what could af100 do that gh2 couldn't?

dvbrother said:
Although I just found this which is pretty good.

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I downloaded it too, and it is pretty good, but the highlights still seem to be blowing like mad... forget hightlights, anythings near what would be highlights. I want the AF100 to be great, but, alas, still waiting to be blown away.
 
Two things. One, how about moving the freakin' camera once in awhile /grumble/. Two, that fire was, sorry to say, all over the place... yes, the last segment of it was fine, but the first sustained footage of the fire had blown highlights like mad. Anyhow, it's still early days, so I'm not complaining. But if the GH2 works for someone, great, go for it - I don't see the AF100 footage I've seen so far as something out of this world compared to the GH2. I'll be interested to see how Barry's tests come out. I'm going to be shooting in very, very tight spaces, and I'm leaning more and more toward the GH2.
 
I have a GH2 and an AF100. Haven't used either one enough yet to definitively say which one yields a better image - you can get very nice results with either one. But I can say that when I work I use the AF100. And when I play I use the GH2. I also grab the GH2 when I need to pack light, shoot stills, or for stealth, or need ETC.

I had planned on using the GH2 as a B cam. But after having had the absolute pleasure of working with the AF100 I'm very seriously considering a second one instead of using the GH2.

They are both great cameras. Whether the AF100 is worth the extra money all depends on how much your time is worth and how much value you place on having your gear be as easy and enjoyable to use as possible. Life is full of hassles. I try to eliminate as many as I can. The AF100 has helped me do that. It is a joy to use. That's worth money to me.
 
I am really disappointed by the af-100 image. Since the first Japan shot, the highlight has been bothering me. But, I had no proof to know if it was the pre production model, lack of knowledge of the camera by the testers etc... Since then I have been looking at the footage and until now it just has comforted me in my belief. Look at this last video, http://vimeo.com/19634833 , can someone has any excuse now about the dynamic range of this camera. Can you shoot in lower contrast lighting than that. Ugly, ugly blown highlight every where, no roll off at all.

I have not seen that type of imagery from the gh2, on the contrary. I think the Pana video completely mess up, compared to their photo department. I guess it must be the mindset, the video world have been used and plague by low dynamic range camera. The engineers must have been concentrating on resolution and frame rate. Dynamic range is new to this market. In the motion camera imagery, there always have been the cinema cameras with the exposure latitude of film and the video eng camera and the videoi low dynamic range.

What they did not see is that the world has change since the days of the large sensor camera dslr revolution. Photographers and photography camera never had that large gap, everyone was already using film (with its latitude) and since the switch to digital, with raw output it has never been that drastic of a difference. Nowadays a $ 1200 Nikon d7000 is shooting at 14 stops of DR.

I guess that for most people who come from the video world it is aceptable quality, but for me if I was one of the shooter above I would have done everything to avoid such bad clipping. Perhaps by underexposing to prevent part of it blowing and boost it in post.
 
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Ive just gone through and removed a number of posts not related to this discussion as it pertains to the GH2 and the AF100. If yours was merely a reply to one of those, apologies.
 
Danielvilliers said:
I guess that for most people who come from the video world it is aceptable quality, but for me if I was one of the shooter above I would have done everything to avoid such bad clipping. Perhaps by underexposing to prevent part of it blowing and boost it in post.
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You summed it up well there. I cant say the camera is responsible for blown out shots either.

The Nikon d7000 shoots 14 stops in video mode?

Maybe you should try an af100 for a day, I think you'd change your tune a little. Im not saying its the be all and end all - Im saying the same thing many have said all along, for the price its stellar.
 
OldCorpse said:
Two, that fire was, sorry to say, all over the place... yes, the last segment of it was fine, but the first sustained footage of the fire had blown highlights like mad.
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Yes, but did you realise the point of it was to demonstrate the use of the ND filter? Now if that were my 5dMKII or a gh2 could I turn an ND wheel with the same effect?
 
Barry_Green said:
Someone made the comment that they'd like to know if they can intercut well, and that request makes sense, but ... other than that, I guess I'm trying to understand what people are expecting to see here...
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That would be me. My assumption would be that the GH2 has a considerably better chance of cutting with the AF100 than my 5DMKII for those tight angles, extra locked down shots Id like.
 
dvbrother said:
I really want to see that ONE video which makes me say "OK, that clearly looks as good as or better than footage I've shot with my GH2", because I want to have confidence that my $4,000 to $5,000 purchase will have the skin tones and highlight handling of the GH2. Actually, it should be BETTER than the GH2. But I'm still waiting for that video.
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I'm having the same issue. I've seen GH2 videos that were compelling enough to show me its great image quality strengths that along with it's additional features allow me to feel relatively comfortable attempting to replace my 7D, and maybe even in some instances my EX1 with it.

The AF100 videos I've seen, on the other hand have been so far from compelling in terms of image quality that I am still not sure it would be worth the image quality loss even with all the additional audio and other functionality gains.

This is all very subjective of course, but for a lot of us, that is all we have to go on at the moment.

If anything, I would expect the more expensive, production-ready camera to generally be used by more experienced and talented owners who would be more likely to create nice looking images. But I have not yet seen much I've liked from them.
 
Noel Evans said:
The Nikon d7000 shoots 14 stops in video mode?
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It is not clear yet, but as with most video DSLR cameras it seems to have relatively low latitude in its standard settings, but it seems highly possible a lot of that latitude might be easily available in video mode using tweaked Nikon Picture Controls or custom picture control curves, a feature I wish was available in more video camears.
 
nyvz said:
If anything, I would expect the more expensive, production-ready camera to generally be used by more experienced and talented owners who would be more likely to create nice looking images. But I have not yet seen much I've liked from them.
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I agree. Hence my hesitation. Having used an HVX200 and HPX170, I know what to expect as far as adjusting settings in the scene files (detail, coring, gamma, etc.) So I feel like I could get the AF100 to look like I wanted, but the lack of mind-blowing footage from users who should be able to produce mind-blowing results is the elephant in the room.

Could it be as simple as this: they're all overexposing a bit, and the solution is to underexpose to protect highlights, then bring the midtones up in post? Especially given that the AF100 with it's larger sensor, seems to be pretty clean in terms of noise at reasonable ISO settings?
 
dvbrother said:
Could it be as simple as this: they're all overexposing a bit, and the solution is to underexpose to protect highlights, then bring the midtones up in post? Especially given that the AF100 with it's larger sensor, seems to be pretty clean in terms of noise at reasonable ISO settings?
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This would be a dealbreaker for me. Unfortunately too often am hired to shoot web projects where I know no one will be doing any kind of color, so I NEED to get the look exactly the way I want it in camera. Obviously this leads to compromises in some situations, but I certainly would not want a camera that forces me to make even more compromises in my images. Many cameras at one time or another may need to be underexposed to protect highlights in unusually high contrast scenes, but I would want any new camera I buy to require less of this, not more. And it sounds like you are suggesting that this might have to be standard practice to get acceptable quality images from this camera?

It sounds like maybe DRS will help balance this lack of highlight latitude in the AF100? and perhaps a non-cinegamma is needed to avoid the hard white clip (this seems counter-intuitive, but it has been suggested)? It is possible the light response of the AF100 is simply not set up as well as panasonic's past prosumer cameras and it just needs to be tweaked more heavily in the scene file? I just hope the scene file options included are enough to get kind of images I am looking for in camera.
 
In my opinion, judging a camera's ability by viewing some random footage posted online is a mistake.
Any camera can shoot great footage in the right hands, the same way any camera can shoot crappy footage in the wrong hands.
I have seen footage from a DVX100b that blew away footage from a 35BL4. Not because the DVX is a better camera than the BL, but because of who was behind the lens.
As far as the GH2 vs the AF100? Well I tend to liken it to an amateur vs professional choice. Example... You are a professional race car driver and have been given the choice of driving your race car with roll cage & fire suppression system or a very fast hopped-up street car next race. No brainer there, as there are more things to consider than just how fast your car is. In the same way, a working professional is not likely to choose a GH2 over an AF100 as a main camera, as there are more things to consider than just video quality. Don't get me wrong, the GH2 is a great little camera, and there is nothing wrong with owning one. But it's not the same as an AF100 anymore than a hopped-up street car is the same as a professional race car.

All the Best!

Dave
 
Barry_Green said:
No. It's not possible. The AF100 is tuned to make 1080p video, only. If you scanned a window out of it, you'd end up wtih standard-def video. It could do that, but what would be the point?

The AF100 block is designed to deliver great 1080p video. The GH2's imager is tuned to deliver 16mpix stills. They're not the same.
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What is the native resolution of the AF100? Is it 1920x1080?
 
David W. Jones said:
In my opinion, judging a camera's ability by viewing some random footage posted online is a mistake.
Any camera can shoot great footage in the right hands, the same way any camera can shoot crappy footage in the wrong hands.
I have seen footage from a DVX100b that blew away footage from a 35BL4. Not because the DVX is a better camera than the BL, but because of who was behind the lens.
As far as the GH2 vs the AF100? Well I tend to liken it to an amateur vs professional choice. Example... You are a professional race car driver and have been given the choice of driving your race car with roll cage & fire suppression system or a very fast hopped-up street car next race. No brainer there, as there are more things to consider than just how fast your car is. In the same way, a working professional is not likely to choose a GH2 over an AF100 as a main camera, as there are more things to consider than just video quality. Don't get me wrong, the GH2 is a great little camera, and there is nothing wrong with owning one. But it's not the same as an AF100 anymore than a hopped-up street car is the same as a professional race car.

All the Best!

Dave
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Vimeo is different, as we're (at least some of us here) not judging the footage with vimeo compression, but are rather downloading the clip that was uploaded, often at a very high data rate. Combine that with having done the same with the AF100's competitor's, and knowing the ability of some of the filmmakers (Bloom, for example), and, yes, in fact, I think you can start to get an idea of what a camera is capable of.
 
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