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NAB Show 2012
https://www.panasonic.com/promos/nab/2012/
Is this all that Panasonic is announcing this year or is there still more to be expected? There were a lot of rumors around a Super35 camera or at least a larger scale update to the AF100 besides a firmware update.
Also, what will the microP2 cards be used for? Future cameras to come or will they work in the AVC cameras because of the form factor? If they don’t work in the AVC cameras like the AF100, it seems like a strange announcement if there are no cameras being announced that will use the format natively. Leads me to think there must be something more…
Don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining… I’ve been eyeing the AF100 for a long time now and while I have several P2 products, I would love to have the costs come down/format change/ backwards compatibility. But was hoping to see where Panasonic was going to position themselves in light of the new cameras that hit the market this past year.
Happy NAB to all!
Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of William and Mary -
4 Replies
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I don’t know what happened over at Panasonic. Their products had been center stage for all our work (rentals) since 2004-5, and then in the last year or two have fallen to the way-side. These days are all about 35mm sensor cameras. Panasonic brought a mini 4/3″ sensor to the game and no decent lenses are designed for it (35mm lenses are wasted). The AF-100 was an “entry level” camera that quickly was eclipsed with Pro products from Sony, Red, and now Canon and others. In 2 years Panasonic cameras have gone from about 75% of our rentals to about 5% or less.
Gotta bring products to the market that people want to use… its very easy to see whats going on and what the market is spending new money on, and Panasonic isn’t building them…. go figure!
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman) -
I agree with Erich. Panasonic was a disappointment at NAB. The P2 version of the AF100 was canceled. No S35 sensor cameras. No large sensor Varicam.
Our HPX2700 and HPX250 are doing well, the latter is always busy and I look forward to the HPX255, which adds paint box control to the 250, but it’s $1000 more plus paint box and doesn’t come out until the fall.
AF100 rentals have slowed down.The AF100 and HPX250 firmware updates are nice, but not a big deal. Things are moving very quickly in the digital cinema area and Panasonic is not keeping up.
Jeff Regan
Shooting Star Video
http://www.ssv.com -
I could not agree more with both of you. Quite frankly, the 4K Varicam is too little too late at this point and will probably be too expensive as well. It’s nice that someday it will exist, but it needed to be ready, and shipping by August. That, or a real update to the AF100.
I was planning on making the jump to an AF100 successor. I was waiting for a long time. Now it looks like I will be pre-ordering the Blackmagic Cinema Camera. I know how to shoot with Super16 (and even that is a HUGE step up from my 1/3 HPX170) so I see very little downside to that camera. I expect that there will be several people like me doing the same thing.
I’m very disappointed as I wanted to stay with Panasonic. I like the look and feel that I get with their cameras. I like them as a company, certainly more than Sony. And I feel like when they do release a product it’s well thought out and not rushed. And sure, the 4K Varicam will probably be great when it eventually hits, but by then people will have moved on. The FS700 makes up for the faults of the rushed-to-market FS100, and adds 4K capability. The Blackmagic Cinema Camera fills the gap in the lower price points and brings features and quality beating cameras four times its price.
Panasonic needed a home run this year and after letting the AF100 and what could have been a great AF series just fizzle out, it looks like little more than a pop fly.
Panasonic HPX170 P
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 8GB RAM
AJA IoXT
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5, Final Cut Pro Studio 3, Avid Media Composer 3.5.4
The College of William and Mary -
All True.
Things move so fast now and with development time required a company needs to look to where they think we will be in 2 years, and hit the ball ahead of the curve somehow. Sony has done very well the last 3-4 years, Canon now has a C-300 hit (after 5d craze), Arri Alexa a major success, and Red is just a head of everybody hands down (Red is driving the technology much faster then most companies would prefer to move). Panasonic needs to have a hit soon or else I’m afraid their cameras will be mostly just for news gathering (which might be all they are interested in now, or so it seems).
Erich Roland
http://www.dc-camera.com
HD camera rentals, Washington DC
(and Cameraman)
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