What to do now that I got the darn thing? :)
 

My HD110U is on its way, to hopefully arrive on Thursday. :)

I've heard a lot of talk about how this beautiful camera doesn't actually work perfectly out of the box. What all do I have to do to get it up and running in tip top shape? Calibrations, scene files, other settings, changing bad defaults...

Thanks guys...

Huh?

It works really good out of the box. My only advice is to turn down the detail setting to "minimum". This produces a smother picture especially in HD modes.

I've tried the TrueColor3 settings but the footage looked like a TV with the color turned all the way up. Too much saturation and ugly skin tones. I prefer the stock color settings.

I would try to not use the "Full Auto" mode too often, since it forces you to use Auto White Balance & Auto Gain up to 18db, which might not look so great.

Scott is right about True Colors 3, i find myself having to color correct in post, and turning down saturation 40%

I like my camera, there are times I wish I had an auto focus.
I film weddings with my camera, and I have issue with the camera and low light, she does not like low light, but then again, I have done things wrong in the past.

I like the bleach bypass scene file, produces lovely muted tones (probably not ideal for weddings!)

Maybe I heard wrong (and I know I should just experiment and I will of course do so extensively, but I'm gonna be something almost immediately), but I've picked up that things like detail, color, gamma, etc are not the best out of the box.

Obviously I will be setting things like WB and gain for each shot -- I was just looking for any general tips to get better overall picture quality.

Thanks guys.

I'll look into your suggestions.

The camera is pretty much neutral out of the box. We leave it up to you to "paint" the image to your liking. There are manu good resources on this forum that will give you a good starting point, from which you will tweak until you have the look that you are most happy with. You can also try out some of the factory presets.

Excellent. Thank you Carl.

Perhaps these stories of out-of-the-box dissatisfaction were due to dissatisfaction with a neutral image (ie, "something was missing").

I intend to play around as much as I can. :)

Thanks again

I do weddings and such as well. You don't want an auto focus, it just looks cheap when the camera is seeking for proper focus. Too much like a consumer camera. I've gotten pretty quick at tweaking the back focus, thank God for the Focus Assist.

As far as low light, I use 9db gain while shooting indoors with dark lighting. I use an IDX LED onboard light, which has a 1/2 CTO orange gel. I use manual white balance religiously. Stay away from Auto White balance when shooting with low light levels.

Paolo made Truecolor in order to give pictures the most lattitude for color correction in post, not as an actual usable scene file.

Stephan, if truecolor was made to give good lattitude, how is it not a "usable" scene file?

As in, it's not intended to be used "out of the box." I see a lot of people talking about how "great" TC looks, when its actual look wasn't what Paolo was going for. He was just going for lattitude in post, not any particular "look," it's intended that you take your TC footage and color correct it to how you want it to look, not use it as-is.

Of course. That's a given. Thank you for clarifying.

I had that problem with my Canon GL1/GL2 in poor lighting, but not nearly as much so with my Sony FX1s. I can't understand why anyone would want to shoot a run-and-gun event like a wedding without an autofocus option, provided you have the ability to turn it off. Nine shots out of ten a good autofocus will do the right thing faster and more accurately than most of us can do, and that's one less thing to worry about while trying to dodge guests and photographers to get a decent angle. But hey, this is the JVC HDV forum so never mind...

:-)

Well It's been said a gazillion times but I will dust it off again...

Once you go with a fully manual lens- especially for run and gun- you'll never go back. There I said it again.

Now that we hijcaked Brian's thread...

Brian- how are you making out with your new camera?

Justin,

I don't mind sparking a little unrelated discussion any day. :)

I'm getting along quite well with it. It's bizarre how similar it is to shoting with an SLR (like my Cannon A2). However, and this hurts, I haven't recorded a thing, because I haven't chosen a tape stock yet and dont want to switch around. But, I'm loving it so far, even on that tiny screen and VF.

Brian