a Sony FS-100

Here's something impressive I saw at CineGear.  I also saw this Sony FS-100.  That chip is the same one as the F3, which is 40% larger than the chip on the Panasonic AF-100.

Is the picture quality as good as the F3?  In a word, no.  But the 100 is $6000 and the F3 $16,000 and the picture difference isn't worth $10,000 grand.

But they did dumb down the FS100 to get you to spend the extra money.  The F3 is 10 bit, the 100 is 8 bit.  The F3 has HDSDI for outboard recording and the 100 only has HDMI.  As an operator, my biggest pet peeve is the 100 doesn't have behind the lens ND filters.  But strangely, the 100 records full 1080 at 60 frames where the F3 can only record slo-mo at 720 lines.

The F3 also has a zoom rocker switch and the 100 doesn't, although the 100 has the e-mount which allows for both auto-focus and auto-iris.  Birger Engineering also showed their  follow focus/lens control which fits between the lens and the camera body which allows yout to control focus and iris thru the lens' electronics  I bet this ends up as an iphone app before long.

Here's an AF100 Overview by Able Cine and a bunch of good stuff at Cinema 5D.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ol3Lx2gvo0&feature=related

http://www.cinema5d.com/news/?category_name=fs100

http://www.birger.com/