Upcoming hands-on comparison of F3, FS100 and AF100 from Philip Bloom

Yea this just shows you how the needs of a person can effect your choices. To me the low light performance isn't really needed like it might be for some since my intended uses are on a movie set with controlled lighting and other various things. In that situation a ton of cameras can be a good option and it seeing in the dark doesn't matter much LOL.
 
KyleProhaska said:
To me the low light performance isn't really needed like it might be for some since my intended uses are on a movie set with controlled lighting...
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Having good low-light quality in a controlled lighting environment helps you make the lighting look natural, without the need to burn thousands of watts of light. A lot of fiction is shot deliberately in slightly lower lighting to achieve a certain mood. Even if it is controlled.
 
maarek said:
Having good low-light quality in a controlled lighting environment helps you make the lighting look natural, without the need to burn thousands of watts of light. A lot of fiction is shot deliberately in slightly lower lighting to achieve a certain mood. Even if it is controlled.
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Id agree with you but not at 3200 iso
At that level your just dont have any lights at all
Although yes thatsa vety handy option.

At daylight, fs100 is a hassle to handle without nd filters.
 
ASG said:
Did you eat another Af100 owner?

I'm suprised how little difference there is between them in that test.
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That fact speaks the most for me. Sure the F3 has the obvious sharper sensor/lowlight/better signal processing but it is also 3 times the price.
The question is the resulting image and workflow three times better however?
I personally haven't seen any footage that justifies the price difference.
Maybe my standards of quality are just not at the F3 level
AF100 = win for me lol
F3/FS100 = win for others
 
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From Blooms Twitter: "af100 has so many more features than fs100. fs100 simply has a nicer chip."

Looking forward to Blooms tests :)
 
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KyleProhaska said:
Yea this just shows you how the needs of a person can effect your choices. To me the low light performance isn't really needed like it might be for some since my intended uses are on a movie set with controlled lighting and other various things. In that situation a ton of cameras can be a good option and it seeing in the dark doesn't matter much LOL.
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+1
 
KyleProhaska said:
From Blooms Twitter: "af100 has so many more features than fs100. fs100 simply has a nicer chip."

Looking forward to Blooms tests :)
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Also from Bloom Twitter today:
"Confirmed. My bloody shutter was on too high on af101. Retesting now low light"

Later:
"af101 still not as good. but its better!"
 
xenogears said:
Also from Bloom Twitter today:
"Confirmed. My bloody shutter was on too high on af101. Retesting now low light"

Later:
"af101 still not as good. but its better!"
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Very interesting. That's exactly what I had figured could've happened. My AF100 does a better job than my T2i in lowlight once pp is tweaked. When Juan Martinez showed a clip at the EC Junior event the AF100 and 5D were neck and neck at up to 1600. Glad to hear it was a error and not a fault of the camera.
 
The thing I don't hear mentioned at all, but seemed obvious from the first time I saw the AF100 footage, was that the images from it look flat. The layers all look two dimensional, digital, squashed together.

Note that I own none of the cameras, I do not admire Sony as a company, and I really want to like the AF100. But it's the reality of the image that keeps drawing me to the Sony chip. It just looks so much more real, so much deeper. I don't know how else to put it.

Anyone else see this, or am I just imagining things?
 
I'm still trying to figure out which camera to buy and this one video helps out a lot.

Like imag stated, I also think the FS had a deeper look. The blacks look deeper giving it more depth to me. But the footage from other cameras portray richer colors, or that's what I saw in the trees. I also like the field of view (assuming it was all shot on the same prime). So far I'm liking the FS more.
 
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imag said:
The thing I don't hear mentioned at all, but seemed obvious from the first time I saw the AF100 footage, was that the images from it look flat. The layers all look two dimensional, digital, squashed together.

Note that I own none of the cameras, I do not admire Sony as a company, and I really want to like the AF100. But it's the reality of the image that keeps drawing me to the Sony chip. It just looks so much more real, so much deeper. I don't know how else to put it.

Anyone else see this, or am I just imagining things?
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Well I personally haven't seen this deepness or 2D flatness you speak of for any of the cameras lol
 
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imag said:
....the first time I saw the AF100 footage, was that the images from it look flat. The layers all look two dimensional, digital, squashed together.

.....the image that keeps drawing me to the Sony chip. It just looks so much more real, so much deeper. I don't know how else to put it.

Anyone else see this, or am I just imagining things?
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I don't want to speak for you but when you say flat and 2 dimensional versus deeper and real do you mean somewhat washed out colors and lack of a more natural contrast? More like video?

I have seen that if that is how I understand you but I think it may have more to do with the camera settings or in many cases how it was edited in post.
I think with these 3 cameras you can get a more real/natural look without much trouble once the right setting are plugged in.

I don't own anyone of them myself but I have seen some good images coming out of all 3 based on Vimeo downloads [I know... Not the best way to judge a camera but “you works wit what you gots”].
 
From my personal point of view;

For me the FS100 only win in the Super 35mm size sensor, the image is much cleaner and detailed than the AF100 at higher ISO that for sure, but has many disadvantages too, those little 80´s tiny phone buttons, no SDI output, No ND Filter, ergonomics is a kind of weird (no ugly, just weird) monitor position is no useful; is you must take the camera higher over you in a tripod; is useless.

Cheers.
 
Phew. I was really worried about going onto here and reading the threads. I will stick with this one. Not read any others. You lot are nice. Such a risk putting yourself out there doing a test like this as you just get hammered by some people.

Someone asked me on my blog to shoot just charts as the test would be irrelevant otherwise. As has been said earlier I am not a tech head. I don't want to judge my image on charts. They are often depressing. After all would anyone be shooting video on the 5DmkII if Vincent LaForet had put up video of some charts rather than Reverie? Of course not! The same person said I had to do it scientifically or not at all. Well my well is as close to scientific as I can get with my resources and time. A scientific test takes a lot of time, people and resources. Zacuto have done that with their Epic single chip shootout coming in June. It's SO thorough. I leave that to them . My test is about image but also what features the cameras offer and how they are to shoot with. Neither of which are touched on in the Zacuto test.

Just from my initial findings with the pre-production FS100 I am blown away by the chip. Just disappointed by things it lacks that the AF101 has. Some really basic stuff for me. But then again it still has a **** load more features than a DSLR and pretty much blows them away in image aspects...So it's going to be an interesting test. Epic for me. Biggest review I have done. But of course at the end of the day it will just be my opinion. Never buy a camera from one person's opinion. Especially one that costs thousands!! Try them out.

Yep. I made a mistake on my first low light test with the AF101. I was too tired and didn't check the shutter. Last night's test fixes that. It's better but still not in same league as the two sony cameras. http://vimeo.com/23022451

I used the Able Cine low noise profile for the AF on this test. I was more concerned about noise that latitude. I could have stretched the latitude with a different profile but then it would have been noisier. I had to chose! Perhaps I should have done both...sure. But there are so many variables. If you go down that route then you end up with hundreds of shots rather than a a couple of dozen and I don't have the time or resources to do this.

I am currently uploading both the low light test and the 3 daytime shots in pro res lt to my drop box. Check my blog for the link later. I am in Belgium and my hotel internet connection says 5 hours to upload. The low light test is over 2.3gb. The other clip around 250mb.

So thanks again for a really great thread. Gives me faith in DVXUser.com. Really intelligent comments. The way it should be.

Oh and are DSLRs dead as the owner of Cinema5D.com bizarrely said when referring to the FS100. Of course not. These are still way more money than DSLRs and we are still in the embryonic stages of DSLRs. I guess what Canon does next is the move we all want to see...

One last thought. I know this is pixel peepers dream but don't over analyse the images too much. I am no expert on any of these new camcorders. Just fumbling blindly in the dark like a teenager :) I am hoping to get them as close as possible. If not please take this into account. Oh yeah. Don't forget it's not the camera... :)

So keep and eye on both my FS100 blog: http://philipbloom.net/2011/04/27/minishootout/
and my comparison blog post: http://philipbloom.net/2011/04/27/minishootout/

I will update them periodically and have the final posts up on Wednesday hopefully!!
 
philip bloom said:
Phew. I was really worried about going onto here and reading the threads. I will stick with this one. Not read any others. You lot are nice. Such a risk putting yourself out there doing a test like this as you just get hammered by some people.
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Phew as well! That last run you did was brutal! This forum can turn threads into a meltdown! :Drogar-Mark-10(DBG)

Philip...way looking forward to your tests. I'm with you...I develop my decisions of trying out the cameras myself but I usually use real-world tests to do so. I think if I couldn't decide on two cameras that were almost exactly the same in terms of image, then I would throw in some charts to really see the difference. But for all intents and purposes...if you have to use charts to tell the difference that you can't tell in real-world images, then there really isn't much difference!

I'm really leaning toward the FS100 ever since extensively looking into it at NAB. Looking forward to your tests and eventually playing with one myself!

Cheers...
Richard
 
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