Panasonic AG-AF103

This camera is for professionals – This is a reasonably sophisticated unit with the kinds of options that only professionals will take advantage of. If you're buyg it, you've probably already researched the specs. The build quality feels good, controls feel solid. This camera does what it claims and does it well. It's not the best in it's class when it comes to noise, but it makes up for it in other respects. The design of this camera is very practical. For instance, Sony's decision not to include ND filters in their FS100 (equiv price) is NOT practical. This camera is adaptable. You can adapt a lot of lenses to fit the MFT mount. If you have Canon EF lenses, then get the EF lens controller from Birger Engineering. You will be able to control the aperture with the iris wheel built into the camera. This camera is expandable. It outputs 4:2:2 from the HD/SDI slot so you can use something like the Atomos Samurai to record direct to a laptop drive at a high enough bitrate for TV studio approval. The AF100 is BBC approved when used in this mode. Only gripe is that it's 8bit and not 10bit. Other than that, be confident that immaculate image quality is very possible - despite relatively mediocre low-light performance (compared to the FS100).

It takes a while to sort out how to get good colour/tones. I still haven't figured it out yet. Apparently you need to get the Barry Green book to have that sorted. A voucher for the book is included for the US distribution of the camera.

I definitely DO recomend this camera for professional use. It's an excellent hybrid cam between ENG and movie making. Very versitile. I'm glad I got it. You do need to budget for an external recorder to take full advantage of this unit for high-end productions. Otherwise I use two 64GB SDXC cards (limited bitrate) - which is fine for smaller productions. Very practical, very extensible not great low-light performance. tricky to get good colours/tones