Panasonic AG-AF100 4/3" HD Camera
 

No one else has seemed to have put this up on dvinfo yet so I thought I'd give you the info.

Panasonic USA Pressroom

Panasonic AG-AF100 4/3" HD Camera
 

Panasonic announced today at NAB that they will deliver a large sensor video camera using 4/3" MOS full raster sensor recording in AVCHD via SD cards by the end of the year.

Finally, an alternative to VDSLR cameras, albeit with a low end codec. Only an illustration of the camera was shown, so final form factor is probably a ways off, but at least it will have proper audio, monitoring, 12 hr. record time with 2)64Gb cards, any HD format in 60 and 50hz.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video

AG-AF100 announcement
 

Thanks for posting this. Let's hope it is at least under glass at NAB!

Thanks for the hot news Jeff. We can always count on your to be up on the new stuff. Very interesting concept and I think a lot of people will be salivating over a camera like this. I have to say that the little cheap GH1 did a decent job in the Zacuto DSLR shootout, the contrast and resolution were really nice although the codec bites it in the rear as far as overall quality.

Makes me wonder if Panasonic is going to really split off P2 to only the HPX370 and higher level cameras, it does seem like Panasonic is really aiming toward the low and medium end with AVCHD and SD cards. It will be really interesting to see if this will be the successor to the HPX170/HVX200A or if it will supplement those type cameras in Panasonic's lineup.

Cheers,

Dan Brockett

two critical things I want to know is if the sensor is low resolution - 2 k - thus we can get some awesome low light. if it's 14mpx then down rezzed..yucko.

also does the HDMI or SDI give us more resolution than the codec can handle - 4k?

This is huge! It now looks as if Panasonic will beat Canon, Nikon and RED to the market with what everyone else has been wanting, a small, light, inexpensive camera with all of the features that videographers and cinematographers need with a large sensor that can take an established line of high quality, removable lenses that are not tied to a single manufacturer.

2010, while horrible for the business, is turning out to be a technological watershed year.

Dan

Wow, available by the end of 2010 is pretty far away. This is a shot across the bow announcement . There will be quite a lot of water to pass under the bridge by the end of the year.

This news is huge. Lest just hope it will be fully available in US when it's released.

This should stir things up quite a bit. It looks interesting. I wonder what price point Panasonic has in mind?

I knew about this camera in January--obviously Panasonic is leveraging their consumer electronics divisions to keep the price point down. Rumors are a $6K price point, don't know how reliable that is, but sounds reasonable. Let's see what Scarlet has to offer--obviously a better codec.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video

This camera reminds me of an HMC-150 with a larger sensor/DOF characteristic.

Should be wildly popular if they price it correctly.

I do not know much about the m4/3rds format and normal 35mm lenses. A nice wide to medium tele lens hard mounted would probably work for most situations and would allow for OIS and maybe some focus things.

A lot can happen in the market before December arives. With Sony's announcement of the same type of camera shows the manufacturers are hot to mark some territory even if these are paper/design stage announcements.

I knew Panasonic would be the first to make an announcement like this. Even if they don't ship first they're always good at pushing new tech out.

Any idea what this is going to cost? Is this aimed at the Scarlet market or the Canon EOS market for filmmaking? I am excited about this product!

-- Jan Crittenden, Panasonic Product Manager

So they take the Panasonic GH1 sensor, add video processing chips, audio inputs, a video body, most likely proper Auto Focus and a whole lot of other stuff to it, ask a nice price for it and bam... our dream camera. I hope Canon has an answer to this.

They are going to make a 1080p image from a 12MP sensor. I am excited to learn how successful they are in working around the disadvantages of current VDSLR cameras. If they can fix most of them, this is going to be one hell of a camera.

Interesting announcement, but over on another forum they pointed out that if it's the GH-1 sensor then it's more than likely still doing line skipping to read fast enough for video.

Still, it's the first major player to give us a non-DSLR form factor camera with interchangeable lenses and a large sensor.

Don't forget this is a pure videocamera.

A lot of problems VDSLR's have are because they also need to be good photocamera's. And if you improve one aspect, you weaken the other.

Anyway, I am very eager to learn more about this camera.

It may be a pure video camera but is the sensor a purpose built video sensor? Not if what Jan said about it being the same as the GH1 is accurate. I'd love to be wrong.

Even if it's line skipping, that's okay as long as they use an appropriate optical low pass filter. If they develop a dedicated sensor, that's even better as it will capture more light.

A new sensor design in a year or two is almost a given at this point now that they've finally gone down this road.

I'm curious as to why they'd release this from the consumer division? Is there possibly a 'pro' version coming in the near future?

I really cant wait to see a Canon competitor to this.

Also I did find some photos of this camera from the press conference but I cant remember the site I saw them on. In terms of size its only a bit bigger than an SLR.

I can't see panasonic line skipping in a dedicated video camera like this.

i'm not convinced the GH1 line skips either, it doesn't suffer from the same level of artefacts that the canons do. It does suffer from a OLPF for stills which can obviously be fixed. Like the Panasonic LX3 - that doesn't seem to line skip either (i have one of those).

Much more likely that the sensor would be supersampled down to 1080, which could provide a very sensitive noise free image.

It's a question of how fast can the sensor be read and to speed up read times the sensor is split into parallel taps. Perhaps what they mean by dedicated video electronics if they've increased the number of taps to the sensor.

It will be interesting to see what sony does with their APS-C mirror-less cams that do 1080p too - whether they are line skipping or not. And in fact whether their next Alpha dSLR would do video like that too. I'm holding off a 7D/550D until i find what they're doing. Although my trusty old Canon is beginning to show it's age, so i hope they hurry up!

cheers
paul

The GH1 points the way and shows the compromises that having a big chip entails. If you want a 10x zoom (and I reckon that's the bare minimum if you want to shift any movie cameras at all) then either it's huge and heavy or compact and slow.

Take the GH1's 10x zoom. It's a nice range (28mm to 280 mm equiv) but it's a gloomy f/4 to f/5.8. The low light gathering has been hugely scarpered at a stroke, and if you're after shallow dof at full tele then f/6 (near as) puts the kibosh on that one.

Let's hope the forthcoming camcorder will have a quiet zoom motor, OIS and inbuilt NDs. I'd accept 82mm filters if I could gain a stop or two.

tom.

@ Ethan
 

I believe that this is from the pro division.

Being micro 4/3 there's an adapter for the use of original 4/3 lenses.
Olympus do a couple of 4/3 f/2 zoom lens, a 14-35 and 35-100. Then there's the Sigma f/2.8 zooms.
Pretty quick as zooms go.

I don't think a 10x zoom is that important for movie making.
Most of the productions I've worked on use prime lenses for 95% of the shots, since they tend to be a stop or 2 faster than the zooms we have available to us.

I just got the PDF link from panasonic:http://www.panasonic-broadcast.com/c...c_AG-AF101.pdf

This sounds awesome...

A 4/3" chip in a prosumer-style form factor (I'm assuming) which I can use my 35mm lenses in would be a godsend for me. Wonder how much it will cost though...

ah, I figured if it was from the pro division it would have been P2 with Intra. That's what I get for guessing. I'm assuming they went SD with AVCHD to keep the cost down?

Coming from the company that championed pixel offset HD chips, I can.

I would think they will carry forward with the exisitng chips for the consumer/prosumer model (this one here) and design a dedicated chip for the pro model(s) with AVC-Intra. Obviously just a guess on my part.

This sounds very interesting and it was just a matter of time. I'm surprised Canon wasn't the first. But if any competition from Canon is coming it is probably not in the near horizon as they just announced a new camera.

But although this is interesting, having used a GH1 I'm not really impressed with it's sensor or it's codec. This seems to be the same sensor and codec, so essentially it's just a GH1 in a more video friendly body, which means it will have most if not all the GH1 image quality problems. Nonetheless props to Panasonic for this move.

This camera is aimed at the VDSLR's. Price point is rumored to be $6K. If Panasonic had gone P2, the cost would have been $2K more plus P2 cards. This camera will have much less aliasing than VDSLR's, supposedly. It will have Panasonic colorimetry, proper image control via menus, proper monitoring, proper audio. micro 4/3" mount means the ability to use any 35mm lens.

When it comes to video cameras, no matter the sensor size, I know who I would choose between Canon and Panasonic.

Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video

This? http://cdn.gizmologia.com/files/2010...15-640x480.jpg

Another pic:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ag-af100_2.jpg

Panasonic-Camcorder AG-3DA1 und AG-AF100:

YouTube - Panasonic-Camcorder AG-3DA1 und AG-AF100

The camera mockup is under glass here at NAB, I've included an iPhone picture, I'm sure we'll have more later today or tomorrow. The guy handing out information said it was scheduled for December, the sensor hasn't been decided yet (may be same generation as GH1, may be newer) and the price would be around $6k for the body. He said it would take photos in addition to video.

I did a shoot last week using my HPX170 as an A camera and my 5D MKII as my B camera. The shoot came out pretty good, the color correction and filters are rendering in the BG as I type this. The thought of a camera that would essentially be like melting my two cameras together seems pretty cool to me. The cost is good, the codec is decent, although I would easily pay $2k more for the ability to use my P2 cards with AVC INTRA on this camera, but the AVCHD codec is good enough for a lot of what I do.

It looks as if Panasonic took careful notes about what Canon and RED have been up to and have decided to be first to market with what everyone wants, a video camera with video camera features but with a large sensor and removable lenses. Brilliant. I do feel shades of the DVX100 and the HVX200 with this unit, there will be a HUGE buzz about up until it is released and well after.

For those of you who do not know it though, the crop factor of the 4/3 sensor is 2.0 so your nice 24mm wide angle that you are shooting on your 5D MKII will become a 48mm on this camera. That is the only limitation with this camera that is apparent now, if you are a wide angle freak, you may become a bit frustrated with the 4/3 format. There aren't a lot of 6mm FF lenses on the market.

Nice move Jan and Co, I think you are once again going to be the hottest thing on the market for a while.

Dan

Awsome!!!
 

This is a game changer. It is in response to RED and Canon. We have been waiting a long time for this to come. I am quite happy with my 7D, BUT! They seem to solving some of the greatest problems with HDSLR's including their own GH-1. Audio, ailising, but what about rolling shutter? Great job Panasonic. There are some great 4/3's lenses. The f2's from Olympus. Pl mount from Hot Rod Cameras. And about every SLR mount adapter in the world.

One question? Does it shoot stills? I want one camera that does both. I have it now with the 7D, BUT the video portion is not as good as the still side.

Alan

Does this mean it will take Nikon or Canon lenses?

Equipped with an interchangeable lens
mount, the AF101 can use an array of low-cost, widely-available still camera lenses as well as film-
style lenses with fixed focal lengths and primes.


How will they do that - will you be able to change the mount, or will you have to decide if you want a Nikon mount or a Canon mount?

They most-likely meant that it'll be just like the GH1 in which it can take almost any lens with an adapter.

4/3 works great with just about any still lens on the market with the right Ebay $15.00 adapter.

I agree with Barry Green. PLEASE PANASONIC DO NOT LET THIS CAMERA HAVE ANY STILL PHOTO CAPABILITY!!! Any still features will compromise the motion features. When you can buy a GH1 or GH2 or a T2I/550D for under $700.00, why on earth would you want to compromise the motion capabilities with still functions? Still functions = compromised motion abilities.

Dan

No still photo capabilities, just a straight up video camera. This is just a wooden mock-up but I think that you get what Panasonic is after. You wanted a GH1 made for video and you got it.

I'm working on a video blog for tomorrow. So I'll post again soon.