Help on GY-HD250?

[Leonard Levy]

I have a shoot this weekend with 2 GY-HD250's and I've never used the camera before. Simple interior spots with maybe some handheld. They might be recording to Firestores if that makes sense.

Can you guys give me a heads up re: anything I should know about this camera that could surprise (and screw) me or that is especially cool?

Can you get multiple outputs to feed more than one monitor at a time?
Suggested Good looking but plain "vanilla' menu set-ups?
suggested Detail levels?
Advice re handheld?
Is auto focus useable?
How easy is it to focus through the viewfinder or flip out screen
I will have one to play with for a day ahead of time.
Thanks in advance.

Does this thing work with a Letus extreme or SGBlade?

Lenny Levy

[Shaun Roemich]

Using the HD-SDI output and the analog component out, you should be able to get 2 HD monitor outputs at the same time.

The HD200 setup files should work just fine for the HD250. They are in a sticky at the top of the GY-HD series camera system page.

Tim Dashwood recommends turning Detail all the way (or ALMOST all the way down). I don't turn it ALL the way down but significantly reducing Detail gives a softer, more analog Betacam look (I won't say film look although others will)

Advice for handheld: practice, practice, practice. Where possible, don't use the camera on your shoulder but cradle it against your body to add more contact points for stability UNLESS you have a bunch of "shoulder" experience: I'm an ex-newsguy so shoulder camera work comes naturally to me.

There is no autofocus on any lens available for the HD250.

Focus is best achieved by ensuring you have proper backfocus, zooming all the way into your subject, focusing on the most important focus item (with people it's the eyes), and zooming out to get your framing. If you don't have this option due to the nature of what you are shooting, turn on focus assist: a colour pattern will appear on all high detail edges where you are in focus. If you don't see the colours on the subject, you probably aren't in focus.

If I'm on a tripod, I prefer to use the external screen for focus ASSUMING I'm not in bright daylight.

If you're going to use Firestores remember the Golden Rule of JVC: ensure ALL units are powered down BEFORE plugging and unplugging Firewire cables.

The nice thing about the 250's is that if you're doing a multicam shoot, you can sync-lock and timecode lock them: they have the requisite BNC jacks available. Bring extra BNC cable to do so.

[Drew Cusick]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

If you don't have this option due to the nature of what you are shooting, turn on focus assist: a colour pattern will appear on all high detail edges where you are in focus. If you don't see the colours on the subject, you probably aren't in focus.

I haven't really found the focus assist that helpful. It works only on the wider side of the lens for me, as soon as I zoom passed maybe 15mm, colors no longer show.

[Shaun Roemich]

Drew: fous assist only works on high contrast edges. It works with the Peaking control that on older style viewfinders used to provide a whitish outline around in focus items with hard, high contrast edges.

If you're not getting focus assist to work on high contrast edges in telephoto, it's possible you aren't in focus. For example, as focal length increases, minimum focus distance (due to a shallower depth of field) becomes further from the lens. Or else it is possible that your back focus is out, although NORMALLY it works the other way: items in telephoto are in focus but when one pulls wide, one loses focus.

The other consideration is that in wide angle, you have maximum depth of field, therefore more will be in focus REGARDLESS of focal distance. As your focal length moves toward telephoto, focus becomes more critical and if you had focused in wide and then pushed into tele, it is conceivable that you aren't actual in focus. Here, focus is defined by ACTUAL focal distance from the focal point of the camera to the subject and not the subject being PERCEPTUALLY in focus.

For example: you are 10 feet from a person in a large room. In wide angle, you turn the focus ring until everything appears to be in focus and you get red/yellow focus assist marks on all hard edges. If you look at the lens, focal distance may read 25'. While everything in the frame APPEARS to be in focus due to a large depth of field, if you push into your subject at 10', he isn't in focus BECAUSE the depth of field has narrowed enough that the perceptually in focus area no longer includes the subject.

[Drew Cusick]

Well I just finished some "tests" with it and it seems to work fine. I was unaware that the subjects in focus needed to be high contrast - which would explain why when I had looked for the colored edges in previous situations, I didn't see any. Thanks for the info.

[Shaun Roemich]

No problem. Glad to help.

[Leonard Levy]

Shaun, how far down do you set your detail?

Also i looked at Tim's menu settings, many of which were way to radical for me, and his standard DSC CDM28 set-up couldn't use the pre-set 3200 balance because he was using the white paint. Didn't want to lose my presets.
Looking very briefly i just came up with standard color matrix, standard gamma and dropped the color gain 1 or 2 points.
Tim always set his black to stretch 5 . Do other people do this as a matter of course. I want the best look out of the box, not the most latitude for someone else who may or may not pay attention to color correcting.

likewise Tim always used a manual knee while off hand the auto knee looked fine to me. Again, any thoughts.

[Shaun Roemich]

My "Ultrawide" setting is as follows:
Master Black -1
Black: Stretch
Stretch Level:5
White Clip 108%
Knee: Manual
Level:80%
Cinema:On
C. Matrix: Cinema
Under Adjust: R gain -1
R gain -2
b gain normal
r & g rotation normal
b rotation 2

Gamma: Cinema
Level: Min
Colour Gain:-1

And dial Detail back as required. Sometime I run normal detail, sometimes I don't.

Again this IS a derivative of Tim's work and is modified for my own needs.