New lens

[John Thomason]

Has anyone tried the new 20x lens that comes with the JVC 890 camera on a JVC 790 camera I have the opportunity to purchase one but don't know if it will work properly. any help would be greatly appreciated

[Rob Stowell]

Can't speak directly for the HM700, but I shouldn't think you'd have a problem. I've just recieved an HM850 and swapped the lens with the stock lens from an HD200.
Both lenses seem to work ok on either camera. (There may well be specific functions new to the 850 that don't translate, but I haven't found any so far.) So very unlikely the 700 series would be any different.
(Not loving the fujinon 20x so far though. Servo hum when you zoom fast; *everything* servo controlled; no macro and the *stupid* (grumble grumble) servo-driven "endless" focus of auto-focus cameras. (Not to mention the *odd* process for setting back-focus.)
OTOH the picture does feel cleaner!)

[Paul Anderegg]

John, my station uses HM790's, and we have several HM890's hidden somewhere in the building with the 20x lenses. If I can locate one, I will pop the 20x on the HM790 to confirm what functions work on it, and what functions do not.

Paul

[John Thomason]

Thank you Paul and Rob for your responses was just wondering what the differences were sense the two lens are about the same price. the person trying to sell it preferred the fuginion 18 x

[Craig Yanagi]

John,

The new Fujinon 20x lens that come with the GY-HM850 and GY-HM890 have specific communications between the two enabling such features as Auto Focus and CAC (chromatic aberration compensation). These features are not available when the lens is used with the GY-HM700 Series camcorders.

Regarding the Fujinon HTs18x4.2BRM and HTs18x4.2BERM (the "E" is for Extender) lenses, these are the best 1/3" mount HD ENG lenses available in the marketplace today. They are not inexpensive, and the majority are being used by our broadcast news customers.

Finally, we just announced the next generation of the Fujinon 17x ENG Zoom lens, XT17SX45BRMK3, which now is capable of incorporating the CAC feature with the GY-HM850 and GY-HM890 camcorders.

Cordially,

[Paul Anderegg]

Sorry John, the 850's are in a studio for a production show called The List, and they are locked up overnight.

Craig, could you possibly provide a link where I could find some good compatible 5GHz US wi-fi adapters and LTE modems for a 650? Impossible to locate that info!

Paul

[Rob Stowell]

I'm still not loving the stock (autofocus) 20x ... set the back-focus up three times, but still getting some soft shots. If I had the chance to swap it for an 18x I'd be in like Flynn!

[Adam Letch]

what about manual focus then? If you use peaking you'll never use autofocus again with these camera's

[Craig Yanagi]

Originally Posted by Paul Anderegg

Craig, could you possibly provide a link where I could find some good compatible 5GHz US wi-fi adapters and LTE modems for a 650? Impossible to locate that info!

Paul

My apologies for the delay in response. The listing of tested WiFi modems are slightly buried on our web site:

Supported broadband adapters
Carrier Model
Verizon UML290
Verizon UML295
AT&T 313U

In addition, we have been providing Buffalo WiFi adapters in the past, and have worked quite well with our camcorders.

I hope this information is helpful. For more information, you can contact our customer support team at 800.252.5722.

- Craig

[Paul Anderegg]

Thanks Craig. The need for 5GHz WiFi adaptors becomes more pronounced when you consider ENG microwave trucks, Bluetooth, and other 2.4GHz sources such as corporate WiFi and even TVU type backpacks all spit out 2.4GHz radiation. In testing at my station, we could not even establish reliable connectivity with the Buffalo WiFi if the HotSpot device was further than a few inches from the back of the HM650 itself. When we took the HM650's into the field to test the Zixi server, we tried to run our TVU simultaneously as a backup, but the WiFi HotSpot emitting from the TVU proved too much for the Buffalo adaptor to deal with, and even with the HotSpot phone touching the adapter, connection was not possible.

Paul

[Craig Yanagi]

If you look at the bottom part of the GY-HM650U specifications web page, there is a listing of 5 GHz adapters to take into consideration:

- ASUS USB-N53
- TRENDnet TEW-664UB

I've also been informed by our engineering team that the Panda Wireless PWIUSBA203 Mid-Range and PWIUSBA204 Long Range 2.4 GHz adapters perform quite well.

Here is the direct link to the specifications web page:

JVC Pro Specifications

I hope this information is helpful to you and your team.

- Craig

[Calvin Bellows]

I am about to buy the 20x lens for my 700. My old lens had an accident and is not able to be repaired. I am not to worried about the auto focus not working since I have never used auto focus. I am not sure how big of a deal the optical stabilization is though. I guess I don't have it now so I don't really need it.

[Rob Stowell]

I've ditched the 20x on a new HM850 and am using the old std fujinon 16x that shipped with the HD100s.
The 20x has continual focus issues and (partly relatedly) is difficult for me to find the right exposure. I'm just not having those problems with the old lens.
This is definitely confirming all my prejudices :)

[Calvin Bellows]

Can you expand on the focus issues. Is it because you are using the auto focus?

[Rob Stowell]

It wasn't a focus issue, though it looked like one. It was diffraction, caused by stopping the iris down too far when using the camera in bright sunlight, instead of whipping in the ND. More here: Understanding Lens Diffraction - Luminous Landscape
Kind've my bad, I suppose ... cos it's in the manual, page 59 :) But it hasn't helped me to love this lens.
The 16x I've been using gets this 'small aperture diffraction' - but only when you go past f16, and at that point the iris reading turns to 'close'. On this lens, the 'indication' (which I managed to miss) is the iris read-out in the viewfinder turns from white to grey. Since I find the viewfinder harder to read in general, and especially in bright sun, this didn't leap out at me.
The lens lets you manually stop down to f22 before the 'close' indicator comes up - and I've worked with plenty of lenses that shoot clean pics at f22. But this lens 'greys out' - indicating diffraction problems- as soon as I close down past f8. Since on the long end of the lens it's only an f3, that means less than 3 stops to work with (more on wide.)
Reading up on it, the canon xha1 has similar issues, and the same 'greyed-out' indicator.
l feel this compromises the HM850 20x combo for the sort of run'n'gun shooting I often do - in and out of bright sunlight, heavy shade, in and outdoors. The addition of a 1/64th ND is good, but having to watch the iris indicator like a hawk, and flick ND in and out all the time is not ideal.
I can't work out why they've left all those unusable f-stops there at all (the agent says it may be for shooting in certain conditions- eg shooting SD. I tried changing the camera to 720 and SD - it might make a difference to the pics, but the iris indicator is still greyed out at f9.)
So it confirms my prejudices- it's a lens that's designed to be used largely on auto. When you do that, the camera compensates - using, eg, shutter speed and/or negative gain to keep the iris in the sweet range.
Sorry for the long ramble - but maybe it will save someone else trouble.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has a problem with or thoughts on this - and esp if f8 is the limit on this camera/lens combination - or do I have an odd set-up/unusual problem?
Cheers-
Rob