Three Weeks with the JVC GY-DV500
How I Learned to Love This Small But Very Professional Camcorder
The
title says it all. After three weeks of six day weeks with long, hard
setups, multiple locations per day and multiple scenes per location,
all with a very small crew (4 primary and three secondary), I truly
appreciate the effort JVC made to produce the GY-DV500 camcorder (Street
price $5,500 includes camera, 14x1 Lens, Tripod Plate, Two
NMH-55 Batteries, Single Bay Fast Charger) with everything I needed
to "get the shot".
First
the Background:
I was hired to DP and shoot a full-length digital feature movie (Title:
Secret Messages written and produced by Ben Freedman) using
the DV format. Our cameras were the JVC GY-DV500, the Panasonic EZ1,
two Canon XL1s, and the Sony PD100 DVCAM. The script was full length
with a tremendous range of location shots. Grip and lighting included
a Berkey Colortran kit, a Lowell Pro kit, a 4 light Arri kit and two
Lowell Rifa lights. The audio consisted of a Sennheiser shotgun, Audio
Technica 815 shotgun, a Telex 400 wireless, Sony UHF wireless and
an Electrosonics wireless. Further, we had a Sony ECM77 wired lav
and a Tram wired lav. We used a Shure FP42 battery powered mixer for
its mixing and limiting capability and had a Sony Minidisk recording
all audio as a backup. For grip equipment, I brought along my trusty,
ancient Miller wood sticks. In addition, we had a dolly with track
and a tripod mounted jib. Two Manfretto tripods were for second camera
and backup use.
The
Camera:
I'm not going to get into the specs of the camera, you can read those
anywhere,
rather I'll give you my opinions of each of its parts. Then I show
you how they all came together to produce a camcorder that works very
well in a variety of shooting situations.
At
the very front is the lens. Now the lens we had is the inexpensive
Fujinon that is included with the "deal" if you buy it now....It's
a basic lens. Fast enough for low light use, very smooth and quiet
in operation at various temperatures but not very wide, not very long
and no 2X extender for those "Gee, I wish I could get that" shots.
Comfortable to work either off of sticks or handheld. On the down
side, the lens had a tendency to get a tad soft around the edges at
full zoom. Considering it's a "free" lens, the quality was acceptable,
though there is a big difference between it and the broadcast Fuji
I own.
The viewfinder is nice. Full functioned with a variable zebra, different Zone markings for framing (I like number 2), two channels of audio metering, filter settings, etc. You can turn on/off the front tally (back stays on all the time - nice), and the brightness and contrast controls are large and well marked. And this is my only complaint with the viewfinder. The brightness and contrast controls are almost too big! It's very easy to accidentally move them. For example, while rotating the viewfinder eyepiece out of the way for carrying. I like to setup my B&W viewfinder image so I can truly see the lighting and contrasts as I shoot. Once I've set it up properly, its a cinch to manually set the iris on various shots as I've learned to "trust" the viewfinder with my Ikegami. With the JVC, if the brightness and contrast knobs got moved, which they did many times, I would be lost for a moment till I realized what had happened. For example. Its very easy to see if the exposure is to hot on a person's skin during a scene as you tend to lose detail on their forehead or nose. This is easily seen with the viewfinder properly set up, and not if its too bright or to contrasty. Minor issue I know, but it took a while for me to get used to not trusting the viewfinder without checking it for every scene. Moreover, since I always run manual iris, usually a half to a full stop down from auto, it was bothersome till I got used to it. And yes, you can set the zebra to show skin detail and exposure, but not being familiar with its accuracy, I left that off and set zebra for 95%.