Pro video blog…Produced by Philip Johnston DoP/Editor

This is unreal, during my extra material for my 40min Blu Ray DVD I recorded myself at 18dB, I have never seen a cleaner picture at 18dB in my life it’s jaw dropping. Earlier on this evening I filmed my wife taking the dog round the park in almost darkness and once again the pictures are fantastic considering they were shot at 18dB gain !

Look at the clarity of this bus under natural orange street lighting… I was using a 25mm NOKTON f0.95 and a 50mm Canon f1.2 L glass with a Kipon adapter. I am glad that so many documentary makers are taking this camera onboard as this will become the de-facto for lo-light filming, mark my words.

Here is a shot from BBC Panoramas “Forgotten Heros” shown tonight, the use of Sony’s NightShot looks terrible but if the documentary maker had had an AF101 he could have shot all the evening footage at 18dBs with a 25mm NOKTON f0.95 lens which would have avoided this old-hat low light grotty green NightShot. I do take onboard that this was shot last year and the AF101 has just appeared within the last two weeks.

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Having been working in the video business since 1988 I have amassed a great amount of knowledge of both the kit and production values over the last 30 years.

6 thoughts on “AF101 excels at 18dB

  1. Sorry the BBC will stick to their grotty green and their low brow technology, hell I used that new Canon XF 305 on a network doc a few weeks past, absolute rubbish a news gathering camera at best. Just like their pathetic holiday pay scam it’s one rule for internal BBC production folk and another rule for us freelancers.

    Far from being technological trend setters as they were in the past the BBC now finds itself in the technological backwater behaving in ever more illogical ways still insisting on cameras we documentary makers should be using whilst cutting the programme budgets giving us less money to invest in new gear.

    They want their cake and eat it.

    Great site keep up the good work.

  2. Hmm, I would not have said much on initial thought, but given the BBC criticism on white balance, what went wrong with the white balance on the bus shot above?

  3. I knew someone would come back at me for that very shot, this is not a piece to camera it’s a camcorder being tested in natural Scottish orange street lighting, that’s how it is on the other hand if the BBC had asked me to produce a talking head from that very same spot the person would be WB, correct for skin tones , the background would still be orange.

  4. Ahhh… sodium lighting…. I remember just a few years ago when I used to film weddings for a living (not now of course, I was spending what little income on equipment) there was a local church that had sodium heaters that did amazing things to the bride’s white dress … took ages in post to address (no pun) the problem.

  5. Ok I have used the af-100 and without a doubt, it is clean where there should be high noise levels.

    I also have a lot of experience with night vision equipment, I own a night vision lens myself for military use and let me tell you that 18db does not come close to what a light enhancer can do. Have a look yourself.

    http://www.nightvisioncameras.com/

    That particular shot maybe could have been done at high gain.. but the two are not even in the same league making the comparison is slightly ridiculous.

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