Upcoming New Features for the GY-LS300 Announced

[Duncan Craig]

Here' a Small HD monitor next to the built in sidefinder.
Skin tones seem muted on the sidefinder, making some shots look very odd.
I guess it just takes some getting used to.

Also a question for those in the know.
When I record in 4:2:2 and import into FCPX the whites are clipped at 100%.
All the other codecs/bitrate combinations import with superwhites intact.

[Dave Rochelle]

Duncan -

That's pretty disconcerting to me. Although I have a SmallHD monitor I use for carefully setup shots (like interviews, etc.), I currently use a Panasonic AF100 for cinematic look in run & gun situations - and don't know what I would do with any worse built-in monitoring solutions than that cam itself has (which are not awesome but at least robustly built and "true" to what is being recorded).

The addition of a histogram to the LS-300 really piqued my interest, but - assuming you calibrated everything - the disparity between what the two screens are showing is pretty big.

[David Peterson]

Originally Posted by Duncan Craig

Also, is the HDMI/SDI output 10-bit?

Soooo.... Does the camera yet have 10 bit? Bit of a bummer that it doesn't.

[Duncan Craig]

I'm currently cutting the first UHD project from this camera.
Some camera movement seems to break the codec very easily resulting in macro blocking.

I filmed a sign on a door, as we closed the door and the signage drops into focus.
Large areas of almost block colours, plenty of out of focus areas, not full of detail, but the counter movements of the reflection moving one way and the lettering on the door moving another way seems to confuse the encoder...

Once or twice where the camera recorded really ugly breakup where I was hand held and chucking it around. Finding shots etc.

[Duncan Craig]

Here's a few examples of the camera compression issues I've had as I've been editing.

I'm shooting an HD job tomorrow.
Once I'm back I'll update the camera firmware, as I've seen there was an update earlier in the year.
Although it says it only fixes Metabones issues...

[Dave Rochelle]

Duncan -

Just curious, what mode were you shooting in? Wondering if it was maybe one of the lower bit rate modes and if the problem might be lessened in one of the higher bit rate recording modes (not that it should be happening in ANY mode).

I haven't seen macro-blocking that bad on any other recent pro camera.

[Duncan Craig]

The examples I posted were shot in UHD.
And there's only one bitrate option available at that resolution: 150Mbps.

I'll do a firmware update and see if it helps.

[Duncan Craig]

I managed to find a newer version of the firmware, no thanks to the rather unhelpful website.
So far I have been unable to recreate the really bad codec breakup which is good news.

I've been testing the how the 1080p recording holds up with the VSM dialled all the way into 43%, which is the maximum magnification. It doesn't look perfect but passable.

My main concern now is the general noise in the shadows as well as FPN in the recording. The VSM seems to be magnifying the noise (as you might expect) so the 'grain' appear over twice the size when switching between 100% and 43% for example.

On another test I'm doing, I'm using manual Nikkon lenses with a smooth aperture control lens adaptor.
As I rack the iris down and the image gets darker, macro blocking suddenly appears and it's really noticeable because the image isn't moving, only the exposure. It's really horrible.

Is it likely that this problem that will go away with the v2 update I wonder?

[Duncan Craig]

The macro blocking it's a tricky thing to show, but I've attached a composite image of a series of sequential stills as I rack the iris down on the JVC.

You might expect some banding in an 8 bit codec, so I put the same lens on my FS100 and included an FS100 image on the far left. The JVC is much sharper than the Sony, but the noise pattern on the Sony is much better.

I've pushed the image around in photoshop to accentuate the blocking.
It wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that the rest image is very clean and your eye gets drawn to these errors as soon as they occur. I guess an external recorded would have this problem, but that's not why I bought this camera.

[Steve Rosen]

I finally (after 2 tries) got a fully functioning LS300... I'm extremely pleased with this largely neglected camera.

In answer to Duncan's comments above... (BTW, I've only shot 1080 50mbps 422 because I don't have a fast enough card for 4K).

I also got whites clipping at 100 importing into FCPX, even though I selected 108% (the highest available) in the menu. I had the camera set at WDR Natural. I switched off WDR and set it for Cinema Gamma and the import into FCPX was no longer clipped at 100. This should be fixed by JVC with firmware since clipping whites in WDR is sorta counter-intuitive.

However, I've had zero problems with macro-blocking or excessive noise. I've swung the camera wildly, boosted the ISO to 1600, internationally underexposed, and no blocking, and the blacks are remarkably noise free and clean. I have a C100, and it doesn't hold a candle to this camera at low ISOs (of course the Canon is far superior in high ISOs, that's why I've kept it).

The big question now is - when do we get this promised firmware update? I've searched JVC's pathetic site with no luck.

[Duncan Craig]

Congratulations Steven.

I would have thought that a cinema gamma clipped the whites in the 4:2:2 codec.
I'm sure it does in the other codecs. That's good to know.

Here's some v2 'news' here: News Shooter | IBC 2015: Meet J-Log- JVC’s new log format

There's a few things in there that are a disappointment:
800% DR vs an a7s with 1300%.
The prime zoom feature only works with native MFT lenses.
The histogram covers up the audio meters.

This might just be beta issues, so I'm hoping that the update will arrive soon too.

[Noa Put]

There is not much talk about this ls300 allthough it seems like a great camera, price has gone down here to 3500 euro tax incl, so excl tax it's "only" 2890 euro. From what I understand you can control Iris on native mft lenses on the camera without any exposure jumps which I consider a important feature for run and gun and the zooming ability on mft primes (looks the same as on the nex-ea50, although that caused resolution loss) is a great feature too. I have a whole load of native mft lenses lying around here.

The fact that they first "forgot" to add a histogram and now are overlaying it on the audiometers seems like they either don't know how important this feature is and don't test much to see if it works in real life, can you at least hide the histogram so you can see the audiometers if necessary?

Does the stabilization and autofocus also work on mft lenses, like the 12-35mm panasonic lens? Anyone tested how good the autofocus works?

[Duncan Craig]

Wow that is a big price drop. But to be honest unless JVC keep people in the picture more often by using forums like this then why should anyone take notice of their products.

It's been over a month since this thread was started by a JVC representative, but he's not been back to answer anyone's questions.

Currently I use a collection of Nikon fit lenses but I'm considering a move to Tamron lenses with Canon mount so that I can get image stabilisation. The VC lenses at 24-70 and 70-200 look like pretty good. But how does the JVC handle metabones adaptors?

Metabones themselves suggest a lack of autofocus etc. But I'd like to hear it from JVC.

[Noa Put]

Duncan, is it possible to scroll through iso values while recording or is the only way to change iso with the switch on the side, meaning only 3 presets are available?

[Duncan Craig]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

Duncan, is it possible to scroll through iso values while recording or is the only way to change iso with the switch on the side, meaning only 3 presets are available?

Yes, I've just tested it. Of course it's very lumpy as you change the ISO, and you have to go into the menu but it does do it.