Upcoming hands-on comparison of F3, FS100 and AF100 from Philip Bloom

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

1/1000th may be OK when there's no movement, but shutter speed does begin to show on faster than 1/120th on movement.

Sure, sure... I know all this - I highlighted a couple of extremities just to make a point.

A very valid point, IMHO.

[Alister Chapman]

If you look at my FS100 video you will see the way the motion of the flying birds is affected by the use of the shutter at 1/250th. It's not a good look. But it's only in the shots where birds fly through the scene that you notice the fast shutter speed. It's going to depend on what you are shooting as to how much of an issue shutter speed will be.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

That's exactly what I meant when saying:

"depending on the material subject and destination, you can open up the iris and control the exposure by speeding up the shutter" :)

Piotr

PS. One more important and surprising (to me at least) observation: David's video proves that even at F16 (or close to that - don't remember the exact value), considerable control over DOF is still possible on this camera!

[Brian Drysdale]

For its physical size and cost it does give very nice looking images of N.Y.

My old Arri light weight 3" x 3" matte box might fit on a lot of those stills lenses with suitable adapter rings.

[Mark David Williams]

Piotr

Good luck with your purchase! I watched the video but I'm still not sold.

The fact it can see clearer in the dark than the AF101 and the moire issues which I could still see on the buildings in leitners film.Is NOT enough to sway me.

Some of leitners footage seemed over saturated and in some instances had people with orange faces does not make me believe this is anymore filmic than any other camera. The fact you can shoot at f11 f16 without defraction is good because you don't have NDs but then I wouldn't use this camera closed like this and anyway a camera with ND filters it's not a problem in fact you can shoot at f22 f32 using filters. I would use the EX1 especially for wide shots where detail capture and moire are issues with the FS100.

It's an 8 bit camera with no NDs. Noise level of -48dbs and probably significant noise reduction added. I also felt the DSLR comparison of fine detail looked soft like the image was blurred. I'd like to see some more tests and not so much an advert that leaves out sometimes critical flaws.

Mark

[Brian Drysdale]

Possibly the best thing is to test a FS100 camera when it comes out, looking at stuff on the internet, with all sorts of compression, isn't the same as doing your own tests.

[Mark David Williams]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

PS. One more important and surprising (to me at least) observation: David's video proves that even at F16 (or close to that - don't remember the exact value), considerable control over DOF is still possible on this camera!

Piotr how can you have considerable control over DoF Surely everythings going to be PRETTY much in focus at f16? Unless you have a really really long lens?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

I have no time now to watch the video again, but I remember a fragment with a guy leaning over a balustrade... he was in focus, everything closer and further away - not. The aperture was certainly over F10; yes the lens was probably "long".

I guess this is the magic of the sensor size - and this is why I said this video is an eye opener!

[Mark David Williams]

I guess using a long lens at f16 is convenient if you had a lessor chip you'd have to put an ND filter on to achieve it. However if I had a shot like that I'd probably not worry to much about putting an ND filter on.

OR in the panny's case turning the ND button. Not really an eye opener or that important I wouldn't have thought? I would still prefer the Panny because I have the four stage ND filter giving me a lot more control for little extra work?

Mark

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Mark, I'm afraid you still aren't getting my point.

If I say "eye opener" is because for somebody used to shoot with small sensor cameras like our EX1, shooting at F16 and still getting relatively shallow DOF has been unthinkable, hasn't it?

Piotr

[Mark David Williams]

Hi Piotr

Well yes but then thats cos the sensor is bigger and so expected on any big sensor camera! Sorry I may have been confused as I thought you were saying it as an advantage to just the FS100. When any camera even ours could put the background out of focus at f16 with a long enough lens!

Mark

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

shooting at F16 and still getting relatively shallow DOF has been unthinkable, hasn't it?

I think the whole DSLR revolution has made us think about glass like photographers do.

I've spent too long using all the tricks to keep an EX lens in its sweet spot somewhere above f4 and below f8, wishing I could be more flexible.

The merest fraction of Juan's presentation provoked an 'aha' moment: with film, we've been filling the shadows so the silver halide doesn't run out. In digital video, we're absolutely OBSESSED with the way highlights are handled - knee or cinegamma? And I've seen too much spilled milk over sharpening (in-camera or post?) and picture profiles (flat or 'look'?).

We want the lens choice and latitude of photography married to audio and motion of cinema without the electronically induced 'budget plastic' of image processing done badly, preferably at pocket money prices. Charts help, but pretty pictures - the sizzle rather than the sausage - is what earns us money. Has anyone else got to the point that some of these numbers are rather close to train spotting? :-)

OTOH, AF101 highlights on foreheads have scared me every time I see one at a trade show. FS100 stuff looks gorgeous, but how much of that is lens and lighting? F3 stuff, when I played with it, was 'effortless' and frighteningly clean, but recent examples seem oversaturated.

Each one of us has to take each camera we desire, and then play with it. Examine the footage. Make no assumptions. Analyse one's workflow. Haven't we learned from EX picture profiles that colour matrixes should not be reported as our cameras are all different? What portion of our PPs are 'spectacles' and which parts are 'shades'?

Less of the numbers, more of the images - the moving ones, not selective screen grabs. Our paying clients don't buy lists of condiments, they don't even buy sausages, they're just attracted by the smell. That's how DSLRs got so popular.

[Steve Mullen]

1) David and I are good friends, but any shutter speed above 1/125th with rapid motion will strobe terribly on a VIDEO camera. In fact, the shutter speed often needs to be reduced to 1/40th second. (Broadcast Engineering is about to publish an eBook of mine that explains the difference between FILM and VIDEO shutter speeds. They are not the same!) Without this fundamental engineering understanding, all talk about shutter speeds is really not useful.

2) A 1/2" chip is good to f/8. A big chip can go to f/16. But, one is encountering diffraction before the aperture is fully closed or open. Use these tiny apertures at your own risk.

3) All this talk totally misses the point. Yes, you can run a VG10 or FS100 without an ND filter by using a way too high shutter-speed with a way too small aperture. But the whole point of a big chip camcorder is to get a shallow DOF! To do this you simply have to cut bright sunlight down so an f/2.8 or f/4 aperture.

A shallow DOF is not simply a "filmic" esthetic. It is crucial to minimize "background" strobing when panning with a moving subject which one does to prevent "foreground" strobing. This is Cinema 101. (And, way too many folks posting do not understand film photography and so they think if the camera dial can be set to something it must be going to look OK.)

And, just to make things more complicated, as Larry Thorpe (of CineAlta fame) lectured me (nicely), visible strobing is a function of VIEWING brightness. So all this talk about cameras is still missing ANY discussion of of the viewing situation. That is why THX is not a marketing gimmick. If your viewing situation doesn't meet either SMPTE or THX requirements -- you simply are posting almost nothing of value.

<< Apple just hired the founder of THX. >>

That is why these damned internet posts of video are a waste of time. Very few of us have calibrated 709 spec laptops or monitors. Those who view via their home HDTV not only have likely not had it ISF calibrated, but the monitor is likely too small to meet either SMPTE or THX viewing angle requirements.

Size, as spelled-out in the SMPTE and THX specs is crucial because unless the screen size is REALLY big, at typical viewing angles, you likely can NOT see differences in resolution.

Worse, for interlace video, the deinterlacer in your monitor itself determines whether your flat-panel monitor shows 330 or 650 or 1080 lines of VERTICAL resolution. I'd bet none of the posters has actually measured vertical resolution using a test DVD.

That's why when I lived in NYC, camera comparisons were made in screening rooms. We went TO DuArt. Nobody in their right mind would make visual comparisons based upon home or even post-house viewing. (It's amazing how many post houses fail to calibrate their monitors using instruments.)

[Phil Bloom]

please do not over analyse everything. of course that is what is going to happen i am not naive but my test when it is finished editing later tonight is much more about the cameras themselves than pixel peeping.

2 similar cameras and two very different cameras. Hard to do them all justice

[Jon Braeley]

Looking forward to the tests Phil. Your impressions of the FS-100 particularly.

Hopefully you can post soon! Cheers.