On the back of the official AF100 firmware update (available here at Panasonic), it appears unofficial high bit rates and 1080/60p are coming to the AF100 in the form of a Vitaliy Kiselev hack.
When asked of the hack was doable, Vitaliy replied “definitely”.
Read moreVitaliy Kiselev begins work on Panasonic AF100 hack
Above: notice zoom rocker switch on camera body
Sony’s F3 is here, a competitor to the Panasonic AF100 in all but price.
The F3 is the reason for the lack of 24p in the NEX-VG10 and Sony’s DSLRs, the F3 is aimed squarely at the film, TV, broadcast and video industry in competition with Arri and RED and features a new Exmor Super35 CMOS. They have saved all the good stuff for this but it comes at a significant price – $28,000 with lenses and $20,000 without. 4 times more than the AF100.
Read moreSony F3 – Who would have thought film industry dogma would be worth so much money?
[vimeo]15765280[/vimeo]
This footage is recorded by Crews.TV from the AF100’s live HD-SDI output to 100Mbit AVC Intra.
UPDATE – full HD version now available [url]http://www.vimeo.com/15826664
It appears Panasonic have done a superb job. This footage is only Vimeo 720p and the camera isn’t representative of the final build, but it’s totally free from the kind of flakiness we’ve been used to with DSLRs. This image shows no sign of aliasing. As a result it looks smooth, detailed and rock-solid. Another benefit of no aliasing is no moire. Fine details have no false colour.
Read moreFirst Panasonic AF100 sample footage goes live – rock solid!
Very detailed information of the AF100’s full capabilities have been presented in public by Panasonic by Jan Crittenden Livingston.
Panasonic’s AF100 is a brilliantly specced machine, which has lead some people to believe that such dedicated professional video cameras mean the end of DSLR filmmaking. Panasonic themselves have now said that they believe the opposite.
Read morePanasonic “AF100 is not a DSLR killer”, more details released by Jan Crittenden Livingston
It now seems possible Panasonic have been responding to the excitement caused by the Panasonic GH1 custom firmware over the past few days. But in a quite subtle manner.
I’ve rounded up some juicy quotes from Panasonic’s broadcast / pro division product manager which you may find interesting.
“This camera (the AF100) delivers an uncompressed HD output, if you want to by pass the AVCCAM codec, you may”
That’s good news to say the least. This means you can record uncompressed RAW 1080p on Nanoflash via HD-SDI. The biggest gains in HDSLR video is not going to be from incremental sensor improvements, but by a huge leap in image processing. How about aliasing? Does it line skip?
