Thoughts on the Panasonic AF-100

Chris has uploaded another video:

http://vimeo.com/18098136

He might get a little flack for this this since the same lens was not on both cameras, or that the canon didn't have a 100mm on it. In any case, still a worth test for circle of confusion. naturally the backgrounds will be slightly different as both cameras were running at the same time and offset.

 
Hi, Bob, yeah, I thought this video might cause a bit of a debate as to it's worth but we thought it was interesting to see what one would have to do to achieve the framing as there are times when the location simply won't allow a camera position shift to get the optimal look with a favorite lens. We had an HDX900 recording at the same time and that'll be another video to go up later, showing all three side by side.

As for the inevitable grading/compression/noise debate, here's the deal. All the AF-100 footage was shot to the 16GB SDHC card I mentioned in the article and then ingested to FCP through Log and Transfer and transcoded to ProRes. I did a white balance correction on all the AF-100 footage and that's it. The output to H.264 created a lot of the noise (especially the noise and banding in the upper left of the image that's very evident on the 24mm shot) and also gave me the dreaded gamma shift. As such, I sent the file through again, this time using x264, and had a better representation of the colors and exposure but an equivalent amount of compression noise. However, the x264 codec didn't like the side by side shot so I went back to H.264 for that video ouput. The 5DMkII footage was given the same treatment for ingest and output (Log & Transfer, ProRes, H.264) but was tidied up more with white balancing, hue and saturation correction. As was mentioned earlier in this thread (which I'm very flattered to be a part of, by the way) I felt that as this was not an image fidelity experiment the post-work was inconsequential to judging.

Oh, and as I noted in the update to the article, Bob corrected me in that there is a way to have both the viewfinder and LCD on at the same time. Operator error, there, and one I'm happy to admit to.
 
Thanks Chris. Welcome to the forum. You're experience with the camera will undoubtedly be valuable. I especially liked the fact you had Nikons in the test :)


VisualEdgeChris said:
Hi, Bob, yeah, I thought this video might cause a bit of a debate as to it's worth but we thought it was interesting to see what one would have to do to achieve the framing as there are times when the location simply won't allow a camera position shift to get the optimal look with a favorite lens. We had an HDX900 recording at the same time and that'll be another video to go up later, showing all three side by side.

As for the inevitable grading/compression/noise debate, here's the deal. All the AF-100 footage was shot to the 16GB SDHC card I mentioned in the article and then ingested to FCP through Log and Transfer and transcoded to ProRes. I did a white balance correction on all the AF-100 footage and that's it. The output to H.264 created a lot of the noise (especially the noise and banding in the upper left of the image that's very evident on the 24mm shot) and also gave me the dreaded gamma shift. As such, I sent the file through again, this time using x264, and had a better representation of the colors and exposure but an equivalent amount of compression noise. However, the x264 codec didn't like the side by side shot so I went back to H.264 for that video ouput. The 5DMkII footage was given the same treatment for ingest and output (Log & Transfer, ProRes, H.264) but was tidied up more with white balancing, hue and saturation correction. As was mentioned earlier in this thread (which I'm very flattered to be a part of, by the way) I felt that as this was not an image fidelity experiment the post-work was inconsequential to judging.

Oh, and as I noted in the update to the article, Bob corrected me in that there is a way to have both the viewfinder and LCD on at the same time. Operator error, there, and one I'm happy to admit to.
Click to expand...
 
Chris, thank you for your blog post and clips. I enjoy your Tweets as well. Could you let us know what you think of the AF100 vs. the F3, assuming you've had any quality time with the latter? Will Visual Edge be adding one or both models to rental inventory?
 
Was any color grading done on the Zeiss/Nikon side-by-side video above? Even by looking at the stillframe before play is pushed, the Nikon seems warmer overall, something I think I've been noticing in Nikons and there it's directly obvious. May help add to the warm film look perhaps?
 
There may have been some correction. In any case, the gamma curves and settings are so different between those cameras that it was more the camera than the lenses pushing the pana to be warmer.

pannyfreak said:
Was any color grading done on the Zeiss/Nikon side-by-side video above? Even by looking at the stillframe before play is pushed, the Nikon seems warmer overall, something I think I've been noticing in Nikons and there it's directly obvious. May help add to the warm film look perhaps?
Click to expand...
 
Looking nice.

The footage I've seen from the AF100 so far actually reminds me a lot of the less impressive segments from "Avatar". Some parts of that movie which contain only human actors (no CG blue people) have a slightly soft look to them. For $5,000, that pleases me a lot.
 
My thoughts:

Love my DVX100b, but it was time for HD.

Love my HMC150, but still needed the 35mm adapter if I wanted to use my Nikon glass.

AF100 is the perfect answer for me...can't wait to get it!
 
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