New entry level 4K cam from Panasonic

We at Tubeshooter have been idly mulling what to replace our venerable Canon XF200 with for some time but we just can’t find anything suitable. Apart from a rather noisy image, we love everything about our XF and alternatives are thin on the ground especially since it would make sense for a replacement to be 4K.

Sure there’s Sony’s PXW-Z150 but it’s just an NX100 with 4K and much as we love the NX100, that’s in part due to its super low price, a feature which the Z150 doesn’t share. At the Z150’s cost, we expect something that feels a little less, well, plasticky and toytown.

So could Panasonic’s newly announced HC-X1 be the solution? We don’t know yet – it’s only just been announced – but the specs look good, namely:

• 24/50/60p 4K – yes, all formats regardless of country
• 20x Leica lens (from a quite decent 24mm to 480mm)
• 1-inch sensor
• 13 assignable buttons
• 1.7 megapixel OLED viewfinder
• SD card media
• Multiple colour adjustments
• Waveform and vectorscope

All this for the price of around £2,599 GBP ($3200 USD or Euro, ish).

We really hope this cam is as good as the specs make it sound and hope to get one in for test as soon as they’re released. Here’s their promo video in the meantime