Camera size no longer important?

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Steven Davis

Hey Roger,

That's what we are, unobtrusive. We've been called invisible. We get the shots we need. The photographers in our area are the obtrusive ones.. lol.

Perhaps guests in your neck of the woods are desensitive to the colour black. :)

Great camera you have there... for corporate work. I think I'd rather mine be a tad smaller for Weddings.

[David Peterson]

Originally Posted by Steve Burkett

Problem for Photographers is the number of Guests who perhaps have an interest in Photography and the money to buy great gear. Okay we know that its more how you use the gear that matters, but if some guests start judging the Photographers camera, or feel its inferior to their own setup, its not always creating the right impression. Would be like a guest turning up with a C100 at a Wedding and frowning at my GH4.

Which is funny because the GH4 is a better camera than the C100! ;-)

[Chris Harding]

Hi David

I have yet to see a wedding guest sport anything better than a palmcorder with a flip out LCD screen and hold it in one hand to film the speeches from a back table. However plenty of people have quite fancy DSLR's and I remember one guest that had a huge Canon tele lens that he struggled to hold and also seemed to find no space to put it down when he was done! It certainly dwarfed the photogs Nikons so that's probably more of an issue than video!

I expected comments from people when I moved from a shoulder mount Sony to my Panasonics (which actually have a slightly bigger body than the GH4 so would appear significantly larger than a GH4 with a pancake lens!! However no-one has said a word and I've used them at 4 weddings now ...if they did I don't care anyway as the IQ blows the Sony's away so they are keepers!!

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by David Peterson

Which is funny because the GH4 is a better camera than the C100! ;-)

As a GH4 user, you won't hear any argument from me on this, but I must admit for my Corporate jobs the GH4 can be limiting. I'm hoping the GH4r will help as the recording limit is the main stumbling block why I can't use it for Corporate.

[Matthias Claflin]

Originally Posted by David Peterson

Which is funny because the GH4 is a better camera than the C100! ;-)

Oh I hope this was a joke...

[Steve Burkett]

Originally Posted by Matthias Claflin

Oh I hope this was a joke...

My GH4 is definitely better than my af101a. Image quality is miles better, but ease of use too, which is odd for a larger proper video camera. No touch screen is a real minus, plus despite all these buttons, I can only assign 3 ISO values to the gain switch. Obviously this can be customised in the menu, but compared to the gh4 where I can press the ISO button and scroll through the entire range very quickly, its quite limiting. White balance is also restricted by the 3 toggle switch and no kelvin values to be found. Now I think the C100 knocks the spots of the af101a, but some of my critisms apply. Lack of touch screen for instance. With the GH4r out, I plan to sell my AF101a and put the money into buying a couple of them. For me small is beautiful. :)

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

Plus 1 for me too!!

My Sony EA-50's were twice the size (if not more) than my Pannys and the image quality is 10 times as good! I could manage 3200 ISO on the Sony yet on a camera 1/4 of the price I can shoot at 6400ISO .. and yes the Sony's were the same as well ..3 x ISO presets only ..on the FZ's I can scroll on the thumb wheel to whatever I need instantly!!!

Bigger and more money doesn't always mean better!!

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Steve Burkett

My GH4 is definitely better than my af101a. Image quality is miles better, but ease of use too, which is odd for a larger proper video camera. No touch screen is a real minus, plus despite all these buttons, I can only assign 3 ISO values to the gain switch. Obviously this can be customised in the menu, but compared to the gh4 where I can press the ISO button and scroll through the entire range very quickly, its quite limiting. White balance is also restricted by the 3 toggle switch and no kelvin values to be found. Now I think the C100 knocks the spots of the af101a, but some of my critisms apply. Lack of touch screen for instance. With the GH4r out, I plan to sell my AF101a and put the money into buying a couple of them. For me small is beautiful. :)

The AF101 was the most disappointing camera I have ever owned. The image was OK but ergonomics were the thing that really put me off using it. I ordered when the AF101 was announced but here was a long delay before the cameras actually shipped by which time I had also bought a GH2 which delivered slightly better quality video for a fraction of the price. OK the ergonomics of the GH2 weren't wonderful either as it was so small & fiddly but it wasn't a great awkward lump with awkward controls.

[Matthias Claflin]

Originally Posted by Steve Burkett

My GH4 is definitely better than my af101a. Image quality is miles better, but ease of use too, which is odd for a larger proper video camera. No touch screen is a real minus, plus despite all these buttons, I can only assign 3 ISO values to the gain switch. Obviously this can be customised in the menu, but compared to the gh4 where I can press the ISO button and scroll through the entire range very quickly, its quite limiting. White balance is also restricted by the 3 toggle switch and no kelvin values to be found. Now I think the C100 knocks the spots of the af101a, but some of my critisms apply. Lack of touch screen for instance. With the GH4r out, I plan to sell my AF101a and put the money into buying a couple of them. For me small is beautiful. :)

Ah I see. I shot exclusively with the GH4 and C100 when I rented them both a couple months back. I typically shoot with Canon DSLRs but someone told me the GH4 (especially in 4k) was something I must try, so I rented them both for 10 days and 4 events. First, the C100 has built in ND filters, which if you care about the shutter speed (and many do not, which is fine), is a big plus. It does significantly better in low light (I found that I didn't need to add any light at the reception for the C100 but I had to with the GH4). The C100 does have Kelvin white balance. It has a lots of ISO options of course. It does not have a touch screen, which didn't matter to me because I used the viewfinder extensively while shooting with it (as a 3rd point of contact for hand held shots). I don't like the weight of the C100, but it does have proper XLR inputs and much better preamps than what I've seen in any DSLR. I found that I actually preferred the HD footage from the C100 over the 4k footage of the GH4 (when being viewed on my 1080 monitor). This may have had something to do with the compression of the codec, or maybe it's just how the GH4 is. I assume it'd be fantastic if you had an external recorder to record that 10bit 4:2:2 4k. All that being said, the C100 is WAY overpriced and weighs a lot more than a GH4, but I do plan on picking one up used if it comes down in price significantly over the next few months.

Bottom line, if bang for your buck is your goal, the GH4 smokes the C100, but when it comes to features, and price doesn't matter, I'd take a C100 everyday.

[Steve Burkett]

Unlike the Canons, I find that great footage from the GH4 requires work and comittement to it. It took me several months of experimentation to find settings I liked and low light of any quality relies on a good range of lenses. The lack of internal ND is a negative but resolved with a variable ND that has a bonus in that it can be minutely adjusted whilst filming as you go from light to dark scene, something my af101a and I assume the C100 can't do as the change of ND is quite obvious on screen. I use it a lot.

Touch screen is a bonus in that you can tap something and focus shifts to what you've touched. It works very well and very quickly. As for the lack of xlr inputs, bit of a sore subject for me. I was using my xlr inputs on my af101a on a days filming at Vet School last week. The speaker had a wireless mic I had plugged in but during the shoot, the battery died for no reason at all. It was half way through its cycle, so in hindsight connecting to a zoom recorder would have guaranteed audio throughout and would benefit from not relying on me to be filming to have it recorded. Plus the avchd files have to be imported from the card folders or else there's this small fraction of a second gap between each file, something my GH2 doesn't suffer from and yet the AF101a does. Quite irritating. I hate avchd!!!

All cameras have their pluses and negatives, but its not just bang for the buck that has me choosing the GH4 and I shall be replacing the af101a with the GH4r very soon; but its small size and features wins me over every time.