Hey, it is another person who is looking to buy a higher quality video camera w/ as little money possible, & would like some help in the buying process.

my $5 question: Does anyone have any samples of the JVC HD1 / HD10 shot at night under city lights? Anyone have 4 or 5 jpeg video stills that they can post, or a link to where I can find some?

& now the back story...

I'm mainly looking at the HD1/HD10 & Sony's HC1. I know that just about every other camera does better in low light than the HD1, but I'm really really hooked on the progressive frames.

I don't need to read someone else saying the camera does bad in low light, right now I'd like to see how bad it really looks.

I was very surprised w/ the picture I got w/ an old Hitachi 8mm PhD (press here dummy) camera, when I was out in the north woods, far away from any city & only the full moon & snow covered ground for light. That camera could hardly do anything, but, for a camera sold in 1995 that boasted a 12x / 24x digital zoom!!!, it shot extremely well under moonlight. And I only believe it b/c I saw it.

Hey Zach,
I will shoot some stuff for you this weekend and post Monday.

Darrin

You can have a look at this one for the time being... (HD1)

http://www.geocities.com/headlesspuppy/stuff/hd1night.jpg

If anyone supplies some city night footage for low light evaluation, it would be nessesary to report. What resolution 480p60 or 720p30, what shutter speed and if shutter isn't locked, what was the cam setting it to. Is AGC enabled or not.
Personally I would go with 480p60/ 1/30th shutter locked and ACG off. This will give you the best low life performance without the noise of ACG. 720p30 with a locked exposure would also be a nice comparison.
As well it should be noted if the image is provide from a HD1 or HD10. The EE of the HD1 may impact the high contrast night scenes greatly.
PS- still frames are an absolutely useless way to evaluate video. Save for possibly resolution.

thanks for your help guys

Darrin - I'll look forward to seeing what you can get.

Dave - That shot looks pretty good in my opinion.* Not the best, but I've seen worse. Do you remember if that was shot in 720p, 480p, or 480i? Also did you do any post (picture correction) on the vid cap?

thnx again

*My pay-the-rent full time gig has been shooting news for the past couple years. Where I work now I shoot DVC-Pro, & those cameras can handle the night fairly well. The past two places have had really old, hand-me-down betaSP cameras that showed their gain once magic hour started. I think Dave's pic looks cleaner than a lot of the Beta stories I've shot. Although, I still think the old 1/2" handles brights & whites better than ANY mini-dv or HDV samples I've seen. But pls remember I look at monitors more than scopes, & most of my material airs once & then collects dust, so I'm not assuming that my observations are being written in stone.

Ken is right you really have to be careful with the ACG on the HD10... Infact I never use it. When I post I will be sure to give you all the details for sure. I will do a couple of variations.
Darrin

Yeah, AGC is a big no-no on these 1 CCD cams. I always have it off.

That jpeg was grabbed straight off the MPEG stream of the HD1, 720p, no cc. I can't remember the settings but I think nothing was locked. The white balance wasn't manual so that could also improve night/low light shots.

I own both HD10 and HD1 and the biggest difference is definitely the EE. I would bitch about the lack of control of this but now that the HD100 is out there's no reason to... :)

Sorry I'm a bit late with the footage, but my schedule got a little hecktic. Ok so here it is...Its nothing special.. The settings are as follows;
JVC jyhd10u
Manual Focus
720p / 30 fps shutter
auto white balance
no Color correction
No ACG

The download link is: http://www.sendspace.com/file/h3vtia

enjoy...I think it's a pretty decent example of what the camera can do with little effort. With manual White balance it would have been much better..but I wanted to see how the camera would handle it.

You can have a look at this one for the time being... (HD1)

http://www.geocities.com/headlesspuppy/stuff/hd1night.jpg

Dave, that has got to be the best low light shot I have seen from this camera. Could I ask, have they improved the CCD in the latest cameras, and what sort of Lux is it doing now?

Zach:

What did you ever decide on?

I am waiting on a XH-A1 but my GR-HD1 is still a pretty good budget choice.