Panasonic AG-AF100 4/3'' Sensor AVCCAM

Abstract

The Panasonic AG-AF100 4/3" Sensor AVCCAM is reviewed.

When I was first contacted about reviewing the Panasonic AG-AF100, I wasn't sure if I was willing to do it. I'd heard some positive and some negative things about the camera and had a pretty busy summer work season. Then I got to thinking: Many videographers- myself included- want the DSLR look with a traditional video camera-type body. So I reconsidered and took on the task.

My idea for the review was to approach it from the standpoint of a videographer who has been using traditional video cameras (i.e., not DSLRs) and is ready to move up to the higher-end look of a large-frame sensor. I wanted to test the camera by just taking it out of the box and shooting with it, like many videographers do with their cameras. Some techies like me will dig into a camera and learn all the nuances of it before using it, but there are plenty of shooters that just grab a camera and go shoot. I wanted to review it from their perspective. I'm not going to go into detail on all the possible scene selections and other intimate details of the camera. If you're a Panasonic user who's worked with the HMC150 or the HVX200, those aspects should be familiar to you, as they're very similar if not the same as other Panasonic cameras.

AF100 BASICS

The AF100 is a handheld AVCCAM model with a 4/3'' MOS image sensor. This means it has only a single large image sensor instead of three smaller ones, like many traditional video cameras, and it is designed to provide a wide field of view, depth of field, and low-light sensitivity comparable to DSLRs such as the Canon 5D Mark ? or Panasonic's own Lumix GH2. The AF100 also allows shooters to work with different lenses, as with DSLRs, although working with Canon EF lenses requires an adapter such as the Birger, which wasn't available at press time. The review unit I got shipped with a 14-140mm /4.0-5.8 kit lens (Panasonic sells the camera with this lens or in a body-only configuration). This lens is capable on the zoom range but is really, really slow for the low-light settings event videographers will encounter. Since this is the lens most videographers who are transitioning from traditional video cameras will get with the AF100 and will stick with- at least until they're ready to make the substantial investment that additional lenses will requireI dove in and put it to work as I would a regular camera.

There are few things to note about the camera's ergonomics. First, if you are a user, or past user, of the Panasonic DVX series of cameras, you will be comfortable with the layout and functionality of the buttons, switches, and dials. Everything is very similar. A colleague assisted me on one job I did with the AF100, and because he was a former DVXlOO owner, I left it to him to set up my audio via XLRs. He looked at it and immediately knew how to configure and adjust everything. He was more at home with the AF100 than I was, as most of my recent work has been on the Canon Al series of cameras. I did find myself constantly reaching for the zoom rocker, which didn't exist because it's all lens-based now- the zoom is a ring on the lens, as is the focus.

AF100 IN ACTION

I filmed two events with this camera: One was a corporate presentation for an agricultural company and the other was a wedding. Filming a presentation as a single-camera event means you sometimes need to zoom and pan at the same time. Getting a smooth zoom push/pull is next to impossible without a zoom rocker controlling the lens. The lens zoom was smooth, but getting it to push or pull a zoom while filming is not easily done. We never conquered that challenge. After a few tries, we just found a nice zoom level and left it there for the entire presentation.

If you're a shooter who does a push/pull zoom as a regular part of your shooting, you'll either need to use the AF100 with a different lens or try a different camera. My colleague tried to pull zoom a few times in an outdoor demo, and when I viewed the footage, I realized that none of those sections were going to be usable.

Another quirk I found in the ergonomics was that the record button was on the right side at the top of the camera, where a tape door would be in a tape-based camera. I'm used to having the record button behind my thumb because it's been that way on every camera I've ever used. There is a big flat spot for your thumb to rest on in the place where I'd expect to find the record button; why the button is not placed there is mystery to me. The location of the record button further complicated my use of the camera because it made it hard to reach at times with my smaller hands. This just seemed poorly thought out from the start.

I found this camera surprisingly heavy considering there are no internal moving parts as on a tape-based camera. The HMC150 is a bigger camera with a permanent lens, and it weighs much less. The AFlOO weighs almost as much as my Canon Al. The lens isn't that heavy; the weight comes from the body of the camera.

After a day of using the AF100 at the corporate job, at which we also filmed some outdoor breakout sessions, my colleague and I agreed that the camera is good for corporate work but not for the $4,500 (body-only) that Panasonic is asking for the camera. Add to that the kit lens (which isn't that great) for another $800, and you have a fairly pricey camera. My colleague mentioned that he has a new Panasonic Lumix GH2 (see Niels Puttemans' review at http://bit.ly/edv-gh2), and with the same lens, he can do almost as much for a lot less money. I mentioned that you could mount a BeachTek-type XLR adapter on a GH2 and have pretty much the same-quality camera, if you didn't need a few video -specific features that are available only on the AF100. You could purchase three GH2s with kit lenses for the same price and have much more flexibility. Though I'm not sure the AF100 is likely to make a major impact on the wedding video or small-scale corporate video market at this price (the company would have to bring it down to $3,000 with lens to do so, in my estimation), it's worth noting that the camera does have HD-SDI output built-in, which is a key feature for certain types of events, and it certainly qualifies the camera to scale higher in the market. But unless you are doing live events and using SDI out for hooking to a mixer, then you're unlikely to need that option. Canon has sold SDI and genlockequipped and non-SDI/genlock versions of its prosumer cameras for years (the latest examples are the XF105/100 and the XF305/300). The non-SDI/genlock versions are significantly less expensive and are their main sellers. Maybe if Panasonic would develop a non-SDI version of the AF100, the price would land somewhere in that $2,500-$3,000 sweet spot that would make it viable for our market. I know most wedding and event shooters don't need SDI. SDI is predominantly a broadcast option for which this market has little need.

PERFORMANCE

So how did the AF100 perform in our in-the-field tests? At our corporate event, it did a good job, and the workflow from SD card to editing was great; it was a simple cleanup -and-dump -to -DVD kind of job. I loved that workflow since I am still tape-based for the most part. The camera worked well, the Focus Assist options worked well, and, when needed, the autofocus proved very capable. This shoot was a daytime, outdoor event held in a tent, so lighting was never an issue, and we could leave the camera gain levels on the lowest settings. This meant the slow kit lens didn't pose any problems on this event.

Two days later I used the camera for a wedding, and the slow lens then became an issue. We attended the rehearsal, so I had a little time to start experimenting with some of the AF100's features in a wedding setting. Since I don't do zoom push/pulls in my wedding work, the lack of a zoom rocker was not a problem. That said, going in I was thinking that the AF100 would not be very usable because of the slow lens. But I ended up shooting with it the entire day. My chief concern was the gain setting. I had to boost the gain up to 18 db to get a usable image from the camera because of the slow lens and a church that wasn't lit extremely well. Even though I was at 18 db gain, the footage looked as good as my Al shooting at 6 db gain.

At the reception I was able to go to the 1/30 shutter to get extra light, and it worked better than my Als do at 6 db and 1/30. The Al will be better at 12 db gain and 1/30, but the grain in the image is significantly greater on the Al at those settings. The footage from the AF100 at the reception seemed pretty clean in the spots where exposure was good, but the darker areas of the image showed noticeable grain from the high gain settings.

My biggest concern is why I should have to run a camera such as the AF100 at such a high gain setting when it has such a big sensor and costs as much as it does. The T2i I use for some of my footage with a f air piece of glass at 2.8 works fine in these low-lit situations for much less money. The Canon 5D is even better. The reception hall we were shooting in was especially dark, and had I been shooting with the Al at anything except full wide, I would have had to bump the gain to 12 db to get decent exposure levels.

The footage from the AF100, even at 18 db gain, is noticeably better than the Al from the reception. The image of the bride and groom with the microphone shows a frame grab from the AF100 at the ceremony running 18 db gain and 1/60 shutter speed. The figure of the bride and groom's first dance shows a frame grab at 1/30 shutter rate.

Dealing with the ergonomics of the camera in a runand-gun wedding setting had its challenging moments as well. The unusually placed record button became a challenge many times. There were many occasions where I knelt down and cradled the camera to get a low shot of something, and locating the record button was a challenge. I had to start the recording function and then set up in my kneeling position and cradle the camera. I kept reaching for the handy record button on top of the handle in those situations as well, only to discover there are no camera controls or record button built into the handle.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

Overall, I enjoyed working with the camera out in the field more than I expected after my initial impressions of it. It can produce nice, D SLR -like images rather easily. Of course, if you have faster lenses, you can get those types of images more easily and dramatically. I have some vintage lenses I use for my T2i, but I didn't have access to a generic adapter to try them on the AFlOO. This would have helped with the low-light issue, but it would have eliminated any electronic control of the lenses.

Birger Engineering, Inc. (www.birger.com) has plans for a mount for the AF100 that will allow full-feature control of the EF series of Canon lenses, so if you have an arsenal of Canon glass already on hand, then you will be able to use it with the AF100 when the Birger mount becomes available. Of course, the adapter for Canon glass will cost another $700 MSRP, thus raising the cost of the setup even more. The adapter has been delayed a few times, and its release date was unknown at press time.

Even though the idea of a camcorder that can deliver DSLR image quality has great appeal to me, overall, for the work I do- predominantly weddings- I don't see the AF100 as an ideal investment at its current price. If the price were in the $2,500-$3,500 range (perhaps for a nonSDI model, which could presumably be manufactured more cheaply), I might consider it when upgrade time comes around, even with ergonomics that would take some getting used to. There are definitely professionals in other market segments who will love this camera, but the wedding industry is probably not likely to embrace the form factor when DSLR rigs can be obtained for less money and can achieve comparable (or better) results.