Varicam LT, that seems like a great camera for the money but it does have some major flaws. But then again, all cameras do. I have high hopes and hope that this new camera will be a nice piece of gear that gets Panasonic back into the meat and potato under $10k, 4K segment of the market. Even if we don't end up buying the new Panasonic camera, if it is good, it exerts more pressure on Sony and Canon to do better, build these cameras with more of the features the market is demanding.
 
morgan_moore said:
Filmguy. (lack of boster) Completely - especially in the 7-10$g body zone where pl zoom are probably out of budget... Leaving stills glass or Emount fuji zooms!

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I've thought about my upgrade path and what the cameras offered - major step ups that made my life/production better..

5d2-fs100 gave me xlr
Fs100-pmwf3 gave me Nd and 10bit out
F3-fs7 gave me onboard 10bit speedbooster and hfr.

Each upgrade was significant. Mainly in improving work flow or meaning I could carry less mass!

What can tempt me to upgrade?
12 bit ?
500p ?
Or losing 2kg?
Adult Autofocus?
Amazing Wifi (try a dji)?
(Tcode jam)

5% nicer image and lost speedbooster? Inability to buy fuji XK.. Not so much!
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Panasonic might not be trying to convert FS7 owners, but rather target today's equivalent of you when you had an F3.
 
morgan_moore said:
Zooms having a métier on midrange commercial production. Hollywood and students have time to tinker with primes :)
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Lol. That's a good way to put it. I have a case of beautiful Canon primes, but they mostly come out on interviews. Almost anything else now, it's my 17-120. I get that initially the manufacturers weren't intending for these s35 and large sensor cams to be used for ENG/non-narrative/non-production type shoots, but the world we live in demands that we do that, now, and we need the cameras and glass that allow us to do it.

I don't believe I'm in the market for what is coming and I'm not trying to imply this about it, but I think there are a lot of people like me who need/want that "ONE" camera, that is perfectly at home shooting a feature with primes one day and sitting on their shoulder with an ENG zoom getting post-game sound in the locker room the next. That was one of the things I loved about my VariCams, before the large sensor Cine cams came out. I could be shooting feature stuff and a few minutes later "newsy"/broadcast stuff and all it took was a few button presses in the menu. The camera was/is a chameleon of sorts. It was at home almost anywhere.
 
One thing Panasonic has going for them is that Sony crippled video features of their last two cameras (A99II and A9), which leaves space in that $6,000-$8,000 range.

On the other hand, URSA Mini Pro seems to flying off the shelves with top reviews.

PS. One could technically make the hybrid ENG/Cinema camera - sort of a DVX 200 with a higher quality zoom - but the market for it is likely to be very small.
 
Ursa mini's look good, and they have the skin tone/cyan split bias that later BMCC seem to have. I have never shot with any of the newer BMC cameras, but I will say that their latitude seems to suffer compared to Red MX and better cameras. So, when shooting in natural light, or high contrast scenes, I would test out the BMC against other options.

Looking forward to seeing what that Varicam Mini ends up being. I haven't liked the out of box image on the Varicams too much, but I can say the same for Red MX and Sony, as well. I just haven't seen any footage from a Varicam 35 that has remedied the inherent look though. A few netflix shows: "Love", "Master of None", and "13 Reasons" are all shot on V35. So, it definitely keeps up with the best cameras out there, it is just my personal dislike of the look of the default colors. But I could see it as grading nicely. And then you add to it that you can shoot at 5000 iso, and that makes a strong case for the V35. And then you come out with a Varicam Mini.... even better.
 
OTOH, a good reporter/journalist strives not to depend on sources that insist on anonymity because readers and viewers (and some journalists) can't then evaluate the bias and agenda of the source.

The sort of water-cooler chat and speculation here and elsewhere is fine and even useful. We get to share our different perspectives on what features we (think we) really need or want, which we don't care about. And sometimes, we (or at least I) come across opinions and arguments that change my thinking.

But it's not like we're making purchase decisions on non-existant cameras based on our jawing...
 
Adam Wilt, whose opinion I highly respect, the guy REALLY knows his stuff, wrote what is probably the best review of the Varicam LT I have seen. https://www.provideocoalition.com/review-panasonic-varicam-lt-4k-super35mm-cine-camera/ In his opinion, the Varicam LT is very similar to the Arri Alexa as far as color science, which as we all know, is the gold standard. If this sort of feature set can be downscaled to this new camera, I am definitely interested. Although I have zero interest in going back into P2 as I owned twenty P2 cards for years and sold them all. I much prefer SSD or SDXC cards, even CFast. If the new camera shoots only compressed 4K but outputs uncompressed 10 bit 4k, even if it's only via HDMI, that would be cool, because the Atomos and CD recorders are pretty good, I love my Blade. I don't like the weight of the LT, it's hefty with a brick but if it balances well, in a way, the heavier weight doesn't matter as much.
 
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Panasonic is in a decent position because they don't really need to protect a camera in the $10K range, so they don't have to gimp it as much as the C100/FS5 are, to protect their slightly more expensive professional equivalents. Imagine this new Varicam has the same sensor, but without the Dual ISO, but better options than either of those two. It might make a killing, so long as it's not too stuck at 800 ISO.
 
Dual ISO at this price range would be killer, and offset the benefit of having a speedbooster on S35 via e-mount, as it would give the extra light gathering and only lose out on the extra FOV, which isn't really neccessary on an S35.
 
Osslund said:
I guess it's only expected to get a lot of speculation and rumours when something is previewed without specs. It comes with the territory and it's fun to try to guess and puzzle until the truth is revealed. Now there are a lot of information to be pulled from various sources and that draws me to certain conclusions. If it's spot on or not who knows? But it's fun to narrow it down and when it's revealed one can check how many things that actually was true.

I'm sorry if Mitch perceives it like I'm a Panasonic source. I'm not. I'm just like the rest of us.
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As I said before, I like the speculation. It's a healthy, entertaining and frankly informative discussion process. I simply ask that you and everyone else word your posts to note they are conjecture based on your own personal observations and opinions. It's not about me being confused, it's about some unsuspecting person out there getting curious about the camera, finding this forum and happening upon your posts. They way they are written they read like definitive statements rather than an educated guess. That can be misleading, and I don't think it's right. And I wouldn't want to see that happen to any other companies' products as well.
 
puredrifting said:
As usual, in order to succeed with DVXUsers, this camera must be all things to all users or it will be an abject failure. I'm sure Mitch and Co. whiteboarded the heck out of this new camera before committing to any specs and design goals. They see a niche or need in the market and will spec this camera out and build it accordingly. If the market agrees with their study, the camera will be a big seller and a major success. If they are living in a bubble or are held back by economics or marketing issues, like Canon always seems to be, the camera may not hit the mark. With it's tremendous resources, Canon is 100% capable of utterly dominating any class of professional camera but they don't for various marketing and marketing segmentation rules within their organization. They typically over price and under spec their cameras, but they have beautiful color science, tens of millions of EF lenses out in the world, DPAF and workhorse reliability that most other brands lack. So they still succeed ultimately, even though some of their marketing decisions infuriate us.

Panasonic seems to have temporarily lost their position as a market leader in pro video. They still make great cameras but I personally feel they missed the boat on large sensor professional cameras. Think about the HVX200 (which was a huge success), HPX170, HPX300, HPX370 string of cameras, all with tiny 1/3" sensors . At the time these cameras were hitting the market, Sony was already pushing larger 1/2" sensors with the EX-1, EX-3, etc. Panasonic did well with the GH4 and will do well with the GH5 but that is a consumer camera, not really a pro level camera although many pros utilize them. But at under $2k at a time, that camera is not making huge fortunes for Panasonic, I doubt the margins are as high since the camera is so spec heavy. The DVX-200 is a cool camera but fixed lens fails to ignite most of our passion, although it does well with the wedding and event crowd. I really hope this new camera has a newly designed sensor or utilizes the Varicam LT sensor. If it is S35, it will look good and will have the FOV and DOF we want but if the color science is the same as the DVX200 and GH5, a lot of us will lose interest. Really, really hope it has the Varicam LT color science instead. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Mitch and Co. have up their sleeve. They know what they need to succeed in the market, it just remains to be seen if they hit the mark.
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Just to note, I'm pretty excited by this camera but I only joined Panasonic in March and the camera was well underway and in fact pretty much locked down by the time I learned of it. Don't want to take credit where it isn't due me, but that said I do think people will like the product.
 
Razz16mm said:
Hence the prevalence of low-midrange 1" format cameras with fixed servo zooms. It is much cheaper to build in a good quality matched compensated low cost zoom than to build an interchangeable mount zoom with comparable performance. Sony's new e-mount zooms are an effective intermediate cost approach for their larger format cameras. Apparently this is possible only due to the shallow back focus depth of e-mount.
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The trouble is that 1' zoom cameras dont cut it because the de-facto expectation on most productions is to make at least the interviews look 'cinematic' - aka have narrow DOF.

With MFT and a voigt 25/95 you have your interview lens, mixed with a sony style compensatiing zoom one camera can offer a reasonable mix of 'ENG-ness' and 'Art Broll'

That is I think the market sweet spot in the cheaper than VAri LT/5/55 world.

A DVX 200 with a removable lens would be very interesting to me.

S
 
After spending quite sometime going through 44 pages and finding out absolutely nothing ;P about this teaser camera, all I can say is it's great to finally have a Panasonic rep back and communicating with us. Just like the DVX/HVX/HPX days with Jan Crittenden. Thank you Mitch and look forward to seeing/hearing whats wrapped under the sheet at CineGear Expo.
 
Wow! That's a name I haven't thought of in a while. I remember Jan back when I was shooting HPX500. Jan was great. Mitch is always great. He's active on here and in more than just discussions regarding "his products". The access we have to all kinds of talented and knowledgeable people is really staggering if you stop and think about it.
 
If the camera has the same sensor as the LT or a sensor that can offer dual ISO and improved DR and Low Light performance then IMO it will outsell both the FS5 and Ursa Mini.
However I think it really needs a killer feature like Dual ISO to land a knockout blow.
I may be wrong but wouldn't some form of IS also be a first for an interchangeable S35 cinema camera ? (not a stills camera)

My wishlist

Same Varicam S35 sensor,
Dual ISO
EF mount,
Some form of IS
Internal 10bit 4K 4:2:2, (will prob have less frame rates and options than the Varicam, but I'm Ok with that )
Dual SDXC Slots,
Dual XLR's,
Direct Audio Controls like the DVX200
Built in ND's (electronic variable would be great, but prob won't happen)
Viewfinder
LCD,(high resolution 4-5")
Handgrip,
V-LOG,
HDMI,
SDI,
Timecode,
Genlock,
Bluetooth,
Wireless,
Raw Output,

price $6,000 - $6,500 (And its game over for the FS5)
 
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