AF100 presentation in Boston
 

I just got back from a intro demo of the AF100, in Boston at RULE.

It was one of the most attended presentations they have had, there were many more people there than seats, but RULE set up additional viewing rooms and relayed video live video feed to them. The interest in this camera is huge here in the North East.

Jan Crittenden did the presentation, she is the project manager for the Panasonic AF100 team.

Here are some of my notes from the presentation.

It is not meant to be a shoulder cam out of the box. It really is the kind of camera that will be on sticks, dollies, stedicams etc most of the time.

It is not for ENG.

Panasonic states in the PowerPoint presentation.
The market is:
Indi film makers
Production companies
Documentary film makers
Film Schools
She also mentioned Wedding market as probably being big.
I think I got that right, they said newsrooms will not be buying this cam.

They also state it is not a DSLR killer, different market. $1,000.00 cams available.
It is not a competitor with the F3. Different market. $20K. This is not a Varicam class camera.

It is exactly what I have been hoping for. An XDcam/P2 class inexpensive SDOF VIDEO camera. Emphasis on Video. In my mind it replaces the 7D, not the 5DmkII (still the SDOF champ). It is a modular cam really waiting for you to turn it into what you need. With huge selection of cheap to expensive lenses.

The codec looks very good. Though I will personally shoot with a NanoFlash most of the time.

There was some footage shown I had not seen before shot in Germany, it looked very good shot with the 14-140 Pany lens I believe. It looked much better than Philip Blooms blown out high lights. Jan stated that PB was not familiar with PANASONIC Cinegamma, he used cinegamma D and if you do you should under expose 1/2 stop, and adjust in post.

The scopes in the viewfinder and camera LCD are small but seem easy to read. This is still a pre production version so I don't know how they will look in the final version. One thing is they only show up on the camera not on the HD-SDI or HDMI out. HDMI and SDI are both on at the same time. And you can jam TC, but there is no genlock.

Jenny, Jans nickname for this camera one of 3 currently on tour here in the US is still a pre-production model so she could not really state the dynamic range yet. They are still writing the manual.

Jan says the cam will ship in mid December, 18th on, nice xmas present perhaps. RULE had taken 12 pre orders before the presentation, and the sales staff seemed real busy afterwards.

The camera is in my mind very rugged looking and only weighs 2 1/2 lbs. It looks exactly like what it is. A workhorse for the low to midrange (my subjective view) market outlined in the presentation. 3 year warranty is nice too.

The base is rugged with both 3/8 and 1/4 threaded holes, the design team had to fight for this. This is great because this is one camera that will use rails matteboxes etc a lot of the time.

Very impressive and good looking, I am glad I have ordered mine.

RULE will be posting the video they shot of the presentation on Vimeo. I will post a link when it is up.

Thanks for your summary. 2011 will have some great choices.

Here is a link to the German video we saw in BOS.

Very nice footage.

If you could go back in time, show this video and tell everybody this was made with a $5,000 camera body folks would be doing back flips. And they are today as well.

It is going to be hard not to buy one of these.

Corrections
 

I was wrong and I have corrected my post.

1. It was CineGamma D not V in the Bloom footage. I have not shot either with Panys since the DVX100, so I am a little rusty on their naming conventions.

2. The lens in the "German Footage" was shot with the 14-140 Pany. There was also some footage of kids carving a pumpkin, and that was with the Zeiss I believe.

Thank you for pointing this out Jan.

I should have taken notes rather than trust my old organic storage unit.

Thanks Olof for all the updated info. From what I remember the 14-140 Pany lens is IS correct?

Yup. 14-140 has OIS on/off switch on the barrell.

Sounds like a great lens for the price.