Above: Ichiro Kitao, product planner for Panasonic Lumix. Panasonic did a fantastic job on the GH1’s hardware, and it’s software is an impeccable creation, with really easy to use functionality. Now Tester13’s software PTools allows us to change a limited set of variables in the GH1’s firmware. It doesn’t recode anything complicated, create any new functionality or restructure anything. It’s simply doing this:
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Robert McLachlan ASC,CSC is a leading director of photography, whom’s work includes The Golden Compass, the Final Destination franchise and network TV show Human Target – www.fox.com/humantarget – on which he used the Panasonic GH1 HDSLR. I’m really pleased to bring you part 2 of my interview with Rob where we talk Human Target, Hollywood, HDSLR cameras and cinema.
1. Economies of scale 40 million Canon SLR format cameras have been sold since 1987 and half of those after 2003. In 2010 digital photography is a huge market, much larger than niche Red found in the comparatively small indie filmmaking and professional production markets.
Above: Could Micro 4/3rds be shrunk even further, to catch the ultra slim NEX series from Sony? Those with a keen eye for rumours which usually turn out right, will have noticed Panasonic’s mid-term management report on 43rumors.com recently. In it, they say their aim for the interchangeable lens camera division is to make a super thin, super high image quality camera.
Every wondered how the Sony Alpha series delivers a live view image from a very small sensor in the viewfinder housing without cropping, mimicking the field of view of the main CMOS, while enabling super fast phase detect AF at the same time? (Deep breath). Well, it seems Panasonic did wonder this, and plan to bring such innovations to a range of lenses previously not fully compatible with mirror-less bodies.…
Amazingly the rumours were right once again, and somebody from NAB leaked the AF100 to 43rumors a day before the press release was due. The implications here are enormous.
With the announcement of the AF100, Panasonic have got a jump on the professional video departments of other manufacturers, notably Sony and Canon. They also have a relationship with Leica. Today I received news that new Micro 4/3rds cine lenses similar to the Summilux C range (housing by Band Pro, optical formulas by Leica) are going to form an integral part of the AF100 package.
(In the pic above, the 14-140mm lens seems to have some kind of adapter on the front of it – what is it?) Here are some to start it off. I’ll be seeking to ask Panasonic and to get some answers! The first interchangeable lens Micro 4/3rds camcorder is due to be released later this year and of course this is great news – so good to see Panasonic making…