Panasonic's AG-AF100 Micro Four Thirds Professional HD Camcorder represents an enormous leap forward in affordable, cinema-quality video imaging. Providing all the professional features that videographers expect in an interchangeable-lens camcorder--manual video and audio control, variable frame rates, HD-SDI and HDMI output, XLR inputs, timecode--the AG-AF100 plays its trump card with a large, 4/3-type image sensor. At 13 times the size of comparably priced 1/3" sensors (and almost 4 times larger than the 2/3" chips found in cameras costing more than twice as much), the AG-AF100's sensor brings the richness of DSLR video into a professional form factor.

Until now, if you wanted a camera that could shoot video with the deep colors, enhanced light sensitivity, and shallow depth-of-field achievable with large-sensor imaging, you had one of two options: an ungainly DSLR kitted out with any number of expensive support accessories, or access to a large bank account. The AG-AF100 not only delivers the image quality, versatility, and control that professional shooters have been clamoring for, but at a price well within most pro-level budgets.

No doubt about it: the large-sensor, interchangeable lens camcorder has finally arrived.