the future of P2

P2 is our higher end bread and butter. All of our AVC-Intra and DVCPRO HD cameras are wrapped around it.

Please do not take my not being involved with it as anything more than a rearrangement of product lines here at Panasonic. We had a guy retire, and when they were dividing stuff up, they felt that I would be good for the challenge of AVCHD and the 3D cameras. And right now I have my hands very full doing just that. My two handheld P2s fortunately are continuing to sell very well and they don't need a lot of handholding. ;-)

Just know that we introduced a good number of new products at NAB wrapped around P2 and it continues to grow all the time. It is not over it is still growing.

Thanks,

Jan
 
For the documentary/efp/eng world Red and current DSLR's are ergonomic and workflow hassles.
No one wants a camera to get in between you and ever changing circumstances.
DSLR 11 minute recording times, skew, and focus issues take the joy out of capturing the moment.
Hand holding a 30 pound red camera all day long, and running through tight spaces with all kinds of things hanging off the body is a non starter.
EX1s and EX3s suffer from very poor ergonomics and crummy compression. To me, Panasonic has been the only one to offer great compression and ergonomics in a reasonable price range.

I think the 300 for the price is an absolute winner for doc shooters. It is a huge step up from the my original HPX 200 in terms of ergonomics, focus, zoom, aperture, and codec. P2 is expensive because of the RAID memory chips, but it is why you get AVCIntra 100 instead of XDCAM. People insisting on tape need to rethink their position. 64G cards=88 minutes 1080 24pn AVCIntra 100. Four cards is 6 hours of material. In the five years of shooting with P2, I have never lost data.

A large sensors P2 camera in an interview situation would be fabulous. the added weight of the lens and focus issues might make it pretty hard to use in a run and gun situation. The added cost would have to be at or above the 3700 price point.
 
jameswmulryan said:
For the documentary/efp/eng world Red and current DSLR's are ergonomic and workflow hassles.
No one wants a camera to get in between you and ever changing circumstances.
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RED seems to have told the ergonomics department to get lost....while ARRI seems to have employed a few ergonomics people. dSlr, as for now the ergonomics are stills not video.
jameswmulryan said:
P2 is expensive because of the RAID memory chips, but it is why you get AVCIntra 100 instead of XDCAM. People insisting on tape need to rethink their position. 64G cards=88 minutes 1080 24pn AVCIntra 100. Four cards is 6 hours of material. In the five years of shooting with P2, I have never lost data.
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Some producers seems to not care of the advantage P2 has. Some times I suspect the odd producer and DP is afraid of going from their everyday tape workflow and over to the new and "scary" P2...
 
To chance the subject. What is the maximum capacity P2 card (the economy type) at the moment ?

Christian m said:
RED seems to have told the ergonomics department to get lost....while ARRI seems to have employed a few ergonomics people. dSlr, as for now the ergonomics are stills not video.

Some producers seems to not care of the advantage P2 has. Some times I suspect the odd producer and DP is afraid of going from their everyday tape workflow and over to the new and "scary" P2...
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I think it's still 64GB... the original P2 timeline stopped at 128GB as I remember....

Cheers
 
Thank you Jan for those comforting words, although I never gave much credence to Panasonic ditching such a good product (and workflow) as P2. But it is still nice to hear.
 
Practically speaking 128 GB cards are sort of unnecessary. If you have a 3 x 64 cards even in AVC I 1080 you can shoot quite a lot during a day and not have to offload. 3X64 wouldn't be enough for a Dead Concert though.
 
Panasonic just introduced a new P2 camera, the HPX3100. 1080 full raster 2/3" CCD camera that is sure to cost less than an HPX3000/3700. Obviously P2 is alive and well in the higher end cameras, as Jan posted.
 
I'm not too worried about P2 cameras going away any time soon, but I know a lot of people who are, and they've been running out to P2 card rental houses out of fear of investing in a bunch of p2 cards that might be obsolete soon. p2rents.com seems to be the consistent favorite here in oklahoma city, but I'm sure there are plenty more out there, for those who are worried about whether p2 cards will stick around. But I wouldn't fret, as people on this thread have pointed out, Panasonic keeps putting out p2 cameras.
 
I can't believe after six pages of discussion on this forum no one has mentioned perhaps the ideal market for the AF-100. Film schools. It's 2010, and the best camera my film school (a major public university) has for open checkout is the original hvx. Just this year they bought an hpx170, a 5D, two 7D's, and rails/follow focus/ mattebox. The AF-100 is almost the PERFECT offering for us in film school....(would be perfect with full frame sensor and P2).

Think about it. We are a hybrid breed, and I bet student filmmakers are the reason for the huge success of the DSLR's. We want our "school" projects to look as cinematic as possible, so that hopefully we can catch a break and join you guys out in the field. In "real" life, we need camcorders that we can pick up and go make a quick buck with to buy some more ramen. Then as we get older, we need nicer and nicer cameras to make a bigger and bigger buck, but we still need the cinematic look for our projects. My bread and butter is commercial business promo online stuff, my passion is cinema. This is why DSLR's have been so great, they give us the ability to use interchangeable lenses and get some very cinematic shots. This is also why the hpx is still so popular in film schools, because the DSLR doesn't cut it, and if your learning real life application, when on God's green earth are you not going to be able to focus while recording on a real video camera, or not be able to hook up a monitor.... With the AF-100 we now have a DSLR that operates like a video camera. So you can teach someone the basics of interchangeable lenses, shallow dof, and amazing panasonic codecs and it still feels like film school, not photojournalism. I don't think this was intended as a be all end all to hpx170/300 p2 camcorders in the least. I can't wait for my film school to buy one of these, and overall price point is EXTREMELY important in the education field.... with art losing more and more money every year. If it had a full frame sensor I think it would be the end of DSLR's, not P2. I can record audio in camera, on a great codec, with an hdsdi port for uncompressed capture and full quality monitoring, variable frame rates.... must I go on? Plus, as an added bonus to all those who flip from canon back to Panasonic, perhaps as a direct address to all of us who whine about the cost of P2 despite its advantages, they're letting you use your current media cards....
 
DCTBradJohnson said:
I can't believe after six pages of discussion on this forum no one has mentioned perhaps the ideal market for the AF-100. Film schools. It's 2010, and the best camera my film school (a major public university) has for open checkout is the original hvx. Just this year they bought an hpx170, a 5D, two 7D's, and rails/follow focus/ mattebox. The AF-100 is almost the PERFECT offering for us in film school....(would be perfect with full frame sensor and P2).

Edit

If it had a full frame sensor I think it would be the end of DSLR's, not P2. I can record audio in camera, on a great codec, with an hdsdi port for uncompressed capture and full quality monitoring, variable frame rates.... must I go on? Plus, as an added bonus to all those who flip from canon back to Panasonic, perhaps as a direct address to all of us who whine about the cost of P2 despite its advantages, they're letting you use your current media cards....
Click to expand...

I totally agree. When Panasonic announced the AF100 at NAB, they specifically called out film schools as a target market for the camera. I believe the AF100 will hurt DSLR's severely, leaving only the low price point, full frame sensor(5D) and stealth form factor. Once people shoot with a proper video camera sporting a large sensor, I can't imagine them wanting to go back to DSLR's very often.

Personally, I find Academy frame to be perfectly good for shallow DOF and FF 35 to be a hassle. I'm hoping the smaller 4/3" sensor will make the AF100 more practical for more types of projects, improving speed and versatility.

The AF100 will go into our rental inventory as soon as we can get our hands on it. The hardest part is deciding what lenses to offer!
 
Dino said:
I totally agree. When Panasonic announced the AF100 at NAB, they specifically called out film schools as a target market for the camera. I believe the AF100 will hurt DSLR's severely, leaving only the low price point, full frame sensor(5D) and stealth form factor. Once people shoot with a proper video camera sporting a large sensor, I can't imagine them wanting to go back to DSLR's very often.
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Been saying that since I first laid hands on a GH1 in June of 2009.

Personally, I find Academy frame to be perfectly good for shallow DOF and FF 35 to be a hassle. I'm hoping the smaller 4/3" sensor will make the AF100 more practical for more types of projects, improving speed and versatility.
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Except that the 4/3 frame isn't appreciably smaller. It's really almost the same size as Academy. If you were framing up a shot on an Academy sensor at 10 feet, you'd get the exact same FOV and DOF from an AF100 if you just moved it to 11 feet 7 inches. I mean, yes it's different, but it's marginally different.

The AF100 will go into our rental inventory as soon as we can get our hands on it. The hardest part is deciding what lenses to offer!
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That's a question that would be really easy to answer if Zeiss would offer their CP.2 lenses in m43 mount! With electronic control of a stepless aperture, they'd be rather sweet. For a budget alternative, consider the ZF.2's with the Duclos lens modifications, and hope for an electronic mount adapter to be introduced soon.
 
Barry,

4/3" frame size is 17X10mm, so 69% as large as Super 35 at 25X14mm, Full Frame 35 is 36X20mm. Sony's APC sensor cameras are closer to Super 35, but at 4X the size of a 2/3" sensor, the AF100 is plenty big enough.

I have used the Zeiss Compact Primes gen. 1, which I prefer over the CP2's because the latter have a T-stop of 2.1 vs. T1.5 for the gen. 1 50 and 85mm primes--the two lenses I use most for head shots. PL-mounts are no problem with 4/3" cameras, as you know.

I'm hoping to see some Panasonic/Leica 4/3" primes and zooms optimized for the AF100, which should cost less than PL-mount glass.
 
Dino said:
Barry,

4/3" frame size is 17X10mm
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Yes, but the AF100 doesn't use a standard 4/3 frame. It uses a larger-than-normal frame, which is 19x11 (approx.)

When comparing the 19mm wide sensor against the 22mm wide Academy frame, it's very close, and the difference (while mild) certainly isn't much to worry about. In terms of a Cinema Crop Factor, it's a 1.18.

The APS-C size is nearly identical to 35mm Academy. Super35 is a little bigger.

I'm hoping to see some Panasonic/Leica 4/3" primes and zooms optimized for the AF100, which should cost less than PL-mount glass.
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I think that's likely to be a long, long wait. Panasonic doesn't make lenses for any of their pro cameras; they package or offer lenses from the pro manufacturers (Fujinon and Canon, of course, as you well know). The consumer division is the one that makes lenses, and they're not likely to start offering professional-level glass any time soon.
 
Barry,


Good to know the AF100 frame size is 19X11. Here are some Panasonic lens rumors from 43rumors.com:

One of our readers that works for a big online-store told us that he has been trained to use the new Panasonic AG-AF100. He don’t know when exactly the new camera will be launched (but he is sure it will be soon). He also saw at least two new Panasonic MicroFourThirds zooms that are optimized for video (silent autofocus and smooth manual zoom and focusing). Those new lenses would also be perfect for the older Panasonic GH1
ir
1
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and the new Panasonic GH2
Reminder: The Panasonic 14-140mm
ir
1
lens is the only Panasonic lens optimized for video.

Few days ago we told you that at Photokina (September) Panasonic will finally release the 14mm f/2.5, 100-300mm and 1-2 new video lenses for the new MFT camcorder (The AG-AF100). Today two of our best sources told us that we should expect one more “exceptional” lens. A lens that was not one the Panasonic roadmap -> yes Panasonic cheated on us
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The sources didn’t reveal any details about the lens. But they said we don’t have to wait a long time to know it…
Just a reminder. Few weeks ago we received rumors from good sources saying that Panasonic was working on fast primes (faster than f/1.4). We don’t know if one of those fast primes could be announced now. There has been also a rumor saying that there could be a MicroFourThrids version of the current Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 FourThirds lens.

Yes, just rumors, but the still camera side of Panasonic seems to be doing video optimized lenses as well.
 
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