So there's no AF100 Successor - Now what?

Like many here I came to the group because of my DVX100, just a freakin' marvelous camera at the time. Mine traveled and shot great images everywhere in Canada and many places in the USA. It never let me down, even at -40c in Cambridge Bay Nunavut. Enter HD, I upgraded to an HMC150 and GH1 and same thing. Two wonderful cameras that also traveled the world and did what they were supposed to do every time and paid for themselves in the first six months. Sold them both in excellent condition and all the whistles and bells and 35mm lens adapters etc. Then faced with AF100 or FS100. Tough decision and I won't say that one was better than the other but I will say that I felt the tide turning on Panasonic and the calls I had been getting and passing on were more for the FS100 than AF100. I switched to Sony and have continued to buy Sony since. Though I would like to see Panasonic back in the game, it just does not seem likely to me. There are just too many camera choices out there now and Sony is very aggressive. I shoot news and sports along with anything else I can get these lean days up here in Canada and the calls from the "AM Nets" always specify Sony other than NBC who I think own a piece of Panny. So those regular voices who beat the drum for Panasonic and perhaps have a vested interest in being heard may disagree but the next NHL dressing room scrum I do I will get someone to snap a look back at the cameras and Sony will be everywhere. I sold my FS100 because the calls were for an FS700 and now they are for an FS5 & FS7 and even the sacred Canon Mk5 (pick your version) is slowly going away as the DSLR loyalists jump ship for the next wave. But the interesting this is Mac can still make some incredible images with his Aaton LTR-7 should he decide to call it out of retirement but that is one technologies exceptions.
 
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Brian: I only make docs, both for clients and those my partner and I originate through grants... luckily no one I work with or for requests a particular brand - I say luckily because I've always believed there are choices out there that may not necessarily be better, but are stylishly different (IE, Aaton in an all Arriflex state). I've owned four Sonys, five Panasonics, three Canons and two BMPCCs in the past 20 years, and now I've added a JVC to that list.

They're all tools, and with the exception of tangible preferences (like broadcast standards) are all capable of making good movies. In fact, I just re-edited a film I made ten years ago for a client and intercut current BMPCC footage with the original Canon XL H1 footage, and the Canon stuff still holds up and looks terrific.

Since the advent of HD, much of the technological "advancement" is marketing and buzz words, so it can be difficult to tell the apples from the oranges.
 
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Here's a sample of the highlight and shadow handling of the JVC LS-300, shot with the new J-Log1 profile. Unlike Panasonic's V-Log-L, which limits highlight levels to 79 IRE, J-Log1 is scaled to reach 100 IRE and can capture superwhites up to around 105 IRE. Shadows are lifted on a pedestal of about 12 IRE, similar to V-Log-L. The LS-300 can record 1080p log footage internally at up to 50Mbps in 8-bit 4:2:2 color depth. In the sample shot below, the top image is an ungraded, 100% resolution frame crop. In the lower image, I graded it using Color Finesse in After Effects to recover both highlight and shadow detail. Unlike the built-in Rec709 and Cinema profiles, J-Log1 does not allow you to adjust its detail level, and no additional noise reduction or sharpening was used in processing these images.

JVC%20LS300%20J-Log1%20DR%20Sample.jpg
 
My feeling is the FS5 is going to absolutely clean up in this market segment.
It's not perfect and next year at NAB will probably see a model with internal 4K 4:2:2 10bit,
with more robust codec options and IBIS.

Until then Raw output to an Atomos or 7Q will get around this.

As a Panasonic owner since 2006 I have jumped ship and won't be going back.
I have sold all my MFT gear and cameras and invested in Sony E Mount and FF glass.
The DVX 200 will sell for broadcast, news and the wedding market and this is probably where
Panasonic want to be but it's not where I'm at, so wishing they made a different camera won't change anything.

For what its worth I still think they made a mistake giving up the FS5 FS7 market, and Sony is going to
eat into their sales no matter what they think or hope for.
When you have a camera costing maybe 1,000/1,500 more with a kit lens, and offering a S35 sensor,
a huge improvement in ergonomics, size, weight, and recording options including soon to be released Raw 10bit recording
I think many potential customers will jump ship to the FS5 or JVC

IMO even the design of the DVX200 is a throwback to 2006 and not 2015.
I'd love to see a side by side size comparison between the FS5 and DVX200. I saw a recent
photo at the New York fashion show and thought the whole set up looked huge and
cumbersome.
Panasonic may sell a lot of DVX200's but Sony will sell a ton of FS5's
IMO Panasonic dropped the ball on this one, others may disagree but the number
of cameras sold will be the ultimate judge of this.
Just my 2 Cent.
 
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combatentropy said:
They just have no imagination. Picture the guts of the Pocket in the PXW-X70 (without lens).

View attachment 105741

They are several cameras in this category, but yet there are many holes open for the taking, due to tiering or mere bungling. I'm thinking of what you might call The Agile Camera. It doesn't do some ridiculous resolution or have peer-to-peer wireless networking built in. But neither is it unergonomic drone micro camera. Just small and nimble, and gets out of your way. Sort of like the Digital Bolex but a little more practical and half the price (CMOS vs CCD perhaps?).

There is absolutely a market for S16-sized interchangeable lens cameras, even at 2K, as the Pocket shows --- if you price it right. I'm thinking people would pay double ($2,000) if it was like a Pocket but with XLRs, a decent (4" 960x540) flip-out screen, and a better body.

The same could be said for Four Thirds, even at 2K (like a mini A7S) for great latitude and low light. At 3K or 4K you could easily charge $3,000 or $4,000. It could sell right alongside the DVX200 without cannibalizing it. In fact, it could reuse most of the parts, so R&D is minimized (in my humble opinion). Four Thirds is a decently sized sensor, almost the size that most movies between the 1950s and 2000 were made in ("Flat 35", 21.95 x 11.86mm, crop factor 1.73). The difference between 4/3, S35, and 135 is overblown in some threads here.

The key to owning the market is by not doing obvious blunders in ergonomics and usability that they others have. The Sony FS5 is the very first interchangeable lens camera whose ergonomics I think are actually at the minimum level. Other things that don't cost much:

- 10-bit 4:2:2
- 1-60 fps
- time lapse
- fast boot
- fast, easy, short menus (defer more choices to post)
- small
- lightweight
- well balanced

Again, think simpler, not more complex. There's a lot of ways to go here. With a million codecs and possible features, cameras have got needlessly cluttered, slow, and expensive. It takes bravery to prune and say no to things, in order to say yes to better things. This industry needs a Steve Jobs!
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I agree with the above sentiment. In the stills world the Japanese make fantastic but often needlessly complex cameras. I much prefer the simplicity of the German Lecia M series for example. While expensive - still affordable. The Germans make a great motion cameras as well but unfortunately Arri is out of reach for a lot of us. I feel Arri, Blackmagic and Red are companies more inclined to want the needs of cinematographers.
 
FWIW, there are speculations - let's not even call them rumors - that Panasonic is working on an FF camera with Leica, having already contributed the components to the new Leica FF camera. Zeiss managers have also recently expressed the same sentiment with regard to Sony - Sony wants full frame, Zeiss wants full frame and thus full frame it will be.

Which makes Panasonic's decision not to spend any more time or invest any more money on a pro tier interchangeable lens MFT products quite reasonable.
 
FF is good for cinema - narrative films. But as I've said many times on several forums, I look at MFT, and even S35 to some extent, as the equivalent of S16 vas 35mm in the 80s. For handheld documentary filmmakers, which is pretty much all I do, the size of the lens becomes a huge factor, especially if you want that lens to be faster than T4, or even T2.8. I'd hate to see the market relegate us fringe-types to consumer fixed lens cameras (and the prosumer DVX200 is a joke).

I hope the demand for cameras like the LS300 increases - sadly, because of a snobby prejudice against JVC, that doesn't seem to be happening with this camera.

BTW - several years ago I'm one who demanded 10bit - which led me to sell the AF100 and buy an HPX250, a camera I hated and sold after a month or two. Since then I've been using two BMPCCs. But I'm tired of the inconvenience of BM cameras. The LS300 may only be 8 bit, but with well exposed, and even intentionally dark, scenes I'm not seeing any banding or artifacts like I did with the AF100.
 
DLD said:
FWIW, there are speculations - let's not even call them rumors - that Panasonic is working on an FF camera with Leica, having already contributed the components to the new Leica FF camera. Zeiss managers have also recently expressed the same sentiment with regard to Sony - Sony wants full frame, Zeiss wants full frame and thus full frame it will be.

Which makes Panasonic's decision not to spend any more time or invest any more money on a pro tier interchangeable lens MFT products quite reasonable.
Click to expand...

If Panasonic are making a FF camera great, it makes complete sense ! However I still think they are going to loose a lot of customers before it arrives on the scene.
IMO Panasonic are now playing catch up, even if a new FF camera arrives at NAB 2016.
Sony have almost a 2 years head start on them with the FS7, FS5 and their Mirrorless cameras. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Sony
launching a FF FS7II at NAB 2016 maybe even in a FS5 body.

IMO Panasonic has been too slow to change and innovate (the Varicam being the exception, but this is a premium priced camera)
Personally I don't think Panasonic foresaw the disruptive force Sony would be with their FF cameras and the FS7.

My take on it is they thought their Broadcast market was safe and concentrated on it and the higher end
market. However it's now clear the appeal of the FS7 and FS5 is their versatility,
they bridge the gap between Cinema, Documentary, Run and Gun and Broadcast in a way no other camera at this price point does.

Panasonic were asked and asked but they refused to take customers requests on board in the same way as Sony did.
I now wonder if it's too late for Panasonic to regain their position ?
Who knows ? If they have the money and produce a cracker of a FF camera at the same price as a FS7 or FS5 then
there may be a chance for them to compete. But IMO it will take a brave move on their part to get customers
to switch back to their cameras if they have already invested in new Cameras and Glass.
Again this is just my 2 Cents !
 
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Mac said:
For handheld documentary filmmakers, which is pretty much all I do, the size of the lens becomes a huge factor, especially if you want that lens to be faster than T4, or even T2.8. I'd hate to see the market relegate us fringe-types to consumer fixed lens cameras (and the prosumer DVX200 is a joke).
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Ah, but why do you want T2.......?

That may sound a naïve question, but think about it. These cameras are unlike film - with video sensors the base ISO rating increases with sensor size in a very predictable fashion, if all other factors are equal. As a pretty good approximation, double the sensor size and improve the base ISO rating by a stop.

So if we say ISO 1000 and a 4/3 sensor, then going up to FF will mean roughly a quadrupling of sensor area, and a base ISO of around 4000. So if the former case needs an aperture of T2 for exposure, the latter will only need T4 yes?

And you could expect a T2 lens for 4/3 to be similar in size/weight terms to a T4 for FF - so back to square one. A bigger sensor only means a bigger lens if you want the same T stop. With the associated higher base ISO, that needn't be the case.
 
Well, your right and your wrong. I have a C100 and an f4 24-105, and it's ok for what it is. I don't much like it.

But on the LS300, the tiny Olympus 12-40 f2.8 is a joy to use. It's beautiful at f2.8, has very nice selective focus, and is extremely light and manageable. The EF-S 17-55 f2.8 (which I also have) is similar on the larger end of the sensor, but it makes the camera front heavy and not so much fun on a long shoot. Technically the full sensor with the 17-55 should be superior image-wise, but it's not. Technology in this case makes it possible to use the smaller section of the sensor and produce what I consider to be a better image.. I'm not talking about resolution, it's more subjective than that... it's just more tactile like film.

This is my opinion only, and there isn't any sense in arguing about an opinion - I just like the look better and hope the full frame trend doesn't obviate the possibility of varying points of view.

And BTW, I didn't say I want T2, I just meant that smaller lenses can be "even" faster than T2.8, thus compensating for the sensor size argument you postulated... I'm just not wanting everything to get bigger and bigger.
 
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Mac said:
FF is good for cinema - narrative films. But as I've said many times on several forums, I look at MFT, and even S35 to some extent, as the equivalent of S16 vas 35mm in the 80s. For handheld documentary filmmakers, which is pretty much all I do, the size of the lens becomes a huge factor, especially if you want that lens to be faster than T4, or even T2.8. I'd hate to see the market relegate us fringe-types to consumer fixed lens cameras (and the prosumer DVX200 is a joke)...
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Since this is still the dawn of the 4K era in the sub-$10,000 market - GH4 came out around April/May'2014 - there aren't as many models available for all sorts of work. What, at the moment, seems like a niche is likely to end up a well developed part of the overall image acquisition industry. Within 2-3 years, it's quite possible to have a high end run-n-gun camera that is full frame or s35 for the studio work but also a 1" crop when you need more distance or higher frame rate. Finally, one could have the barely discernable digital zoom, aka internal upscaling. Likewise, there likely to be many small sensor models with a mega optical zoom. And everything in between.

BTW, in last night's Lumia announcement, Microsoft was boasting about an "incredible low light" performance from its 1/2.4" sensor. I assume it's from Sony's "clear pixel" design. Panasonic Z300 doesn't have that but the next generation of someone's cameras just might.
 
"I hope the demand for cameras like the LS300 increases - sadly, because of a snobby prejudice against JVC, that doesn't seem to be happening with this camera."

i think there is an element of the above envolved with acceptance of this camera but a bigger element is ... not too many have liked the released footage so far from the LS300... I believe that is a bigger barrier for acceptance...

Cheers - Tye

 
In my biased personal opinion, when I look at footage I like the look from the new 4.6K Ursa camera. I know this is irrational as I am only looking at one clip from Hook on Vimeo. When I compare to the footage to Sony FS7 or FS5, again only on Vimeo it tends to look relatively thin with pastel colours to my eye. The Blackmagic footage seems to have a more pleasing colour hue and depth to my eye, with more detail in the blacks.
Blackmagic having pro grading software and developing edit software (that I have never used) is also appealing. I also like the idea of a company like Blackmagic that seems to mainly be catering to a professional/enthusiast market. While there earlier cameras had no appeal to me due to their form factor, BM does seem to be listening with the mini Ursa.
 
In the olden times, you know, like 6 years ago, everyone always referred to Panasonic "mojo" - but no question that today BM has locked up the color science for low to medium budget cameras. I have two fully rigged Pocket Cameras and, considering I got the second one during the half price sale, have less than $5000 invested in both (excluding lenses of course). And I've used the hell out of them for two years, a lot broadcast regionally and nationally, so they've paid for themselves ten times over - undoubtedly great little picture takers.

But BM comes at another price - inconvenience. Some love the challenges of the cameras, but personally I am tired of having to carry NDs, have an IR cut on every lens, carefully install an OLPF if the situation seems to call for it (which is totally unpredictable BTW) and, worst of all, having to meticulously grade every shot (since I make documentaries with literally hundreds of clips this is pretty labor intensive - and don't even talk to me about LUTs).

CineStill above refers to the footage from the Mini - well, they (BM) were smart enough to only let a talented person with a vested interest in the success of the camera shoot, grade and post footage. - Sadly JVC didn't do that. As Tye above alludes, they hoped that the guy on the corner would make them look good, and it backfired. But I will say that even with that sometimes horrible footage, which was clearly shot without any fine-tuning of the camera - stuff people were jumping on, particularly the highlights, comparing them to the AF100 (remember, that camera that started this thread) - I didn't see any of that.

And so I took a chance and plunked down a measly $3,500 - and I'm not one of those who thinks my car is better than yours simply because I bought it. The LS300 is far from perfect, and in other threads/forums I've complained about some of the problems. But in this thread - i.e. a successor to the AF100 - it's ludicrous to talk about Sony (which I have never liked) or Canon (which I do) or Red or any other camera, because whatever they may be, they are not in the same lineage - the LS300 is - it's a similar size and weight, and without spending another penny takes all those MFT lenses people have collected - not to mention EF down to S16.

I just think it's silly to ignore it till you've tried it.
 
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Hi Mac
I am glad that you are happy with your JVC. Like you say it is the best camera to replace the AF100, especially if you have M43 lenses.
I have two AF102's which I have been very happy with but I don't like changing brands too often. If Panasonic had given me and others and upgrade path then they may have kept me and a lot of customers.
I have a set of 6 Zeiss compact primes so the new DVX200 with a permanent zoom holds no attraction for me.
I tend to shoot short form TVC or web promotions so grading should not be too time onerous for me.

So for me, time to re access with 2 main criteria;
1. What camera out there is giving the best looking imagery but for under $7,000 US ($10K AU)?
2. What company do I feel is moving in the right direction for what I am interested in?

Both are very subjective criteria so largely my decision is emotive personal bias rather than any objective factors.
To me the Mini Ursa 4.6K has the best looking footage.
Blackmagic offer a suite of cameras, editing/grading software and broadcast hardware that seems to me to be innovative and affordable. I can imagine in the future they will offer an upgrade path that I will be able to grow with.
As an Australian I am also biased to purchasing Australian designed products like BM, Miller and Rode
The other factors that also play on my mind are;

3. Can I plug standard canon audio cables in?
4. Does it have ND filters
5. Can I use it on my shoulder
6. Can it record 10 bit without the need of an external recorder
7. Does it have SDI out.
8. Can I potentially rent it out.

I live in a small City in a small Island State (Tasmania) so its a small industry where I need my cameras to be as flexible as possible.
I currently run 3 different batteries on my AF102, Panasonic for the camera, Sony for the Samurai external recorder, canon for the Zacauto EVF.
Like you Mac, with your BM pocket cameras I dont want my new set up having too many add ons to make it work.
Cameras like JVC LS300 and Sony A7 series if I understand correctly only out put 8 bit and then there is the hassle of an external recorder and external EVF
Sony FS5 & FS7, if I understand correctly would need an external recorder to capture 10 bit footage, so again an extra cost and hassle.

I will probably wait and see the reaction to the release of the Ursa Mini but at this stage it ticks most of the boxes for me.
It can record 14 bit raw in camera and speaking to a friend who specialises in grading the difference between 8 bit and 10 bit is huge and 14 bit is exponentially larger.
While it does not have ND filters at this stage I am happy to sacrifice that for image quality.

I currently rent out my Zeiss CP.2 lenses and lighting gear. JVC is not a popular brand here and with Blackmagic's, head office in Australia the Ursa Mini may have more rental potential for me?
cheers
 
Personally I think the 4.6 Ursa Mini is the best "future proofed" (if that's even possible these days) camera out there. Given what I know about BM as a company, there will be issues with the first release, but it will be well supported with firmware updates. If I did a lot of narrative work, that camera would be a no-brainer. And even given the kind of work I do, the proprietary shoulder mount and camera-powered EVF would make a great hand-held package. I may buy one when the dust clears.

But I am making three short documentaries (for clients) right now with the LS300 that is already in my possession, and set up the way I want and working. These little films will more than pay for my investment.

I'm also a fan of the aggressive Australian industry (I also have three Rode mics) and I'm happy to see BM playing a major role in the shadow of the big boys (especially Sony, the evil empire). I think their head-to-head with RED will be interesting as they continue to move up the ladder.

I don't like the "Video" setting on their cameras, though - it does in fact look like video - and, as I've said, am tired of all that grading. Hopefully they'll offer more menu options on future cameras.
 
The JVC LS300 is certainly a bargain and very flexible camera, I'm sure with advocates such as yourself Mac, it will be adopted by many. :happy:
 
Oh, I'm not an advocate yet - I may end up hating it if it doesn't perform as expected, but so far I don't see that happening - I start serious day-to-day shooting next week, so I'll let you know...
 
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