What made you decide upon the FS100 over the AF100?

B

Budgieboots

Well-known member
Hi everybody, I'm on the verge of upgrading my gear, and I thought I was going to go the AF100 route, but after reading a bit more into the FS100, I am seriously considering changing my mind.
Especially after looking at the low-light capabilities. It looks like you can go out on city streets at night, and get seriously incredible images of a city at night.

That is something I've always wanted to do with my DVX100b, but have never been able to.

Over on the AF100 forum, they say that the FS100's image is a smidge better, is it? Or is it more? What qualities make the FS100's image look more pleasant then the AF100s?

Also, is it really that much of a hassle to shoot during the day with the FS100?
I've seen some people say that they can basically just put on a ND filter on the stock lens for day-time shooting, turn down the ISO and they're set.

Most of my setups are pretty primitive and I usually just roll with a camera and microphone, and at most a softlight.

But please, let me know reasons you went for the FS100 over the AF100.

I'm particularly interested in the image quality. Are there any side by side comparisons of shots at night?
 
bigger sensor means my existing lens set is more appropriate

I would have wanted to buy the nikkor 14-24 with a AF100

Better low light (I guess but have not actually tested the AF)

Banding in the hihglights - defeatable in the FS - the AF ?- I dont know

Smaller in the bag

less DOF with cheap lenses
 
I was within inches of purchasing the FS100. The reason I didn't was because in April a Sony rep Juan Martinez told me to my face that the FS100 will ship late Summer. (end of July/August) I was told end of May by other people. I wanted the FS100 over the AF100 for the low light, better resolution, and the bigger sensor. Was going to swap lenses to sony based lenses. Found a deal on a AF100 when I was planning to purchase the FS100 especially since I was expecting it to ship late. Now since the value on the AF100 has fallen pretty quick I'll just keep it and buy a new cam in the next 2-3yrs instead. I'm happy with it but if I could do it over again I'd go with the FS100.
 
Budgieboots said:
Hi everybody, I'm on the verge of upgrading my gear, and I thought I was going to go the AF100 route, but after reading a bit more into the FS100, I am seriously considering changing my mind.
Especially after looking at the low-light capabilities. It looks like you can go out on city streets at night, and get seriously incredible images of a city at night.

That is something I've always wanted to do with my DVX100b, but have never been able to.

Over on the AF100 forum, they say that the FS100's image is a smidge better, is it? Or is it more? What qualities make the FS100's image look more pleasant then the AF100s?

Also, is it really that much of a hassle to shoot during the day with the FS100?
I've seen some people say that they can basically just put on a ND filter on the stock lens for day-time shooting, turn down the ISO and they're set.

Most of my setups are pretty primitive and I usually just roll with a camera and microphone, and at most a softlight.

But please, let me know reasons you went for the FS100 over the AF100.

I'm particularly interested in the image quality. Are there any side by side comparisons of shots at night?
Click to expand...

Highly recommend the FS100 over AF100. I've shot quite a bit with both now. I'd say the FS100 image quality is more than a smidge better. The AF100 gamma always bothers me, whereas the FS100 in cinematone1 is about as good as I could hope for from a video camera. I shot a music video with the FS100 yesterday and it is amazing to be able to crank up the shutter speed even in low lit interiors without much compromise in noise.
 
The same, a bigger sensor, better low light and a final look that I like VS HD-SDI, ND filters and a lower price... Finally I thought FS100 will be more useful to get a good quality even if I had to expend some money in gadgets or loose some ergonomics...
 
I can't answer that but I do expect that it handles highlights better than AF100. nyvz post above has shot with both and has good valid input. The 2 biggest things the FS100 has going for it is the low noise, great lowlight and a really nice s35 sensor. In the end I'll still shoot with my AF100 and do paid work with it. Just purchased the 12mm 2.0 lens for it. It works for my purposes. I'm with everyone else and highly recommend the FS100. Take Care
 
Thank you all for replying so far. It's looking like it's the ideal camera for me.

There's just 2 other things I was wondering about:

1. Does the FS100 have the ability to do time lapse stuff as well?
2. Does the camera come with a microphone? I was reading it doesn't have a built in internal microphone.
 
Budgieboots said:
please, let me know reasons you went for the FS100 over the AF100
Click to expand...

Specifically, it's the same sort of sized sensor as my Canon DSLR, which I wanted to replace with something that did sync sound, had an LCD view panel that would allow zoomed in focusing ('expanded focus') during shoots, and all the niceties of white set, audio, live histogram and so on.

The AF101 was more of a 'video camera' (sounds funny to say that) and the FS100 would go places it wouldn't go. The AF101's highlight handling troubled me when I saw it at trade shows and on test videos. But mainly, the 1.6 crop factor on my current lenses was the killer for me. I loved the wide end of my Canon DSLR days, and didn't want to buy new glass. Though I am somewhat compromised until the Birger mount comes out.

Daylight shooting is fine - screw-in filters, pop out lens shades and so on. Low-light is legendary, but the kit lens is a black hole when it comes to sucking out light from a scene. Glad I have faster glass.

Image quality is very sexy. Clients notice. My second job with the camera got the client so steamed up it's lead to more work specifically because of its look. I might have got the same out of the AF101, but it would require a rethink of glass - and my stills camera is still doing the sort of slow-shutter timelapse that the EX1s are good at and the FS100 can't do. And besides - it's always good to have a decent stills camera on a shoot! :-)

FS100 definitely seems to be a Marmite camera - love it or hate it. Just down to personal taste.
 
Thanks for all the responses so far.

As a quick question, how usable is the 30dB of gain?

I've seen that test footage of that music video with the singer on the streets of London at night, and it looks like they just lit her face with a little video light while she was in the bus shelter, but everything else was just using ambient light.

Is it easy to make something look that good in a well-lit area of a city at night
 
MattDavis said:
<snip>.... but it would require a rethink of glass - and my stills camera is still doing the sort of slow-shutter timelapse that the EX1s are good at and the FS100 can't do. <snip>
Click to expand...

Matt, can you expand on this a bit? I love my timelapse capabilities with my EX1 but I'm not sure what I'd be giving up if/when I get a FS100.
dave
 
Beating the dead horse here, but...
1. S35 sensor
2. Don't need specialty glass
3. Wide shots on AF100 look like regular video cam
4. Highlights on AF100 not too pleasant
5. Smaller size body allowed me to work with mostly existing parts from my 5D/7D handheld rigs
6. Lowlight performance
7. Accuracy of white balance - AF100 seems to skew magenta and even violet in certain circumstances which I find unsettling
8. Already own the TV Logic 5.6 so converting HDMI to HD-SDI for clients wasn't an issue
9. Has a sister camera in the F3, so if you're in a remote location and need to replace your camera you have two choices for a replacement body. With the AF100 your only real choice is a GH2.
10. Held up better in a 10x blow up test for big screen projection, which makes it a clear winner in the "Digital Cinema" arena as far as I'm concerned.
 
What really got me to go for the FS100 was that I really like that Sony took the chip designed for a $13,000.00 Digital Cinema/Cine Alta line camera, and put it in a more affordable package, where as Panasonic, essentially, took the sensor from a $1000.00 DSLR and repurposed it in a dedicated video camera. I know it is not just that simple, but I think you get the point. The image quality of the FS100 in most of the posted tests showed an edge over the AF100, so that help also. Now that I have shot with the FS100 for a little bit, I love it. The image quality, especially in low light blows my mind.

The 30db setting is pretty amazing. I shot some tests with it in a bar over the weekend and was impressed. It is noisy, but the noise on the FS100 is much easier to handle than say the noise from a Canon HD-DSLR. Whether 30db is "Useable" is really dependent on the parameters of the project it is going to be used for. I shot my project at 15dbs (Which Abel Cine rates as a 3200 ISO) and the images look great. There is perceptible noise, but it is very fine, and not at all unpleasant, for my uses.

I really like the camera. It is the camera I have been wanting for almost 20 years. It is not perfect, but no camera, that I am likely to be able to afford, will ever be perfect.
 
thxdave said:
Matt, can you expand on this a bit? I love my timelapse capabilities with my EX1 but I'm not sure what I'd be giving up if/when I get a FS100.
dave
Click to expand...

Timelapse on the FS100 basically means shooting at 1 frame per second, but you're truly getting a 1 frame per second movie, so you can be shooting for hours without filling up the card.

However, as you know, the EX1 has an interval recorder which enables you to shoot a frame from every second up to 24 hours (in fairly sensible steps). Furthermore, the EX1s have 'EX Slow Shutter' - a sort of 'accumilation' shutter, which combines 16, 32 or 64 separate 'exposures' which are added together to make a super-long exposure. This is NOT on the FS100, but IS on the F3. Funny, that.

So, the FS100 will do your standard 'scudding clouds' shot in a pinch, plus some 'moving queues' crowd walk-ins and somesuch, but it's not the Timelapse Machine that the EX1 is.

Hence the retention of my Canon 550D with a little cheap intervalometer to do those long slow shutter scenes (blurry crowds, slight-streaks on the highway et seq.).
 
I just shot some run-and-gun footage last night at dusk. I came out great (kit lens), even on full auto (a variable ND is a must, however). The AF100 (I own one) would have been a total struggle - I probably would have missed half the shots - and the resultant footage would have been a bit noisier. For more cinematic work the differences are less obvious, IMHO. In that case I think choice is more a matter of taste, you can get a great image from either camera if you take the time to set it up correctly, though I find the picture styles more customizable in the FS100. And although people rave about the larger sensor on the FS100, there's an advantage to the 4/3 sensor some times, like when you want a long telephoto shot and don't have access to a $3000 piece of glass (a $200 Nikon 300mm/f4 gives a great image on the AF100).
 
stevedocmaker said:
although people rave about the larger sensor on the FS100, there's an advantage to the 4/3 sensor some times, like when you want a long telephoto shot
Click to expand...

Telephoto is a bit easier to do than wide, especially at wide apertures, and whilst I don't want to gush, the Samyang 35mm f1.4 is particularly gushworthy. The Tokina is well known in many mounts including PL. The famous Voigtlander f.095 25mm on an AF101 is a 40mm on an FS100 - and equal to, say, f1.2? f1.4? As you reduce the imager size, so the relative equivalent of the f-stop decreases. But there is a point at which you need to call Time Out, where you're pulling focus to keep the eyes in focus as the interviewee breathes.

Look, I was -->.<-- that close to buying an AF101. There are times when I feel I should have (because I'm learning the way of the FS100). Got three emails today about footage I shot a couple of weeks ago on an FS100 - bunch of interviews. People WANT to use them because they look gorgeous. Sorry, it's corproate, can't share for legal reasons. Use and sharing of glass between Canon stills camera, FS100 and some Nikkor glass I have inherited, plus availability of interesting glass on both platforms keeps me wedded to the FS100 - it's all about the glass.
 
Budgieboots said:
Thanks for all the responses so far.

As a quick question, how usable is the 30dB of gain?

I've seen that test footage of that music video with the singer on the streets of London at night, and it looks like they just lit her face with a little video light while she was in the bus shelter, but everything else was just using ambient light.

Is it easy to make something look that good in a well-lit area of a city at night
Click to expand...

Ehh It is not too useable. There is noise, but much less noise than the high end of a DSLR, and I have seen shots with it that look alright.

Let me put it to you this way... I whipped out my FS100 one night and at 3.5 aperture, 1/24th shutter, 24 db gain, and I pointed it up the mountain at the sky and saw a good amount of stars. Yup stars. I have never got a video camera to pick up stars in film mode before and the FS100 did it with ease. That blew my mind.

Everyone has covered why to purchase this camera so I wont repeat it. I almost bought an AF100 too at first but then I realized that there is a reason people were selling practically brand new AF100s for 3700.
 
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