Good lens for the JVC201. Please advice

[Svein Rune Skilnand]

Hello. I have recently bought a JVC201 and I am now to pursue a longlife dream of going into the wild with this one.

I need a good zoom lens to get as close to the wildlife I will be filming as possible. Can anyone advice me to a good lens? I have been looking at a Sigma 100-300mm still-lens but I do not have a clue what to look for in a photographic lens. At all.

For the last seven years or so I have been filming mostly live- events, shows and news for broadcast with smaller cameras such as the DVX100 and Sony VX2000.

I will be using my Manfrotto 525/519 Tripod and Sennheiser ME66.

If anyone could advice me it would be most appreciated.

[Per Johan Naesje]

Hei Svein Rune,
good to hear from a fellow Norwegian and welcome to this forum!

I think you are asking the same question as Mat Thompson do in another thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=106778, I think it's better to join him instead of having multiple threads with the same subject?

OFF TOPIC:
I'm a bit curious about the JVC 201, which look like a very good camcorder. I'm using the Canon XLH1 myself with external ef-lenses via an ef-adapter with Canon 35mm mount. This gives a huge magnification by 7.2 to any ef-lenses you connect. Very nice for wildlifefootage :-)

What kind of adapter do you use to mount 35mm lenses on your JVC 201 and do you achieve any magnification?

[Svein Rune Skilnand]

Hei Per Johan and thank you. I think this forum looks like a great place to get good quality information. I will follow up on that thread.

I haven`t acquired an adapter yet, unfortunately, because I thougt I had to decide what lens to use: Then again this is very new to me.

I looked at the web page for JVCPro and discovered there where 3 adapters. 2 made for Nikon lenses and for Leica. The magnification seems to be the same at 7.2. But I think the Nikon adapter fits most lenses.

I had a look at your homepage and saw the video of the bears. MAN. What an amazing experience. Not just the pictures were great, but the sound! It made me feel like I was there, smack in the middle. Those pictures belong on the big screen. What sort of mic did you use?

I have had a long life dream of filming bears in the wild. One day....

Earlier this winter I had an amazing excperience when a Lynx jumped out in front of my car. And I didn`t have my camera with me.....I talked to my neighbour about it. He works for Statskog ( forest department ) and said the Lynx came about every 4-5 years. Maybe I`ll get lucky then....

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Svien,

If you go to www.wildlifefilmmaking.co.uk they have produced a wildlife training video useing the JVC and a long lens, this may be of some help to you.

Regards

Mick

[Yeo Wee Han]

Hi Per Johan and Svien,

As far I as I know, the 7.2X "mag rate" is due to the small 1/3" sensor on both the H1 camera and the JVC. Its the same principle as with DSLRs where we have the crop factor. It should have nothing to do with the adaptors used.

Cheers

WeeHan

[Eric Gulbransen]

Svein, I am curious, did you ever get the adapter for your HD201? I just got a Zork adapter a few days ago for the HD200 I have here. I love it. HERE is a frame grab of a quick test that I did over the weekend. I only had an hour to test it because I really wanted to get it all mounted up properly before I headed out. I am more than happy with the preliminary results I was able to get with 1- no monitor (didn't bring it, in a rush), 2- no experience shooting with this 80-200 Nikon lens/setup 3- no time to really test it all properly.

HERE is some info on how it all hooked up with the HD200 that I have here.

Let me know how you're making out with yours. I'm part Norwegian for crying out loud. That aught to be worth something ; )

[Svein Rune Skilnand]

Mick.

Thank you for your advice. I went ahead and ordered one. Great DVD. lots of good tips.

Eric.
I am afraid no, not yet. I have been to busy finishing a documentary. And now that I wanted to invest in an adapter, I found myself in the need of buying a BR-HD50 player and upgrade to Final Cut 2 to take full advantage of 720/50 p. So now I am waiting for it to turn up at my door. Hope it works as it is supposed to.

Your rig looks impressive and seems to be what I am looking for. Great pic as well, nice colours.

Does the Zork adapter work with Sigma`s as well or only Nikon? And the rails to hold it, did you buy that separately and where can I get all of this? Including the matte box.

I kind of figuered your name was scandinavian of some sort. Plenty of people in Norway called Gulbransen.

[Eric Gulbransen]

Svein, I don't know where you buy stuff over there but if you are shopping here in the US call Scott Cantrell at TapeworksTexas. Tapeworks is a sponsor of this site, and believe me, Scott will take care of you on both service and price.

My rails/mattebox setup are Chrosziel. I got them through Tapeworks as well. High quality stuff. However I swapped the short stock aluminum Chrosziel rods for Cinevate's long carbon rods. They are both standard 15mm, strong and light. Reasonably priced as well. You can get the rails block that I used from Cinevate as well.

On the rig Svein, I just picked up a used Nikon 28-70 2.8 ED. I have to say I am very excited about this lens. It's reach is surprisingly far, yet it's also wide enough to get a good feel for your surroundings. Very easy to find what you're looking for, then you just move in on it. Also for tracking a moving subject, I shot some surfers for practice this past weekend. On long rides I could track these guys keeping them in perfect focus while only using the lcd - and once back at the mac I was very pleased to find they were spot on. I could see the 80-200 being just too close sometimes. These two will compliment each other well, and the images are super. I promise I'll post some stuff tonight.

Interestingly, the 28-70 starts it's range somewhere near the end of the stock Fujinon 16x. I'll post an example of what I mean tonight.

--------------

- Ok so here it is tonight.. And here are the two shots I promised which show just how much the two lenses overlap their zoom range. Mind you, as you can see there is a big difference in how the two lenses produce color. While the 16x is pretty well dialed with Paolo's settings, the 28-70 needs some tweeking.

First shot is the stock 16X Fujinon at 28mm f4


Second shot is the Nikon 28-70 2.8 ED (mounted via the Zork adapter) at 28mm f4

Last shot is what happens when the 28-70 keeps you up dreaming all night

[Svein Rune Skilnand]

Actually I an not sure either where to buy. I have bought some stuff from B&H and been happy with price and service. I will check out your link. Thank you.

Regarding the matte box. Will that fit on the standard lens as well? Or is it only for the Nikon rig.

Great image of the lighthouse by the way. What settings did you use? I have heard of Paolo`s TC3 ( is that it ) but I am not sure how to load settings to my camera. To nervous to try I guess. Would sure like to try though.

As you mentioned there was a slight difference in the colours between the Nikon/ Fujinon.

Svein Rune

By the way, I don`t know if it is of interest but the webpage: http://www.jvcpro.co.uk/prod/prohd/index_html has good info on Pro HD.

[Mat Thompson]

Hey Eric
Nice images and nice rig! - I have to say though the stock lens is quite a bit sharper than the Nikon/adapter. Or at least it looks that way on these pics.

Do you have any info on the York adapters your talking about?

[Eric Gulbransen]

Svein, yes the mattebox fits so perfectly both the Nikons AND the stock Fujinon lens. In fact you only have to very slightly adjust the rods down about 3mm to get the mattebox lined up perfectly when you change from Fuji to Nikon (which have the same circumference in the models that I purchased).

Also Svein, you haven't lived until you've dorked around with your color settings. Don't worry, right now your settings are saved on your memory card (which you slid in the side of the cam when you got it). So anything that you change you can simply go back to. You really should try it. Read the manual and get comfortable scrolling through your menus. That's when life begins..


Mat, you are right. Especially when using the 28-70 (and particularly in those images) there is no benefit to using the Nikon lens over the stock Fujinon. The stock lens I have found, is actually quite good in it's comfort zone. It's when you break out of that zone that it falls apart - and the value of alternate options come to life.

I have been told to keep the stock Fujinon from both ends of it's range - especially not going farther than 55mm zoom. For reference, the 28-70 Nikon operates well within the stock Fuji's boundaries:

28mm on the Fuji equals 28mm on the Nikon
60mm on the Fuji equals 70mm on the Nikon

88mm on the Fuji equals 80mm on the Nikon (80-200) *in this case the Nikon is better than the Fuji - and it goes on from there into no-man's land.


For what it's worth, I have not yet mounted the monitor and tried to get the most out of either lens in a proper comparison (if I even have the knowledge to properly compare anything). But I will try to soon enough. There is color calibration to do as well.

Here is a fun experience that I just had considering all this, only with a 300mm Nikon - Mavericks

Just as a note I did no post work on the hawk, but I did miss out on a better shot because it was a cloudy morning with a rising sun and I did not keep proper white balance pace with the changing color of light.

[Svein Rune Skilnand]

"Svein, yes the mattebox fits so perfectly both the Nikons AND the stock Fujinon lens. "

Ok, thanks a lot Eric. You have really been helpful with this one.

"Also Svein, you haven't lived until you've dorked around with your color settings. Don't worry, right now your settings are saved on your memory card (which you slid in the side of the cam when you got it). So anything that you change you can simply go back to."

Regarding these settings. I spoke to JVC and he said that the presets are stored in camera and whatever changes I do will be saved to the memory card. He said I couldn`t mess up because the settings are in camera only.

You say that the settings are on my memory card. Do I have to transfer them to the camera first then and then load new ones to the memory card? What I am missing?

[Eric Gulbransen]

I'm not JVC Svein, in fact I can barely even spell JVC. My bet is the "Factory settings" are stored in the camera in a place that you can't access, so you can't screw them up. Meaning, you can just reset your settings no matter how far you go off the mark, and they will always go back to the factory settings that the camera came with. In regards to saving settings to your memory card, when you go into your menu you will find that there are four (I thought it was only three) settings that you can set/store on the memory card so you can simply pull them up at any time. For instance if you create a good setting for low light - you can then save it under any name you choose, and call it up after the sun goes down. And so on, and so on.

Go to: Menu/File Manager/Load File/Select/ - then you'll see "Cam 1" "Cam 2" "Cam 3" "Cam 4" which you can use to name and save the settings that you create to your liking. There are also some factory presets in that same menu that you can also use. But the only ones you can change are the "Cam - 1,2,3,4).

Have fun horsing around with the colors. It is not hard to improve from the factory settings, but keep in mind that what you see on your monitor is not what you will see on a tv, or a proper monitor. That's why it's so valuable to have people on this forum that have already done the proper calibration work for us - AND they offer them here! For free!

Have fun Svein