My HM600 arrived =)

[Jody Arnott]

Some thoughts so far.

Build quality:
- Seems good for the most part, the camera feels solid and well-built. However...
- SD Card door is really weak and flimsy
- When I pull out the LCD screen, it feels very weak, and it creaks when moved
- The plastic near the handhold strap creaks, which annoys me. It feels hollow and cheap

Rings:
- Focus ring is rubberised plastic and it's HUGE, so it's really easy to find and use without looking
- Zoom ring is servo driven I think. It's quite responsive, there doesn't seem to be any lag unless you pull it really fast, then the lens has to catch up. Otherwise it's really nice to use
- Iris ring is tiny, as on most cameras I think, but easy enough to find and grip so no issues

Auto focus:
- I'm on the fence so far... Sometimes it's fast and accurate and other times it takes a while to start auto focusing. Sometimes it even hunts back and forth to find an accurate focus, making the footage unusable
I'll need more time with the camera to really make a decision though. I do a lot of sports videography so auto focus is important to me.

Image stabilisation:
- Not really impressed, the stabilisation on my XA10 is better. Then again, I'm not used to holding big cameras like this so it may just be a matter of personal technique. Default setting is "normal" but you can go into the menu and set it to "high" which I think may introduce some form of software stabilisation. It doesn't seem to make a huge difference.

LCD screen:
- Resolution is good, it's reasonably crisp and sharp. Easy to focus on, but very reflective in the light.
- The EVF is extremely good, it's huge and really sharp which makes it easy to focus on. Unfortunately the colours are terrible, very washed out, dull, and not very accurate.

Other stuff:
- Zoom lever is massive and really nice to use
- 3 record buttons, very ergonomically placed
- Fan noise can be heard on the internal mic in quiet environments
- Having trouble getting the .mp4 and .mov media into Avid MC 6.5


More later.

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

Simple. News gathering. When you MUST get an image, regardless of quality.

Might as well use the camera on your iPhone then. ;-)

[Rod Pike]

Originally Posted by Jody Arnott

Some thoughts so far.

Auto focus:
- I'm on the fence so far... Sometimes it's fast and accurate and other times it takes a while to start auto focusing. Sometimes it even hunts back and forth to find an accurate focus, making the footage unusable
I'll need more time with the camera to really make a decision though. I do a lot of sports videography so auto focus is important to me.

More later.

Hi Jody, firstly thanks for all the feedback-as I said earlier, early adopters ought to be given the camera in exchange for all the consumer testing for the rest of us!

I am very interested in the auto focus , particularly at full zoom swing from a distance subject to a near subject, and would love to see some footage. Thanks again for the feedback.
Cheers!
Rod

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

I moved away from the 1/3" chip simply because of unusable footage at 18db+ and went for the Sony EA-50 with the APS-C sensor ....I have wedding footage now at 27db and it's clean and NO special noise processing either ....In that light with a 3 chipper that's about the best you can expect ...That's why I didn't even consider the JVC as much as the specs impressed me!!

I'm reconsidering the EA-50 because of the low noise, AVCHD 2.0 and 1080/60p capabilities. I'll likely go for the EA-50, unless, as I mentioned, the NAB show in April has something more interesting.

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Rod Pike

Hi Jody, firstly thanks for all the feedback-as I said earlier, early adopters ought to be given the camera in exchange for all the consumer testing for the rest of us!

I am very interested in the auto focus , particularly at full zoom swing from a distance subject to a near subject, and would love to see some footage. Thanks again for the feedback.
Cheers!
Rod

Agreed!

I'm working on some sample footage today, so will try and get it up on Youtube soon :)

[Shaun Roemich]

Originally Posted by Ed Arszyla

Might as well use the camera on your iPhone then. ;-)

I'll assume that was tongue in cheek, as someone who has spent the better part of his career shooting hard news and broadcast documentaries...

Remember, audio is MORE than 50% of video...

What I meant was that the video quality of the HM-600 looked so poor in low light, that an iPhone would probably do a better job.

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Rod Pike

Hi Jody, firstly thanks for all the feedback-as I said earlier, early adopters ought to be given the camera in exchange for all the consumer testing for the rest of us!

I am very interested in the auto focus , particularly at full zoom swing from a distance subject to a near subject, and would love to see some footage. Thanks again for the feedback.
Cheers!
Rod

As requested, full telephoto distant object to near object autofocus.

Camera set to full auto. Excuse the shakiness, my tripod was upstairs :P

Test footage compilation coming tomorrow.

JVC HM600 Telephoto Autofocus Test - YouTube

[Rod Pike]

Hi again from "the other Island"(the empty one!)
Jody,

Thanks so much for that. Its ability to focus on the near wall is excellent considering there is no real contrast. My Pansonic 160A likes a bit more contrast than that and would probably fail on such a neutral target. Regarding focus times, the JVC apperas to be about the same as my Panny, possibly a tad quicker.
My interest in this performance stems from the fact that I am in the middle of shooting a sports promo over several seasons, and footballers move around a bit, especially if you are shooting from the touchline, so zoomed AF (if fast enough and accurate enough) is really useful.
Cheers for the feedback, you appear to be the only owner in the world giving any at the moment!

Rod

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Rod Pike

Hi again from "the other Island"(the empty one!)
Jody,

Thanks so much for that. Its ability to focus on the near wall is excellent considering there is no real contrast. My Pansonic 160A likes a bit more contrast than that and would probably fail on such a neutral target. Regarding focus times, the JVC apperas to be about the same as my Panny, possibly a tad quicker.
My interest in this performance stems from the fact that I am in the middle of shooting a sports promo over several seasons, and footballers move around a bit, especially if you are shooting from the touchline, so zoomed AF (if fast enough and accurate enough) is really useful.
Cheers for the feedback, you appear to be the only owner in the world giving any at the moment!

Rod

Glad to help. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see.

I'll be uploading a general test footage compilation within the next day or so.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Jody Arnott

Glad to help. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see.

I wonder if the additional compression used in AVCHD recording mode results in more noise filtering? Also, have you tried adjusting Camera Process->Detail and possibly Black Toe?