I just received by HD101e last night, and only had time to build it - adding the lens, mic, EVF, etc.

On first appearances operation seems pretty daunting!!

I'm itching to get shooting a couple of shorts I have been planning. I also have a couple of promos to shot over the summer, so I need to get up to speed pretty quickly. On first impressions, focus assist seems really useful, however it seems to require fairly contrasty scenes to work. I was film my dog lying on its bed - brown dog, brown bed - and focus assist wouldn't tell me anything. When I panned up to a picture on a off-white wall, it worked brilliantly. Can its sensitivity be adjusted?

I should go read the manual ASAP!!

Are there any settings you would recommend to begin with? Any tests etc?

Thanks


Drew

I love the focus assist feature.

I got mine this week also and played with some of the recipe files from the recipe sticky. The stock settings are pretty boring for the most part.

Its funny, last night I downloaded some footage and there was a big white dot at the bottom corner of the screen. My heart sunk when I saw it...

Luckfully, the pixel compen feature was able to mask it out. I uploaded some new footage and sure enough, the dreaded stuck pixel was gone!

The footage is pretty amazing.

Without a doubt, read the thread on scene recipes, and set up with Paulo's true Color 3.

Its a great camera. I've also played wtih the scene files. I love the matrix style one. The default ones remind me of some old cine footage. Some might like it.

The lack of image stabilisation has made me realise how shakey and twitchy I am!! I might have to look in to a glidecam or something. Any suggestions? Or would pumping iron be my only solution!!

I bought this mainly for indie film making so this shouldn't be a problem. Hopefully practice will improve my hand held shots.

I love the picture quality tho - no complaints there - excellent. Top marks to JVC. Focus assist is very useful - again top marks.

Andrew