Hey guys,

I got my HM600 today. I haven't had much time with it yet so I won't give my thoughts for a day or two, but if anyone has any specific questions or things you want to know, I'll do my best to answer.

Cheers,
Jody

The beta I saw at NAB in April 2012 tended to lose focus temporarily on medium to fast zooms, in or out, indicating that the flange back adjustment wasn't keeping up. Wondering if that has been resolved in the production version.

Manual focus, zoomed in fully to tack-up focus, pulled back and it would "flutter" in and out of focus before locking... same going back in.

Curious to hear ALL your thoughts on the camera.

Just for a laugh, this is what just happened when I took the camera outside for the first time:

JVC HM600 Failed First Test - YouTube

No damage.. I guess they call it a "dead cat" for a reason :P

Brilliant!

Ha! Dog got the dead cat! Thx for a laugh

The HM600 shown at NAB was a rush job so there'd be something to show. I'm not sure if it was a hardware or a firmware fix.

Jody:
My question for you is.... when will mine arrive! Waiting for my dealer to get a JVC order is like a kid waiting for Christmas to come. Delivery was supposed to be on Friday, but the weather here

Also re. the deadcat, I'd really strongly recommend something like a Rycote softie, with shorter, neater fur. Anything with straggy fur will at some point cause problems in the corner of the picture. But you probably know that.

I nearly lost a Rode deadcat once... to a cat on location somewhere. It got the claw in, but luckily the deadcat was a tight fit and it didn't come off. I wish I'd kept the raw footage!

Right, please someone tell me I'm missing something here.

This is the HM600 in a dimly lit room, 18db gain, lens wide open. This is the nosiest image I've ever seen. My Canon XA10 does 10x better at 30db gain. HD Warrior hailed this camera as extremely noise free in low light.

So what am I missing?

(watch at 1080p to really see it)

344G0005 01 crap - YouTube

The HM600 is supposed to have two modes, one for "ideal lighting" and one for "low lighting". Which one were you using? Obviously as I'm still waiting for mine, I can't tell how that works... What is your shutter speed? Are you at wide angle or telephoto?

I have a feeling that 18dB would be grainy no matter what. Philip Johnston's tests were only at 3 or 6dB, and apparently cleaner than the Canon XF300.

When you say "dimly lit room" - what is the light source, exactly? A single 60w bulb?

The HM600 is supposed to have two modes, one for "ideal lighting" and one for "low lighting". Which one were you using? Obviously as I'm still waiting for mine, I can't tell how that works... What is your shutter speed? Are you at wide angle or telephoto?

I have a feeling that 18dB would be grainy no matter what. Philip Johnston's tests were only at 3 or 6dB, and apparently cleaner than the Canon XF300.

When you say "dimly lit room" - what is the light source, exactly? A single 60w bulb?

Wide angle. Single 60w bulb. Low light mode not activated.

Going to experiment with different shutter speeds now.

Maybe my expectations were too high. I'm going to do some more experimenting before I jump to any further conclusions.

I'd be interested to see what the results are for the low light mode... I'm assuming it makes a difference!

In lolux mode the camera can give you 30 or 36db of gain acc to the manual and probably it will default to 1/25th shutter as well but if 18db already looks this bad? I would be surprised that the camera would be cleaner at those high gains.
A stupid question but did you not have a nd filter on and was there no auto gain (agc) enabled?

In lolux mode the camera can give you 30 or 36db of gain acc to the manual and probably it will default to 1/25th shutter as well but if 18db already looks this bad? I would be surprised that the camera would be cleaner at those high gains.
A stupid question but did you not have a nd filter on and was there no auto gain (agc) enabled?

No, I double checked the ND filter was off. And I had the gain set manually. Even at 6dB it's noisy in my opinion.

Although the room was extremely dimly lit.

I've got a low light test video in the works, just editing it up.

ok, just asking because it's a mistake I have seen made before, there are camera's where you can have the gain set at manual but if the agc is enabled it will override the manual settings. How does the camera compare to your xa10 if you match exposure in a dark room, does the xa10 stay much cleaner?

ok, just asking because it's a mistake I have seen made before, there are camera's where you can have the gain set at manual but if the agc is enabled it will override the manual settings. How does the camera compare to your xa10 if you match exposure in a dark room, does the xa10 stay much cleaner?

Here's a really quick low light test between the XA10 and HM600. The street is lit with only 1 light, so it's a pretty tough test. Note I didn't include the XA10 @ 0dB because nothing could be seen.

Both cameras were set to 1/25 shutter, wide open.

I know the cameras probably aren't comparable, 1 chip vs 3, but they're all I have :P

JVC HM600/Canon XA10 Low Light Test - YouTube

The HM600 is clearly more sensitive, but the image looks terrible at high dB. I'd never use that if it was going to a client. 6dB is usable though.

Honestly I think I prefer the XA10 for low light. You can't see as much, but at least the image isn't noisy.

You cannot compare both camera gainwise because of the larger 3cmos sensor the jvc has, the jvc will always be much more sensitive, you should try to match exposure which could mean 18db on the jvc and 30db on the xa-10 and then compare noise.
After seeing this footage I do not understand why jvc advertises the camera's low lux mode as it looks as useless as my xha1 at max gain.

Hi Jody

It's not all about sensor size and ISO/sensitivity...I upgraded from Panny HMC82's to AC-130's (1/4" up to 1/3") and the results were really poor and not anything like I expected...All that happened was the chips needed huge ND's in sunshine but still were noisy and poor at night and hardly an improvement at all.

I moved away from the 1/3" chip simply because of unusable footage at 18db+ and went for the Sony EA-50 with the APS-C sensor ....I have wedding footage now at 27db and it's clean and NO special noise processing either ....In that light with a 3 chipper that's about the best you can expect ...That's why I didn't even consider the JVC as much as the specs impressed me!!

If you want to avoid the poor low light of smaller chips then you need to actually downsize (as Noa says) to the little Sony...it uses backlit chips which see in the dark a lot better than conventional 1/3" chips despite them being smaller...otherwise you really need to look at cams with 2/3" sensors if you can afford them. I guess since this is a new camera and you certainly want to keep it, it's time to invest in a decent on-camera light!!

Chris

I have wedding footage now at 27db and it's clean and NO special noise processing either ....

Clean footage at 27db gain? 27db gain should be the equivalent of at least 5000 iso and I get a lot of grain in my footage at anything above 3200 iso.

I guess it depends on what you view as "low light". I don't think it's a see-in-the-dark camera, that might be a bit too much to expect.

Mike: that's not the focus issue I describe but likely related. I suspect the lens uses a flange back look up table that adjusts on the fly as the lens focal length is changed and it was slow to respond at NAB. Wondering if that has been resolved.

Jody,

Thanks for your efforts here. I would be interested in the amount of noise at 0 to 6db under "normal" low'ish lighting where a pro might need to produce a great image. More to the effect of how low you can go without needing to use any gain.

27db is going to have noise on every camera no matter its sensitivity because the setting is 27 increments higher than its rating.

Further to what Tim states, remember that dB measurement is a Log20 scale; that is, an increase of 20 dB is a magnitude of order (ie. 10 times) the amount of image gain (I'd say "brightness" but that would be incorrect...)

So 20dB of gain would be ROUGHLY equivalent to about 3 and a bit stops of increase in sensitivity... which is QUITE a lot...

27dB of gain is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4.5 stops or approximately 20 - 22 TIMES the amount of apparent brightness.

Sort of like the difference in the amount of light let in by a lens at f2.4 versus f11... That is a MASSIVE amount of difference...

Put it all in perspective now?

Sort of like the difference in the amount of light let in by a lens at f2.4 versus f11... That is a MASSIVE amount of difference...

Put it all in perspective now?

Yes, but even then there are camera's that can handle those high gains, like a fs100, without much issue, you might think this is because of the large sensor but my small sony handicam has a very small sensor and can push 24db of gain with less grain in the image then my xh-a1 displays at 6db. If jvc advertises a low lux feature that, from what I see in above video, is pretty useless I wonder why they even bother to add this to the camera?

Simple. News gathering. When you MUST get an image, regardless of quality.

Like Sony's HyperGain.

which sony camera's have hypergain?

Most of the shoulder cams aimed at ENG. And don't kid yourself, the JVC IS intended as a New Age ENG camera, whether we shooters like it or not. It ISN'T a digital cinema camera.

Also: Z1, NX5, V1, EX1... the list goes on...

Not sure if any expected this to be a cinemacamera but most recent small sensor camera's can display clean images at higher gains. That doesn't neccesarily mean clean at 30db gain but I would expect from a recent camera that 12 to 18db would be possible to handle right, considering that a small handicam can do it at 24db gain.

Sorry Noa... the "don't kid yourself" wasn't intended as hostile, especially toward you... just an observation in general.

Thanks for the demos. I was really psyched about the JVC HM-600 and was on the verge of buying it until I saw your demos. I was told that JVC has a reputation of exaggerating specs to make things seem much better than they actually are, apparently this camera is an example of that. I guess if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I'll just wait for NAB and see if Sony has a replacement for the NX5u, or maybe Canon will release something fantastic.

Hey guys,

I'll do some further tests tonight. The tests I posted last night were in very low light that most people probably wouldn't bother shooting in without lighting. So I'll find a low light scenario that might be more typical, and post the results later.

Until then, it's lunch time here so I'm going to head out and get some test footage.

Some thoughts so far.

Build quality:
- Seems good for the most part, the camera feels solid and well-built. However...
- SD Card door is really weak and flimsy
- When I pull out the LCD screen, it feels very weak, and it creaks when moved
- The plastic near the handhold strap creaks, which annoys me. It feels hollow and cheap

Rings:
- Focus ring is rubberised plastic and it's HUGE, so it's really easy to find and use without looking
- Zoom ring is servo driven I think. It's quite responsive, there doesn't seem to be any lag unless you pull it really fast, then the lens has to catch up. Otherwise it's really nice to use
- Iris ring is tiny, as on most cameras I think, but easy enough to find and grip so no issues

Auto focus:
- I'm on the fence so far... Sometimes it's fast and accurate and other times it takes a while to start auto focusing. Sometimes it even hunts back and forth to find an accurate focus, making the footage unusable
I'll need more time with the camera to really make a decision though. I do a lot of sports videography so auto focus is important to me.

Image stabilisation:
- Not really impressed, the stabilisation on my XA10 is better. Then again, I'm not used to holding big cameras like this so it may just be a matter of personal technique. Default setting is "normal" but you can go into the menu and set it to "high" which I think may introduce some form of software stabilisation. It doesn't seem to make a huge difference.

LCD screen:
- Resolution is good, it's reasonably crisp and sharp. Easy to focus on, but very reflective in the light.
- The EVF is extremely good, it's huge and really sharp which makes it easy to focus on. Unfortunately the colours are terrible, very washed out, dull, and not very accurate.

Other stuff:
- Zoom lever is massive and really nice to use
- 3 record buttons, very ergonomically placed
- Fan noise can be heard on the internal mic in quiet environments
- Having trouble getting the .mp4 and .mov media into Avid MC 6.5


More later.

Simple. News gathering. When you MUST get an image, regardless of quality.


Might as well use the camera on your iPhone then. ;-)

Some thoughts so far.

Auto focus:
- I'm on the fence so far... Sometimes it's fast and accurate and other times it takes a while to start auto focusing. Sometimes it even hunts back and forth to find an accurate focus, making the footage unusable
I'll need more time with the camera to really make a decision though. I do a lot of sports videography so auto focus is important to me.

More later. Hi Jody, firstly thanks for all the feedback-as I said earlier, early adopters ought to be given the camera in exchange for all the consumer testing for the rest of us!

I am very interested in the auto focus , particularly at full zoom swing from a distance subject to a near subject, and would love to see some footage. Thanks again for the feedback.
Cheers!
Rod

I moved away from the 1/3" chip simply because of unusable footage at 18db+ and went for the Sony EA-50 with the APS-C sensor ....I have wedding footage now at 27db and it's clean and NO special noise processing either ....In that light with a 3 chipper that's about the best you can expect ...That's why I didn't even consider the JVC as much as the specs impressed me!!


I'm reconsidering the EA-50 because of the low noise, AVCHD 2.0 and 1080/60p capabilities. I'll likely go for the EA-50, unless, as I mentioned, the NAB show in April has something more interesting.

Hi Jody, firstly thanks for all the feedback-as I said earlier, early adopters ought to be given the camera in exchange for all the consumer testing for the rest of us!

I am very interested in the auto focus , particularly at full zoom swing from a distance subject to a near subject, and would love to see some footage. Thanks again for the feedback.
Cheers!
Rod

Agreed!

I'm working on some sample footage today, so will try and get it up on Youtube soon :)

Might as well use the camera on your iPhone then. ;-)

I'll assume that was tongue in cheek, as someone who has spent the better part of his career shooting hard news and broadcast documentaries...

Remember, audio is MORE than 50% of video...

What I meant was that the video quality of the HM-600 looked so poor in low light, that an iPhone would probably do a better job.

Hi Jody, firstly thanks for all the feedback-as I said earlier, early adopters ought to be given the camera in exchange for all the consumer testing for the rest of us!

I am very interested in the auto focus , particularly at full zoom swing from a distance subject to a near subject, and would love to see some footage. Thanks again for the feedback.
Cheers!
Rod


As requested, full telephoto distant object to near object autofocus.

Camera set to full auto. Excuse the shakiness, my tripod was upstairs :P

Test footage compilation coming tomorrow.

JVC HM600 Telephoto Autofocus Test - YouTube

Hi again from "the other Island"(the empty one!)
Jody,

Thanks so much for that. Its ability to focus on the near wall is excellent considering there is no real contrast. My Pansonic 160A likes a bit more contrast than that and would probably fail on such a neutral target. Regarding focus times, the JVC apperas to be about the same as my Panny, possibly a tad quicker.
My interest in this performance stems from the fact that I am in the middle of shooting a sports promo over several seasons, and footballers move around a bit, especially if you are shooting from the touchline, so zoomed AF (if fast enough and accurate enough) is really useful.
Cheers for the feedback, you appear to be the only owner in the world giving any at the moment!

Rod

Hi again from "the other Island"(the empty one!)
Jody,

Thanks so much for that. Its ability to focus on the near wall is excellent considering there is no real contrast. My Pansonic 160A likes a bit more contrast than that and would probably fail on such a neutral target. Regarding focus times, the JVC apperas to be about the same as my Panny, possibly a tad quicker.
My interest in this performance stems from the fact that I am in the middle of shooting a sports promo over several seasons, and footballers move around a bit, especially if you are shooting from the touchline, so zoomed AF (if fast enough and accurate enough) is really useful.
Cheers for the feedback, you appear to be the only owner in the world giving any at the moment!

Rod

Glad to help. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see.

I'll be uploading a general test footage compilation within the next day or so.

Glad to help. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see.

I wonder if the additional compression used in AVCHD recording mode results in more noise filtering? Also, have you tried adjusting Camera Process->Detail and possibly Black Toe?