Panasonic AG-UX180

I spoke with customer service at Panasonic Solutions and received assurance that a North American model purchased from an unauthorized dealer WOULD be eligible for service in the US during the manufacturer's warranty period. He wasn't aware of any instances where service was denied. That was comforting. The model number of this camera has the letters 'PJ' at the end. The 'P' designates the North American NTSC model. Of course the camera has both 50 and 60 Hz system clocks and can be used anywhere.The camera was delivered in a sealed Panasonic box which showed the 'PJ' at the end of the model number. Everything looked legit, so I cracked it open - taking ownership and subjecting myself to the 20% restocking fee - detailed in Abe's return policy. It contained all of the advertised included accessories. Well I haven't looked back since because I LOVE THIS CAMERA.I've had it for a couple of weeks and have found it to be everything I'd hoped for and everything I'd read it would be. There are tons of on-line reviews and youtube videos to look at, so no one has to go into a buying decision uninformed. I spent many nights studying those as well as the manuals and books.I spent the first few nights making sure everything worked on the camera - at least all of the major stuff. Since then I've continued reading the manuals and books and testing out the finer, deeper controls. It's a beautiful thing to have all that flexibility in the formats, scene files, controls and switches, displays, outputs and such. Very configurable to my individual preferences and project needs.It's not a Varicam and can't be expected to have more abilities than the price range allows. So know your needs and pick the right camera. A lot of getting the right shot with the right quality is baked into knowing the tools you have, how they interrelate, the trade-offs between settings, the limitations, and even how to set up a scene.Getting the most out of this camera, in terms of quality, requires study, practice and a professional dedication - these are the foundation of skill and proficiency. Study the camera - use it often - every skill is another tool. Study camerawork, movement, composition, framing, long and short lens effects and ... This camera will give you a lot of creative options.The ux180 internally records 4:2:0 with 8 bit color and intensity, and in most recording modes can output 4:2:2 8bit to an external recorder. A GH5 can output 4:2:2 in 10bit which opens up some options for green screening and such. You can get 4:4:4 10bit FHD out of the ux180 by recording in UHD, then downsampling in post. There are many, many compelling reasons to record in UHD, even if you will be delivering your project in FHD, but this is the one I get the most excited about.Here's how you do it. By transcoding your ux180 UHD files to DNxHD 4:4:4 (using PrPro) each of four Y pixels will combine (add) to create a single Y pixel with 256+256+256+256=1024 possible values (10bit) to reduce gradient bands and lower noise, and since 4:2:0 offers a single chroma value for every 4 pixels, the 4:1 pixel reduction allows the conversion to use an 8bit color value for every FHD pixel - packing your FHD image with every bit of color detail you had in the UHD file without loosing anything! This transcode technique throws nothing away, it's just all repackaged into a super-charged FHD file.Maybe you aren't interested in Netflix submission requirements or just don't want to deal with 4:4:4 mega-filesizes. Most of the time I won't be, but I do have a project in mind where I'm going to need it and it's stupendous to have the workflow option available.I was 85ft away from President Trump on the 3rd tier of a media platform in a hangar on MCAS Miramar. This was my first use (beyond practice) of the new ux180. To frame the president properly at the podium 20x wouldn't quite do it. I had planned to use UHD, but fell back to FHD in order to use the iZoom. That provided an effective extension of the lens length and without any loss of resolution - nice tool in the toolbag.The platform jiggled as people walked and milled around causing what would have been a very distracting jitter. So I flicked on the O.I.S. and found panning impossible on the tripod at that distance and lens length. The O.I.S. fought every movement, so with lots of downtime before his arrival, I played with the custom O.I.S and found a so-so tradeoff. The video still had jitter, but it was muted a lot. In future I'll leave the full might of the O.I.S in place and just turn it off during camera movement, then turn it back on afterward - live and learn. When on, the O.I.S. is ROCK solid against the vibrations. And with some hand-held nature shots I took in practice, it looked like a tripod shot - good stuff.With a tall camera right in front of me on the next tier down, I had to jack my tripod up to a point where the EVF was unreachable. Sad, because I really like the EVF. I mounted an HDMI monitor, and used that instead which did the job. The LCD is handy, but with my eyes, it's pretty small and difficult to read the settings - and you have GOT to be able to read your settings. If you are shooting FHD the OSD feeds the output to your monitor, but using UMD you just get the video without the OSD - unfortunately.I haven't found the lack of having the EVF and the LCD active simultaneously to be a concern in practice. And the lack of SDI and HDMI simultaneous output will likely never bite me either. Both are acceptable limitations with workarounds. They were bigger issues to others in reviews I read, but we all have our individual needs and in some cases biases.I wish it had V-LOG. My Mavic has it and it's nice for post. That said there are scene files and other settings to preserve a wider dynamic range. If you want to color grade, V-LOG is pretty standard. I'm not sure what LUT options are available for the ux180 scene files - there probably are some. I'll get to the point of figuring it out. I think Panasonic, and rightly so, sees the primary usecase for this camera as ENG and in that arena there isn't a lot of time for color grading. But with the right set of LUTs, a variety of styles should be possible. But you can't resurrect dynamic range that doesn't exist in your files, so V-LOG would be preferred in some workflows (Panasonic listening? Firmware upgrade? Thanks in advance!).The camera feels good. I love the ease of holding it low to the ground - with the upper zoom rocker and record button. I used my monitor when it was super low, but the LCD has a pretty good use here. The zoom ring is pretty touchy/jumpy when starting a push from a wide shot, but I found a workaround. I set the speed of the upper zoom rocker to 2 and started the push with that. I could then simultaneously adjust the zoom ring to speed up the push manually. Then I could slow down the ring movement gradually until I let go of it while still holding the T position of the zoom rocker and it would continue the push from the rocker until I was where I wanted to be. Keeping track of the ft reading on the screen is a good guide for the starts and stops.I love the USB Host hard disk drive support. For about $100 you can get a 2T drive and copy off your SDXC cards during downtime. Pretty sweet! I have 2 128GB SDXC cards and with this feature, I'm thinking I won't need more - maybe a spare in case one dies. I could be on a shoot for a week or more with 2TB.The audio channels are clean. On the Trump recording, I received a multi-box output for the house sound and I also recorded my own shotgun. Both were great. My levels were set fine - nothing over-modulated. Then afterward I was reading the docs and it dawned on me that I should have used the limiter available in the camera. I didn't need it, but it would have been safer - next time. I had to lower the input level for the multi to -60db and that put the level dial right around the middle setting - very adjustable. I've tested out my unbalanced RodeLink RX and it's super quiet too (short cable).The internal mic hiss level was a little higher than my mics, but it's not unusable by any means. It's a stereo mic and you can use the left, right or both channels. If you use both, it will take up both available inputs.I've copied files to my PC on several occasions and was able to use just a micro usb cable instead of the stated required micro-b. I'm sure the micro-b into a USB 3.0 port would be faster, but you can just plug a plain micro into the 1/2 of the micro-b connector and into a USB 2.0 port and it transfers at about 20MB/sec.I have a warm, comfortable feeling that I picked the right camera. It's a great set of tools. Well done Panasonic. BTW, I've been a Panasonic customer for a long time. It's not that I haven't researched other manufacturers, or blindly pledged allegiance. I just always find them on the top of the heap whenever I'm in the market - at least in the classes of cameras I've purchased.If you know your needs, and you've done your homework to be sure this camera will meet those needs, then pull the trigger. I don't think you'll be sorry.

Good camera but would benefit from allowing simultaneous output to both SDI and HDMI. Can this be fixed with a firmware upgrade? That would be awesome for an otherwise good camera with terrific zoom.

Only complaint is the tiny power button, and LCD viewer is hard to see in daylight, but other than that camera is spectacular, and viewfinder is awesome! I bought mine thru Abe's Electronic Center. I don't recommend them, they were a bit rude when I asked a question and never answered my second question about the warranty. WARRANTY INFORMATION---I was confused by the "international version," and Abe does not disclose that theirs are the EJ European version. All this means is that it comes set to the 50hz specs, which you simply just change, the battery charger and DC power supply are USA 120V power so you don't need anything else. Usually the EJ versions are much cheaper, no idea why, but it basically means nothing. I was confused about the warranty, some are saying that Panasonic won't let you register your camera for warranty if its the EJ version, NOT TRUE. You don't register your camera at all. Just keep your sales receipt is all you need to do and if anything goes wrong you deal with them; I've owned a lot of Panasonic products going back the 70's and never any problems with anything they made. But the Panasonic warranty is only a "limited" warranty for a year. I paid over $2400 with taxes and a year is not enough to protect my investment, so I went to Upsie online warranty service and bought a 3 year warranty for $186, so now I feel alot better. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. On Youtube there is Panasonic Business Solutions channel and they have a bunch of great tutorial videos on this camera. If you are thinking of getting the UX90, spend a little more and get a lot more and better features in the UX180. Tons of demo videos on Youtube as well. You won't be disappointed.

So far I'm impressed with the capabilities and numerous ways that I can used this camera, Great features, quality is wonderful under the right lighting conditions. Low light is not the greatest but usable in most non extreme situations, for my use no worries I will always be able to supply with extra lights if needed. Super slow motion at 120 fps is wonderful but be aware it is only on HD (Can do Slow motion on 4K at 60pfs) but for the price is a lot of camera. At this price range is a phenomenal camera. I do stock videos and normally under controlled lighting, works for me. I'll continue later on with more updates

Just got it today so I haven't had a chance to try it but all looks good. All the reviews I've seen lead me to feel that I made the right choice. That, along with a winning combination of Abe's Electronics and Amazon, is the icing on the cake. The product was well-packaged and delivered promptly. Kudos to Abe's, Panasonic, and Amazon! Now I'm off to charge the battery!

It is a good equipment but 6ave did not send me the camera warranty