Barry…I’m posting this from the show floor at IBC, where the first working prototypes of the AF100 are being shown to the public. I’ve had the luxury of working with the pre-production AF101, which is the European model of the AF100. Same basic camera, because all of them are NTSC/PAL switchable.

This prototype isn’t finished yet, so I can’t say some things definitively, but I can say this – I’m done with shooting on DSLRs. This thing is the bomb.

It is basically everything that I was expecting/hoping it to be, and more. I mean, I was expecting an HPX170 with DSLR-style shallow DOF, and yeah, that’s it. What I wasn’t expecting was variable frame rates up to 1080/60p. I was hoping for things like 2.35:1 frame markings in the viewfinder, and yeah, it’s got it. I was expecting things like zebras, waveform monitor, vectorscope, uncompressed audio, XLRs, line/mic/phantom power controls, manual audio, pre-record, interval recording, and everything else that the HPX170 does, and it has pretty much all of that (I didn’t see time-stamp for legal video, but … seriously, this isn’t a legal videography camcorder! Although, it could be, I guess).

I wasn’t expecting simultaneous HDMI and HD-SDI output, that’s really pretty awesome. You can use a cheap HDMI monitor, and use the HD-SDI to record to a NanoFlash or KiPro or whatever, simultaneously. Cool.

I was expecting timecode. I wasn’t expecting the ability to sync timecode through LTC (like the HMC150 has) so you can easily sync to timecode slates, to external sound recorders, or to other camcorders in a multi-camera shoot.

I was hoping for (well, demanding really, but it amounts to “hoping for”) a high-def LCD, and yes, that’s what it has. High-def LCD and high-def viewfinder. But what I wasn’t expecting is that they said that in the final model, the LCD will actually be better than the one on the HPX370. That’s really good news!

I was hoping to be able to remove the top handle, and you can. I wasn’t expecting to be able to remove the side handgrip, but you can – which lets you strip the unit down to a fairly small box, and also reveals three 1/4-20 mounting holes on the side, which I can just imagine people will be using to attach all sorts of accessories, Red-style. Now that I’ve seen those two items come off, I really wanted them to make the viewfinder/XLR pod removable, so you could strip it down to a totally svelte box, but that’s not possible. I have asked them to consider this for a future version, as that’d be really cool.

I was pretty happy to be setting the sensitivity by ISO instead of by gain levels. But you can do both, at least in this prototype.

As for images – well, imagine a fully-hacked, fully-improved GH13 with better sensitivity and without the aliasing or low-light banding, and that’s a good start. It crushes the 7D/5D for clarity and detail, and I shot brick buildings at every possible zoom setting, and there just isn’t any rainbow moire. Finally! You can do a wide-angle, deep-focus shot without any fear of the camcorder ruining the shot! And your talent can wear corduroy, or fine-striped shirts, without turning into a huge purple/orange smear! But I can’t really comment too much on the imagery, because it’s not done yet – by their estimates, it’s only at about 70% of completion, and they expect to be able to improve it and make it even better by release time. Which is really promising, because while it’s not perfect, already it’s better than what people are going to be comparing it to.

I put on my Zeiss ZF 85mm and 50mm, also used a hyper-sharp Olympus 14-35, and at the booth they have a Zeiss Compact Prime 35mm. And, I used the GH1′s 14-140 and I even mounted on the GH1′s compact pancake 20mm lens, which looked preposterously tiny on such a big body, but really it was pretty darn cool. The 14-140 makes the AF100 into basically a complete video camera, the autofocus is smooth and nice, the zoom is manual but not too shabby, and the range is great (even if the minimum f-stop isn’t). With my 85mm and 50mm (both f/1.4) super-extremely-shallow DOF was extremely easy to achieve.

Now, keep in mind that everything is subject to change. They might add more features, or they might take some away. It’s a pre-production prototype so it’s very early, and (to borrow a line from Red) “everything is subject to change.”

Skew? Hugely improved. Didn’t get to do a comparison test, but the 24p skew of the AF101 felt like it was at least as good as the HPX370/EX1.

I am sooo not disappointed. They have built pretty much exactly what I was hoping for. There are things I’d like to see added before it’s released, obviously, and no we didn’t get some of the wild things we were hoping for (like a new 50-megabit 4:2:2 AVC codec) but what we did get is pretty much exactly what we needed – better-than-DSLR imagery in a professional, proper video body, with all the conveniences and features that pro video shooters are used to.

Price will be £4000.

HDW…Barry has been the first “outsider” to my knowledge to actually film with the AG-AF101 and by all accounts this camcorder will indeed be a winner with DPs who have for technical reasons not joined the growing band of DSLR users.

This is a great step forward for professional cinematography and if you want one of the first AG AF101s then get your orders in NOW…This will fly off the shelves in December.

Barry also told me that in about 6 weeks that takes us to end of October, there will be an adapter for Canon lenses that don’t have the older manual iris ring. This will allow auto/manual iris via the camera and auto/manual focus.

Now while I think it is great that media has been acknowledged by the colleges and universities, there is a big, big, BIG problem afoot within the industries. I get a lot of emails from students asking me about how to get started in camerawork etc so I know that such people read this site a lot.

The industry is being destroyed. Literally. It is being eaten from within by a gigantic maggot that won’t stop eating until every last morsel has been devoured.

Recently I was told of someone in broadcast whose day rate had been slashed from £300 a day to £80 a day. Now for many media students the idea that someone who does camerawork can get paid between £300 and £600 a day is very enticing. A lot of people think it is a way to become rich. Still others, the ones who are causing the present destruction of the industry think that they can be clever and start charging far less, or doing the work for free.

Let me tell you guys about the £500 average day rate. You might not work every day of the week. Hell on a slow month it might be your only days work! Not sounding so bloody great now is it? Even if you worked most days of the week, that money still has to account for a pot that contains business expenses such as insurance, electricity bills, phone bills etc. It also has to account for any new equipment that is needed. As well as this it has to account for days when you aren’t working, unpaid time basically.

When all the maths are done £500 a day is roughly what you need to keep your business running and to be comfortable. NOT rich. Please also take into account that camerawork is a very highly skilled profession. With that in mind it isn’t a huge amount of money at all. Many camera guys these days are barely breaking even.

This problem is made far, far worse by the sheer number of media students leaving university and being quite willing to work for free or for very low rates just to get their foot in the door. The trouble is this. The employers know that there is a constant stream of shmucks every year who will work for bread and water. Think you have a future in the industry? Think again. You’ve just helped to destroy your own career. Next year there will be more students coming out of Uni who will be hired instead of you because they, like you in the year before, will be willing to work for nothing.

When mainstream broadcast television sinks to the level of offering a budget for four hour long documentary programmes of £2,225 each, there is one hell of a serious problem. Possibly an irreversible one.

The dilution of budgets and advertisers across so many television channels hasn’t helped matters. But low ballers have made an already bad issue a lot worse. You aren’t being clever by offering really low rates. You are killing your own prospects for the future.

HDW : I came against this problem years ago when I filmed in the lucrative quality end of the wedding video market place, the cheap-skaters as I called them, the one’s too frightened to up their prices so they produced quantity rather than quality.

Joe Public don’t care how much your camcorder cost as long as you give them pictures and sound so this ethic snakes it’s way along the wedding video marketplace giving the lower end a bad name and crap prices… £80 for one days filming and one days poor editing. You get what you pay for.

I was charging £900 for our basic package seven years ago when many of my so called competitors were charging £250 for a heap of junk. I dispare that we have HDSLRs filming weddings today not because they produce lesser pictures but more the fact that it’s an open door for anyone with such a basic piece of equipment to pretend they are professional and charge for their work !

The broadcasters will always chance their arms, budgets have been slashed and so have their commissioning power but if I were told to produce four one hour long documentaries for £2,225 each I would tell them to stick their budget up their jacksie and bad mouth them on the internet…only by whistle-blowing on these cowboy broadcasters will sense finally prevail or will it…remember the hard up media student would be only to glad to earn £8,900 to see his/her work on telly and add the experience to his/her CV !

Simon you are giving sound advice but sadly those of us who have worked up the ranks are a minority to the masses of students looking for jobs and work experience, they have spent at least 3 years being kidded by their college or university that this will lead to a job at the end of it knowing all to well that less than 5% per year stand a chance of getting work in the so called “media industry”. They have also started courses on HDSLRs… for what ?…because it’s fashionable not because it’s anything like practical.

In fact there’s a great documentary… someone should follow 10 media students from 10 parts of the UK for 4 years and see who gets a job at the end of their course in mainstream broadcasting !

You can catch Simon here at : http://www.simonwyndham.co.uk