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Panasonic AG AF100 / AF101
  • 141 Replies sorted by
  • @bwhitz - Have you read Barry Green's AF-100 book? Well, I should ask, have you ever shot your own footage or owned/rented/handled an AF-100? I ask about Barry's AF-100 guide as there are many examples how to make things "pop".
    Lastly, I would suggest the skin tones from my example are far more accurate. There's nothing you're going to get with correct reds/greens, etc. like that out of the GH2. Period. No ultra-megabit hack will make the colors right. Just sayin'. Also, BOTH cameras have problems with highlights. The moire is much less from the Af100 from my testing side by side with a GH2 and both equipped with a 14/2.5 lens.

    If you like your GH2 and others like the AF100, that's fine. This isn't a zero-sum game. I just hate to read about people putting down a completely different product to make theirs better. Both are great cameras.
  • The pic I posted is from my GH2...

    If my footage looked like the "FS100 vs AF100" clip... I would consider that a down-grade. Even though, it does look nice and cinematic... more-so the second clip. First clip has a case of "grey-skin"... which ever camera that might be. The first clip needs it's mid-tones lowered a notch...

    And if that first example is more "accurate" then I don't want that. I want what my pic looks like (hyper-real then?)... which is achievable with the GH2 (since it came from there).

    "But make no mistake - the AF100's sensor isn't the same as the GH1/2. It's been designed from the ground up for 1920x1080 and there is no downsampling for any "picture" mode."

    This is actually a bad thing. This makes the tonality, detail, and noise worse. Down-sampling is what is helping the GH2's grain and detail look so filmic. If it was a native 1920x1080p sensor, the detail would look all "digital-ly". There was a good thread about this topic actually. Another report somewhere measured the AF-100 at around 800-lines, and the GH2 at an actual 1000.
  • My understanding is that the AF100 has a 12 megapixel sensor, the next generation beyond the GH1. I think the only case where some form of downsampling is not used is in the GH2's Telecropping mode. The BBC's resolution tests on the AF100 established that while its image sensor does produce high-resolution aliasing artifacts, it is free of the multi-colored moire effects that often plague Canon and Nikon DSLR videos.

    Speculation was that Panasonic's proprietary video downsampling process skips the standard DSLR demosaic algorithm and instead averages photo receptors of the same color to separately produce each pixel's R, G, and B components. That would certainly explain the AF100's immunity to moire...
  • Barry Green is about the last person one should trust with a Panasonic versus ANYTHING shootout. He's a known shill for Panasonic and as Panasonic's profits rise, so do his.
  • Aside from all other thoughts, nice to see brianluce and bwhitz on the same team for a change!
  • @cosimo,
    I'm measuring his every word, waiting for him to slip up...
  • @bwhitz "Even though, it does look nice and cinematic... more-so the second clip. First clip has a case of "grey-skin"... which ever camera that might be. The first clip needs it's mid-tones lowered a notch...

    And if that first example is more "accurate" then I don't want that. I want what my pic looks like (hyper-real then?)... which is achievable with the GH2 (since it came from there). "

    The 2nd clip is from the AF100. :) Goodnight all. :)
  • @Shield

    What's your point? In the "FS100 vs AF100" comparison video the AF-100 looked better? Sure, it looked "cinematic"... as in the framing and lighting but the skin was poorly lit (most likely on purpose) and looked mediocre in both examples. If there was direct lighting (or if they lit the talents at all), I don't think it would have held up as well.

    The point I was trying to make, is not that the AF-100 always looks bad... just that it doesn't have as wide of an exposure range as the GH2 and tends to look more like video in most situations. I also haven't seen anyone achieve that nice "glowing" skin effect like you can with Red, film, and yes... the GH2. It just blows-out before you reach that threshold, and then looks flat when you try to compensate for it.

    "Look, we all want to put one over on "the man" and get the same footage out of a $800 body as a $5k camera"

    But we're getting BETTER footage from the $800 body. That's the point... we're not trying to "stick it to anybody". We're just tired of these manufactures crippling technology that's obviously capable of much more. Aren't you a little upset that a sub $1000 body is capable of 200mb/s video when your "professional" video camera is still at a measly 25mb/s? ...and when they even straight up lied and told us that a 100mb/s codec would cost $10,000 more? Sure, you can shoot great stuff with all these cameras... but it doesn't mean that we should let them take us for a ride while they slow-roll us modern technology over the next 10 years. The only reason they got away with it this long is because there was no competition...

    @cosimo_bullo
    @brianluce

    "Aside from all other thoughts, nice to see brianluce and bwhitz on the same team for a change!"

    Hey, what can I say? My views differ from subject to subject...

    @brianluce
    "Barry Green is about the last person one should trust with a Panasonic versus ANYTHING shootout."

    +1

    This guys JOB is basically to slander and denounce other cameras without making it look obvious...
  • They have just vote a law in France for criminal charges for blog writers because of false advertising, which mean that the blog writers should always disclose his relationship to any manufacturer if they are testing or talking about a product. I think it is a very good law because the bloggers/forum are becoming a scam. Many test or advice are in fact just disguised advertising. The persistence to defend the Af100 on dvxuser is so blatant that I can't see it as without any form of retribution. Oh, yes the poor guy was ill when some test (german mag) showed that the gh2 had better resolution/less moire, yes he would test the two camera as soon as he is well.... where is the test, is he still ill. I really hope the USA and globally those law are voted, because there are a lot of abuse which triggered the french government to put laws to protect the consumers. What I have seen from the AF100 is just the most ugly highlight handling, in the first example above it is always borderline on the skin tone.

    In the Af100-Fs100 one, he puts the camera in its comfort zone, that is lit the scene within the DR of the camera. Test are meant to stress the camera. Yes in such situation, that is if your film is only at night and interior, it is going to look good, everytime you will be able to lit/control the whole scene it is going to be good... but, but, but put some sunshine and contrasty situation in there and see how it looks. The FS100 is no standard to compare to, another mediocre camera, this is a sensor that is capable of 13.5 + stops of DR and Sony just cripples it with also very bad (technicolor) highlight roll-off and 8 bit output.

    My conclusion is that the AF-100 is just a video camera, that is it was designed by the same guys that have been designing those 6-7 stop highly compressed eng camera system. In this world things like DR is only an after thought, things like autofocus is ten times more important in the news event world. So they just used there video background and added a large sensor. While the suppose lower consumer division has to compete against the Canon and Nikon in terms of image quality. The digital photography world has been graced with much better image quality that's its video counterpart. Today a $ 1000 Nikon D7000 has bridged the last gap against film with its 14 stop of DR, and trounces it in every other way.
  • Guys, chill out.
  • If you check out the four-thirds.org site, the AF100 is listed under a new M4/3 "Cine System" section, along with a collection of Zeiss CP.2 and Schneider Cine-Xenar lenses. While a native M4/3 mount can be fitted these lenses, I expect most will be ordered in PL or Nikon mounts along with M4/3 adapters for use on the AF100. These are all manual lenses and the least expensive of the CP.2's is about $4000.

    Panasonic has clearly positioned the AF100 as a lightweight, inexpensive option for filmmakers who want to hook up a videocam to their cinema lenses. It really has very little in common with the GH2 and even less connection to the Lumix Micro 4/3rds lens system. Panasonic's AF100 lens compatibility page promises restricted functionality with only a limited selection of Panasonic and Olympus lenses, and has not been updated with newly tested lenses since the camera was first introduced:

    http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/af100/lens_compatibility.html

    To me, this indicates that Panasonic does not regard the AF100 as a step up from the GH2, but as a budget-friendly alternative to the "DSLR video revolution" (i.e. Canon).
  • Thanks @qwerty123 ...my sentiments exactly. I happen to like Barry. There's no need for name calling. But...I find it very difficult to disagree with what most of you guys have to say. I too have always felt that Barry is as bit biased with Pana products.... But that's just my opinion. I've seen that sample video of AF100 vs FS100 from the day he posted it. To me it was obvious which camera was which. An like danyyyel suggested the camera was shot in its comfort zone.

    @danyyyel ha ha...I too am waiting for that test. It was very strange when he got sick right when the controversy broke out...and yet...still no test. As a matter of fact one of his quick responses really bothered me. When it was shown that the GH-2's resolution was better than the AF100 he responded with a comparison of the AF's HDMI out vs GH-2's codec as if to say..."well there...hmmpf." LOL (I really do sometimes laugh because I think he's a very smart guy but.....). What also bothers me is his insisting on stating that one couldn't reliably work with AF100 and GH-2's together because you can't get accurate colors out of the GH-2. Why is it that there are so many people working with higher end cameras along with the GH-2's (and achieving great results) yet there is a perceived problem using the GH-2 with its big brother? There are always workarounds. But I guess that's the difference between professional equipment vs consumer.....you just have a lot less compromises with professional gear (or at least should). I don't know.

    Anyways...to each his own I guess. In the end we all have to make our OWN decisions when it comes to using OUR gear.
  • @bwhitz - So what do you think of these skin tones?



  • To all - I am not surprised that you would bash the AF-100 on a site based on hacking the GH2. I love the GH2 and owned two of them - I just like all the bells and whistles on the Af-100. Both are great cameras.
  • @Shield

    Looks like video.

    One of my friends here next to me said "student film".

    The "quality" is good though... but it's not cinematic. It also "moves" like a soap-opera. That's why I'm such a fan of low-GOP motion. Long-GOP, to me, looks the same as interlaced video did.

    And yea, they both are great cameras... but one is significantly less great because of product tiering and marketing BS.
  • If I win a prize and I must choose either AF100 or GH2, guess what I would choose.
  • @bwhitz Just get what she's having. Make yourself happy.
  • I don't get the reference... ???
  • Dude, if Shield's clip is what "looks like video", then I'll have what she's having!
  • Does this look like video?
    Still 3.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 1M
  • @bwhitz - Can you post video samples that you like?
  • @LPowell

    But it does... do you guys really not see it? It's not operator error, or an insult or anything... it just doesn't look like film. No filmic motion, no filmic contrast. Like I said, I asked one of my friends earlier who was sitting here earlier (who knows nothing about cinematography) what he thought and he said "student film" right away.

    It's not even the lighting... they must have been using a weird shutter angle or something... maybe 30fps with a 1/30 shutter?

    @Shield "Can you post video samples that you like?"

    Sure... here's the first clip I did with the GH2


    See how the motion is different? And the contrast? You can thank the hackers for that!

    And here's a clip that was actually shot on the AF-100 that I love... content wise, and for it's cinematic look.



    I think they used an external recorder going to an I-frame codec and Ziess CP's.. so maybe it's just the Panny lenses that people use with the AF-100 that I'm thinking are so video-ilke. I'd love to see a Lumix vs. (Ziess, Canon, Nikon) lens test.