Hi, I'm a relative novice with camera gear but I was reading Barry Green's Shootout and I read this exceprt, but I didn't knowwhat he was referring to. Are they referring to "gain" and if so, how do I turn the option off?

Here is the excerpt: "The JVC has a considerable range of detail settings, including "off". "Off" was truly off, while "min" was a bit edgy for the film folks among us; we agreed that we'd prefer a setting between "off" and "min". Even so, both were equally sharp at the limit, though we felt that the edginess of the images at JVC's default setting and higher were clearly in the electric-video realm."

Thanks Tommy

What they are referring to is the detail setting not gain.

The detail controls the amount of sharpness in the image. It is usually better to have the detail turned down to a lower setting. Most people have their cameras set to "min" or "off" setting.

One of the complaints about video when compared to film is the sharpness or detail of the images.

Kind of like when you look at a digital photo compared to one shot with a film camera.

The great thing about the JVC is that they provide a lot of settings so that you can customize the look to what you like.

Play with the settings on the camera and find out what they all do. They tweak the image to what you like. This works best when you have the camera hooked up to an external monitor.

Good luck,

Dan Weber

Put another way, "Detail" is a form of artificial edge enhancement. It makes an image appear sharper by increasing contrast at the boundary between light and dark areas. The problem is that this sometimes creates very obvious outlines around objects, and can increase "aliasing" (that stair-stepped look) along diagonal and curved lines.

"Detail" can always be added later in post, but can't be taken out (easily) once it's there, hence it's always better to shy towards too little (lower setting) than too much (higher setting).