New low cost 4/3 Pany camcorder


Well-known member
it looks cool. But, will it get calls? Only time will tell. Sony has saturated the market as well as Canon, with the FS7 and C300. The 4K Varicam has pretty much in my opinion become too expensive and is more of a rental house only type of camera, maybe this could convince some freelancers to go back to take a second look at Panasonic 4K. It is very interesting. Only caveat is the lack of interchangeable lenses.


Well-known member
"It is very interesting. Only caveat is the lack of interchangeable lenses."

Yes, that is a BIG issue, but I remember how useful the Sony EX1 and EX3 cams were. However, that was a good while ago.


Well-known member
true, true, I still shoot on an EX1 from time to time, and it's pretty damn good for what it is. All around ENG type and corporate shooting, works well. Specialty stuff, long lens, sports, not so much. DVX200 could offer same bang for the buck.

Of course, for me bottom line is will it be an accepted format by clients. I don't always buy what I like, but what makes money.

zac love

Well-known member
I see the DVX200 as a C100 w/ a EX1 style lens.

So often I've had people ask if they can shoot an event with a C100 & my response is "nope" mainly because the SLR zoom lenses we have aren't good for live zooming (no servo & they're not parfocal).

Yeah, I think Panasonic should make a AF200 w/ interchangable lenses, but there is no way Panasonic could release a DVX200 w/ an interchangable zoom lens at the price point.

And all the other zoom lenses that cover a large sensor are either very short zoom ratio (3x, 4x...) or they cost $70k (e.g. Canon CINE-SERVO 50-1000mm T5.0-8.9 PL).


Well-known member
more to it than that

Its not just the lens. Consider the codec and bitrate.

From Panasonic specs:
UDH(3840 x 2160)/29.97p/25.00p/23.94p 100Mbps as MOV or MP4.
Bit rate not listed for full 4K (4096 x 2160).

The Canon codec for 4K in the C300 MII records around 450 Mbps.
That's a 4.5x higher data rate. You will get a substantially more compressed result with the Panasonic.

That may not matter to everyone, but for higher end production I'm concerned there won't be much room to make adjustment, especially going into a REC 2020 color space from Rec 709.

The zoom lens and for factor is a nice touch so it could become another good tool for the box for its price.