Two New Quick Video Tests of the Panasonic AF100 Pre-Production Camera

[Guy McLoughlin]

UnGraded Car Footage from Italy

Philip Bloom Smokes in the Dark at 3200 ISO

*** Make sure to watch in full-screen mode with image scaling turned OFF, or log-in to Vimeo and download the 1080P MP4 files

[Jad Meouchy]

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. I don't know if it's the in-camera gamma curve or what, but the skin tones are off, the highlights are jacked, and the shadow detail is foggy.

[Guy McLoughlin]

Originally Posted by Jad Meouchy

Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. I don't know if it's the in-camera gamma curve or what, but the skin tones are off, the highlights are jacked, and the shadow detail is foggy.

...I'm guessing that you are referring to the Philip Bloom test, which considering it is being shot at 3200 ISO, isn't that bad.

Yes, I think given more time and a finished production camera to work with, the footage might look better with proper color-balance, gamma-adjustment, and perhaps dynamic-range-stretch enabled.

[Jad Meouchy]

Originally Posted by Guy McLoughlin

...I'm guessing that you are referring to the Philip Bloom test, which considering it is being shot at 3200 ISO, isn't that bad.

Actually I'm referring to the car shots! The Phil Bloom shot was decent, though remember that it's an f1.1 lens.. YMMV

[Guy McLoughlin]

Originally Posted by Jad Meouchy

Actually I'm referring to the car shots! The Phil Bloom shot was decent, though remember that it's an f1.1 lens.. YMMV

Lens speed won't change the image characteristics when shooting at 3200 ISO, so he could have been shooting at f 4.0 and it would obviously be dimmer, but the color and noise would be the same.

As far as the car shoot, I am not seeing what you mentioned in your previous post. I downloaded the 180+ MB 1080P version and the AF100 footage looked great in my editor. Good color, clean hilights, a tiny little bit of aliasing on curved shapes, virtually no moire, and very little rolling-shutter skew.

The 5DMKII footage had blown-out hilights, crushed blacks, with a little bit of "jello-cam" mixed in. I don't know the camera settings, but the AF100 shot footage that would be next to impossible to do with any DSLR right now.

[Adrian Frearson]

I thought the car footage looked good, especially the shots in the water spray. Watching it a second time around, I also thought the 5D held up pretty well too.
I don't know if the images this will produce, will be any huge improvement over a hacked GH1, but certainly the control and convenience it will offer will be a huge bonus in a real working environment.

[Simon Denny]

Footage looks great and this is the start of a great change about to happen I feel. Man, only a few years ago the Sony Z1 was the new thing and now look at how far things have changed. Price and quality is now in the hands of the average person. Now get out there and shoot.
Cheers

[Guy McLoughlin]

Originally Posted by Adrian Frearson

I thought the car footage looked good, especially the shots in the water spray.

White car in bright full on sunlight, and you can still see detail in the car's shadow. This what I thought was impressive. The camera certainly has good dynamic range considering it's price range. ( I wonder how much Dynamic Range Stretch would have helped that shot? I've read that DRS is not enabled in the pre-production camera menu right now )

Originally Posted by Adrian Frearson

I also thought the 5D held up pretty well too.

The 5D footage did not look optimized as the hilights were blowing out, the blacks were crushed, and the skin-tone color balance looked kind of "orangey" to my eye. I am sure that it's possible to get better results out of both cameras, but the AF100 footage looked pretty amazing for a pre-production camera.

[Dylan Couper]

I'm not a Phil Bloom fanboy by any means, but props to him for giving us something to show the AF100 in a bad light (literaly) instead of the typical "look at teh awesome!" footage that most reviewers show. The low light footage looks, well, not great... but good for this camera, and more than good enough for me (unless I finially get funding for that feature I want to shoot by matchlight).

[Jad Meouchy]

Originally Posted by Dylan Couper

...props to him for giving us something to show the AF100 in a bad light (literaly) instead of the typical "look at teh awesome!" footage that most reviewers show.

Yes I can definitely agree with that. f1.1 or not, this is definitely a shot that pushes the limits of the camera.

[Tom Bostick]

i honestly thought it was even blown out a bit when his face turned that bright yellow

[Jim Ross]

Oh that footage is so superior to my HPX170. Gotta get one of those! Love the smoking shot. Lit with just a match? Fantastic!