Panasonic Varicam 35 & Varicam HS

Talked to my rep/dealer about two weeks ago after they had it in for several days for demo's about three weeks ago. Didn't really learn anything about the HS, it went to the local NFL team(I believe) for a few days for demo, but my rep took the 35 around for a few days. They said they were impressed a lot more than they thought they would be. There is a lot that they like about it, like the multiple simultaneous recording capabilities and the build quality. I asked for them to rank it against what is out there right now and they said concerning the picture, they would place it with the Alexa. And I believe I understood correctly that the control panel is also a monitor. Two things that they said they didn't like was the top handle(too tall) and the factory shoulder mount(too high and rails aren't properly placed for a mattebox to line up with the lens). As I mentioned before, maybe in the other Vari thread, 4K 120fps won't be available until the upcoming firmware update. And I don't know if it will be tied only to the CODEX RAW recorder or not. I specifically asked about flash banding, etc. since it doesn't have global shutter and they said they didn't do any testing.

There have been many on here that have called it a rental only item and many like myself who have said not necessarily since many of us own the earlier versions(and other high-end cameras). Well, my rep said they would be more than happy to sale me one and get it in my hands ASAP, BUT right now Panasonic really isn't concerned with my market segment. They are currently, specifically, concentrating on getting it into the rental houses to get it into the market (on higher-end projects) that the rental houses serve. I think their logic being that once it's out there on high-end projects and accepted as a high-end system then that will really generate the buzz and interest around it and make it in-demand. I do see their logic in that argument, but my rep said, the owner/op market segment that serves high-end, network, broadcast, clients with cameras like this is bigger than the high-end rental market.
 
DLD said:
Dual ISO's, huh?

Verrrry interesteenk.
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That raises more questions than answers. I tend to feel "you never get anything for nothing" is always a good truism - and here the question to be asked is what you give up with the higher ISO......?

Basically, the dynamic range of a camera must be a function of the photosites and the sensor. The bottom end is fixed by the level at which a photosite starts to give any meaningful output. The top end by saturation. (Put more light on and you don't get an increase in output.) So for a given 14 stop input (max/min levels defined, 14 stops in between) there can ONLY be one setting of iris that will give the full 14 stops off the sensor. If you open iris up, you lose at the bright end through saturation. Close it down and you lose at the blacks end. It must therefore follow, that for full DR, any given sensor can only have a single ISO value.

I hear people start to say that it can't be so - what about gain, or being able to adjust ISO to work in lower lighting levels? But in that case Peter gets robbed to pay Paul. Typically it's meant gain has meant the trade off of increased noise levels for a higher ISO. But now (with far higher camera DRs being typical) it's possible to do it in slightly different ways, and if you want to keep the noise levels low, then I can see it being possible to trade off dynamic range for low light ability. And I suspect that's what's happening here.

Fair enough - but don't think it gives something for nothing. Interesting questions to ask would be whether it still has the "dual-ISO" feature in RAW mode, and directly find out whether the higher of the dual-ISO settings does indeed affect the DR.
Run&Gun said:
I specifically asked about flash banding, etc. since it doesn't have global shutter and they said they didn't do any testing.
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Call me a cynic, but I can only ask why on earth not!!!

If they are saying that "...once it's out there on high-end projects and accepted as a high-end system ..." it follows that it will be compared with other similarly priced high-end systems and will live or die by such comparisons. Even from the basic specs, it should be obvious that compared to it's competitors in the same price band a potential drawback will be that it has rolling shutter, most of it's competitors have global. In many other aspects there may be much of a muchness - but the rolling/global shutter is a big difference when you do get to the "high-end".

Consequentially, I'm amazed that they didn't even test this aspect. Or is it as simple as they didn't want to - because as salesmen for the camera they were worried about what they might find? :)
 
harddrive said:
That raises more questions than answers. I tend to feel "you never get anything for nothing" is always a good truism - and here the question to be asked is what you give up with the higher ISO......? ...
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I would speculate this is sort of/kind/of like Sony's S-Logs, combined with the ISO adjustment and some in-camera noise suppression.

Their selling point will probably be that this is done internally and fairly quickly, thus helping the work flow right on the set.

What's more curious is that this is brought up as a main selling feature for a high end camera. Outside of live golf coverage, most events that will have funds for this type of a camera should be able to set up suitable lighting (and golf can certainly use a global shutter! ... even on putts). One would think that a larger sensor a la Alexa II with more than 9 MPX would be the goal of a high end camera. At worst, a full frame with 18-24 MPX (depending on the sensor ratio) ought to be the next engineering target, combining the ~ 4.5K/6K resolution and an improved low light performance (visavis the s35 size sensors).

(In essence, the target is Alexa II itself for a substantially smaller investment ... hypothetically speaking, most brand name manufacturers already have current - and even older - FF sensors in the 18-24 MPX range .. the next step is for them to join the front end with the back end, as it were)
 
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James0b57 said:
It's amazing how much better this looks now that I know about 14+ stops DR, dual iso, 3 card slot, and a $55k price tag.
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+1

Now that the price has settled in Amira territory, the camera just got a lot more interesting I think. The dual-ISO function looks wonderful. Recording options look great (it'll have the option of ProRes for HD/2K stuff, and 12-bit 4:4:4 AVC Intra for 4K). Three internal NDs. And of course that lovely panasonic colour science.
 
Based on spending a little time with the camera at the Hot Rod Cameras Black Friday event, the viewfinder on this camera is fantastic.
Camera is very intuitive to use, well balanced, and feels good on the shoulder.

The LCD/user interface on the side of the camera is indeed a monitor as well. I also attended the DCS debut of the camera hosted at Panavision, the images looked pretty spectacular on the big screen. Looking forward to seeing it duke it out with the Amira. Time will tell.
 
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Red Shark News got a few quotes from the folks who shot that promo video and one of them said that the Varicam was the closest thing to Alexa. "The colors out of the box are fantastic" and so on.*

*They hammered other top 4K cameras - Red Dragon, F-55, C500 - a little.
 
DLD said:
Red Shark News got a few quotes from the folks who shot that promo video and one of them said that the Varicam was the closest thing to Alexa. "The colors out of the box are fantastic" and so on.*

*They hammered other top 4K cameras - Red Dragon, F-55, C500 - a little.
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This is the camera I would buy if I had the client base to support it. Alas...
 
I'll have a demo unit from 5 - 12 January and have a number of things I'll be shooting with it. Again, if anyone wants any specific info, please ask.

Well have the Canon CN-E 30-105 and Cooke S4s.

Shooting will include:

- Big daylight / beauty shots.
- Night City
- Narrative

Time allowing I also intend to do something more studio based - we'll see how that one pans out however.
 
Noel, Panasonic is claiming a "Full 4K" image from a 4K sensor. Can you shoot a resolution chart and see what you get?

IIRC, GH-4 was testing out to ~ 1,500 lines instead of the 2160 due to the Debayering process.
 
DLD said:
Noel, Panasonic is claiming a "Full 4K" image from a 4K sensor. Can you shoot a resolution chart and see what you get?

IIRC, GH-4 was testing out to ~ 1,500 lines instead of the 2160 due to the Debayering process.
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It won't be - can't be - "full 4k" as the sensor is 4096x2180 Bayer. The best you'll get out of such is about 1700 lpph for luminance after debayering. (And more like 1000 lpph for chrominance res.) Nothing wrong with that - it's only what any such sensor will give and is "standard 4k" at the moment - exactly the same as the Sony F5. But it would be misleading to call it "full 4K" - you need something like 2-3x as many photosites to truly get that, hence the spec of the F65.

I'd prefer to see something to challenge the rolling shutter nature of the camera - it must exhibit such, but let's see to just what extent.
 
harddrive said:
I'd prefer to see something to challenge the rolling shutter nature of the camera - it must exhibit such, but let's see to just what extent.
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Yes. I'm not really worried too much about skew or jello. Most CMOS cameras above a cell phone or GoPro manage that pretty well(I've never noticed either on my C300). I want to see how it handles flash banding.
 
harddrive said:
It won't be - can't be - "full 4k" as the sensor is 4096x2180 Bayer. The best you'll get out of such is about 1700 lpph for luminance after debayering. (And more like 1000 lpph for chrominance res.) Nothing wrong with that - it's only what any such sensor will give and is "standard 4k" at the moment - exactly the same as the Sony F5. But it would be misleading to call it "full 4K" - you need something like 2-3x as many photosites to truly get that, hence the spec of the F65.
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Yeah basically everybody is just lying. The whole 4K thing is just for marketing. Besides F65 and maybe RED everybody is just pretending they don't know their cameras are not even UHD.
 
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