Panasonic's new AG-CX350 camcorder

TheDingo said:
At about 3:20 in this video you can clearly see "SD V90" below the card slots of the camera, which makes me wonder if Panasonic wants people to use V90 cards with this camera.
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The owner's manual calls for V60. V90 meets and exceeds the V60 standard, so there's no reason not to use V90 cards. I don't believe I've seen anything where Panasonic is recommending or requiring V90 cards. But, if I'm not mistaken, Panasonic doesn't make a V60 card, I think they make V30 and V90, so if they supplied a camera for review and they included cards, they would have included V90 cards. Or the reviewer just chose V90 cards.
 
I have some Sandisk U3 95MBps cards I use with my GH5, will these work for long GOP recording in HD and/or 4K with the CX-350? (For only up to the 200Mbps bitrates). They are from before the V10, V30 standard. Thanks.
 
Bassman2003 said:
I have some Sandisk U3 95MBps cards I use with my GH5, will these work for long GOP recording in HD and/or 4K with the CX-350? (For only up to the 200Mbps bitrates). They are from before the V10, V30 standard. Thanks.
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I would not trust a card that does not have a minimum V30 rating. If it is from before that rating existed then it is not trustable to surpass the rating.
 
Bassman2003 said:
I have some Sandisk U3 95MBps cards I use with my GH5, will these work for long GOP recording in HD and/or 4K with the CX-350? (For only up to the 200Mbps bitrates). They are from before the V10, V30 standard. Thanks.
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I would definitely test them if you have them.

The ratings were created for a purpose and the regulation does provide consumers a system of assurance, but IMO it's also partly a gimmick to make more money (if you're into seeing the bigger picture of life). There are/were lots of capable cards out there that one day suddenly didn't meet paper standards because a label was slapped on them 'overnight'.

So you know what may happen? These same cards may get retested, rebranded and repackaged. (And this of course doesn't mean that EVERY card will pass.)

Not trying to be "that guy" but unless they put some sort of technology inside the V30 or V60 cards in which cameras can "scan the chips" or know what's inside them and therefore filter your media (not even record), you'll find the recommended exclusiveness flexible.

You have good cards and I'd at least try them (but not on someone else's time).
 
Thanks. I know the official line. Just thought I would check if anybody had tried them yet. I record 150Mbps on the GH5 with them so hopefully 200Mbps is not asking too much.
 
Bassman2003 said:
I have some Sandisk U3 95MBps cards I use with my GH5, will these work for long GOP recording in HD and/or 4K with the CX-350? (For only up to the 200Mbps bitrates). They are from before the V10, V30 standard. Thanks.
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Yes, U3 cards should work fine for Long GOP recording. U3 means 30 MB/s (240 Mbps) guaranteed minimum write speed and is equivalent to V30 in minimum write speed. Since the maximum Long GOP recording mode is 200 Mbps this should fit within the guaranteed write speed of the U3 or V30 cards.

The SD Card association has gone through 3 different iterations of speed designations. There were the original speed class numbers (Class 4, Class 6, Class 10, etc.), then there were the UHS speed class designations (U1, U3), then the video speed class designations (V30, V60, V90). All of these designations were used to indicate the same information, the minimum sequential write speed of the card. So U3 and V30 tell you the same thing about the card (that it is capable of writing at 30 MB/s continuously), just with different nomenclature. All the V30 designation means is that the card was released after the video speed class numbering was introduced (otherwise it's the same speed as a U3 card).

You can read more about the various speed class designations on the SD Card Association website:
https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/

You can also read from this helpful section of the manual that indicates which SD card speed class designations are suitable for which recording modes:
https://pro-av.panasonic.net/manual/html/AG-CX350P.PJ.EN.ED.AN.PX(DVQP1830ZA)_E/chapter03_06_01.htm
 
One usability thing I miss from the DVX200 and UX180 is the ability to manually adjust the gain (in 1 dB increments) with the little thumbwheel. With the CX350, it seems like the only way to manually set the gain is to go into the menu, change one of the gain settings for the High/Med/Low gain switch, then flip the gain switch to that setting. It looks like there's no way to assign manual gain adjustment to one of the user buttons either (you can assign Super Gain to a button, but that can only be used for a fixed 24 dB or higher gain). This makes it a pain to do say 1/2 stop or 1/3 stop gain adjustments.

With the DVX200 and UX series it was possible to fine tune the gain using the thumbwheel (without going into the menu). With those cameras, you could also assign one of the H/M/L gain switches to be Auto-Gain Control (AGC) making it easy to enable AGC without leaving manual mode. With the CX350, it seems like you have to flip the Auto mode switch to enable AGC (which could make a bunch of other stuff auto, depending on how auto mode is configured).

Not sure if there's any good reason for these changes (I mean you could always not use these options if they were included). But perhaps I was the only one that was using these features?
 
Good points Dave. I just got a camera yesterday and noticed the gain adjustments are a bit limited to the three pole switch (which is really a two pole as you would always have a 0db setting). I have settles upon 0bd, 8db and 15db for the switch. Would be nice to be able to dial it in though.
 
out of the handful of reviews and footage of the CX 350 on the web...nobody has really addressed how the AF is. in fact there is virtually NO example of the LCD screen being touched to assign AF to a subject and / or a moving subject.

how is "touch AF"? "tracking AF"? "face detection AF"? is it anywhere close to the Canon XF DPAF I'm thinking is the gold standard for camcorder AF? i don't know for fact the answer but have seen some amazing youtube demos of it working in action.

would really appreciate some info on this.

thanks
david
 
david_p said:
out of the handful of reviews and footage of the CX 350 on the web...nobody has really addressed how the AF is. in fact there is virtually NO example of the LCD screen being touched to assign AF to a subject and / or a moving subject.

how is "touch AF"? "tracking AF"? "face detection AF"? is it anywhere close to the Canon XF DPAF I'm thinking is the gold standard for camcorder AF? i don't know for fact the answer but have seen some amazing youtube demos of it working in action.
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There is no face detection feature, or even explicit subject tracking. You can touch the screen to focus on a desired area, but otherwise the autofocus features are fairly limited compared to something like Canon's dual-pixel system or even the Sony cameras with phase-detection autofocus. And for that matter, there seem to be fewer autofocus settings than even some earlier Panasonic camcorders. For example, the DVX200 had autofocus speed and sensitivity settings and an autofocus transition feature (to rack focus between two points), but even these are missing from the CX350.
 
davedv said:
There is no face detection feature, or even explicit subject tracking. You can touch the screen to focus on a desired area, but otherwise the autofocus features are fairly limited compared to something like Canon's dual-pixel system or even the Sony cameras with phase-detection autofocus. And for that matter, there seem to be fewer autofocus settings than even some earlier Panasonic camcorders. For example, the DVX200 had autofocus speed and sensitivity settings and an autofocus transition feature (to rack focus between two points), but even these are missing from the CX350.
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yeah i was afraid of that. i think ill rent like the poster above suggested.

thanks!
david
 
davedv said:
One usability thing I miss from the DVX200 and UX180 is the ability to manually adjust the gain (in 1 dB increments) with the little thumbwheel.
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You're absolutely right. I didn't realize how much I used this function on the UX180 until it disappeared on the CX350.
 
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