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The Panasonic AF100 Book by Barry Green

Panasonic’s AG-AF100 (AF101 in Europe) is proving a huge success. With it’s large micro 4/3rd sensor, interchangeable lenses, progressive scan; all of which add up to as close to a 35mm motion picture film look as you can get at this price.

But, there is confusion, lots of confusion and lots of questions about this camcorder. Which lenses, fast lenses, F-stops, which adaptor, field-of-view, depth-of-field, the list goes on. People have certainly being emailing me with questions relating to all the above. One gentleman at a recent event at Pinewood Studios on the outskirts of London asked me if his Super16mm film lenses would fit the AG-AF101. As the micro 4/3rd sensor is larger than that of a Super16mm film-frame (AG-AF101 sensor size is 17.8x10, whereas Super16mm frame is only 12.4x7 at a normal 16:9 ratio), Super16mm lenses would suffer from cropping/vignette effects, unless telephoto and stopped down somewhat. Hmmm, see what I mean.

These are just some of the questions being asked, there are many more too.

Enter Barry Greens new book, neatly titled ‘The AF100 Book’. Barry’s superb 257-page book is packed with pretty much everything you will ever need to know about your new AG-AF101. It answers all the above questions and more.

Barry Green is in a perfect position to have written this book. He is an Emmy award-winning producer with four Emmy nominations for writing and producing TV commercials. He has immense technical expertise and a working background to back it up. Barry is also a partner and moderator for www.dvxuser.com

In his new book on the AG-AF101, he covers every menu setting and option that the camera has, guiding you through which settings to chose and use to gain certain ‘looks’. There is a section on achieving the least noise in your video images, where he explains what certain menu settings such as: Detail Level, Detail Coring, Chroma Level, Master Pedestal, Gamma, Knee, Matrix, Skin Tone DTL etc have on the image and how changing the parameters of any/some/all of these have an effect on the amount of noise in the darks, mids and highlights of an image.

The AG-AF101 is relatively inexpensive (about £3,500 UK), and because of this, a lot of beginners, newbies and regular amateurs will be able to afford the camera. Of course, some semi-professionals and professionals will also be interested in this camera for certain applications. But it is the former who are going to need help; many of whom won’t have even heard of Detail Coring, let alone what it actually does. Barry not only explains what these settings do, but he explains (in most cases) what to set them to for optimum results. But Barry is not patronising to newbies in his book, yet he doesn’t speak in a language that is baby-like to professionals; he strikes a good balance of explain the technical in a non-technical way that everybody can understand and get their heads around easily.

It is an easy read and by the time you get to the end of it, your brain won’t feel like it is about to explode. You can simply read the sections that you want to know about. Want to know about Tapeless Workflow, read the Tapeless Workflow chapter. Want to know about Depth-of-field, read the Depth-of-field chapter. Want to about shooting modes and which is best for you, read the… you get the picture.

Barry also covers all the controls, knobs, buttons on the camcorder too and explains in a ‘nicer’ language what they do and how they work than the included instruction book does.

A/V IN/Out Setup, Audio/Video Output Settings are all covered in abundance. So to are Display Setup Settings 

with every option covered and explained in superb detail.

Lots of stuff relating to solid-state workflows, meta-data, clip-naming etc are covered in more than enough detail if you are new to tapeless.

The book also comes with a CD with lots of sample screen grabs for you to view in their native RGB format, as the images in the book are CMYK converted and very small; too small to see any real detail. The CD images allow you to compare all the various Cine and Gamma settings so you can choose settings that are to your personal taste. Barry has also very kindly put together some custom scene files for you to move from the CD onto an SD/HC card and put into your AG-AF100, he explains very clearly how to do this.

The book is of the ring-bound type, so no broken book spines and it is easy to keep open at a relevant page.

If you own a Panasonic AG-AF100 (AG-AF101 Europe), or are thinking of buying one, you should definitely buy this book. It does cost £62.95 (no VAT on books, nice!) from our very own DVuser Online Shop (see Online Shop for details), which might seem expensive. But this is not a mass-produced book, it is self-published and it does have the included CD. What you are paying for is the information contained within it’s pages; and what priceless information it is too.

A friend of mine once told me a short story about a man who questioned his brain surgeon about the huge bill of £100,000. The brain surgeon answered, “I charged you £25 for drilling the hole in your head, and another £99,975 for knowing exactly where to drill it”. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. Essentially, Barry is a brain surgeon of Panasonic camcorders.

Barry makes it easy, very easy. This book is the cornerstone of any AG-AF101 owners kit bag. It is a reference you will refer to many times during your early months shooting on the AG-AF101.