What other mft video cameras are out there?

R

Rod Pike

Well-known member
I have had my AF102 for a while now and don't plan on changing it yet. However, I have a good set of MFT lenses so what else is out there for professional use other than blackmagic or DSLR type form factors that would take MFT lenses?
 
Yeah I'm looking forward to seeing the new JVC M43 cam, could be my upgrade path from the AF101 next year
 
The JVC certainly looks like the logical successor to the AF100 we've all been asking for... Of course it remains to be seen what the image is like, but the follks at JVC aren't chumps, and have obviously been paying attention to the forums.

There's been some grousing on the interweb about JVC chosing the MFT mount, but if their cropping works as advertised, a 4K option internally on high end cards, and 422 H.264 on Sandisk Extreme Pro cards is very temptingv - especially since I've got four Sandisks, and a bunch of MFT, Canon EF and PL S16 lenses that I can chose to use for different type projects. Price is right too...
 
Thanks guys, it looks as though the JVC could wear the new MFT crown. However I am currently viewing some industrial stuff that I shot today on my AF102 and really wonder if there could be any improvement on what I am looking at. Get exposure right on this camera and it turns in a pretty good result! (OK, get it wrong and it will bite your ass big time!) I am never going to be producing for the silver screen, most of my customers usually view the industrial training stuff on a 40-50"HDTV via a USB stick, which the AF102 is capable of managing very nicely, so I may continue painting with this brush for a while yet!
Cheers!
Rod
 
I loved the AF100 and am still impressed with the image when I look back at the films I shot with it - my one real issue was, and still is, chroma clipping. I like to shoot into sources, like windows or hot ambience, it's been my "style" for 40 years - I don't care if they blow out, they usually did in 16mm - but the weird yellow and purple colors from the AF100 are unacceptable, and take too much time to correct in post.

I'm waiting to see how the JVC handles highlights - it's more important to me than dynamic range or speed options. I shoot with two Pocket Cameras now, but really miss a pro camera with user buttons and dials and NDs. I do wish the JVC recorded ProRes instead of H.264, but I guess the Apple licensing is an issue.
 
Mac said:
I loved the AF100 and am still impressed with the image when I look back at the films I shot with it - my one real issue was, and still is, chroma clipping. I like to shoot into sources, like windows or hot ambience, it's been my "style" for 40 years - I don't care if they blow out, they usually did in 16mm - but the weird yellow and purple colors from the AF100 are unacceptable, and take too much time to correct in post.
Click to expand...
The trick to avoiding chroma clipping: don't use a highlight knee in your scene file. The AF100's knee circuitry is brutal and simplistic, and the kink it puts in the gamma curve produces non-linear responses in the individual R, G, and B channels. Highlight color shift is pretty much guaranteed.

The other way to get chromatic highlights is to overexpose just one of the channels, typically the red channel in tungsten light and often the blue channel in daylight. The waveform meter won't always show this since it's plotting the Y channel.
 
FYI - This (highlight clipping) is not only a problem with the AF100 - my previous Panasonic camera, an HPX500, had the same issue. And sometimes you're just stuck because of the circumstances.

For one example, in 1998 I shot a long interview with the commander of a violent crimes task force while he was driving his cruiser. The route took us through a coastal town and the background changed radically from forest to sea coast and back again. I couldn't dial down the exposure much, because I needed to see his facial expressions as he talked about sexual predators. The colors in the background were a cacophony of yellows and purples. I was able to color mask most of it, but is was a pain. And yes, I had adjusted the gamma on the 500.

No other cameras I've used before or since the HPX500 and AF100 exhibit this problem. It's the one thing I check now before purchasing a new one. My puny little Pocket Cameras, one of which I got for only $500 on sale, don't have this at all (I paid nearly $30,000 for the HPX500 with lens, finder anf batteries).
 
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