New footage from JVC - LS 300

I am so disappointed that this camera didn't work out - on paper it seemed the perfect camera, not only a successor to the AF100, but a head to head opponent to the rising Blackmagic dynasty. I love the concept, a versatile camera that can use virtually every lens I own, from My C100's to my Pocket Cam's to my Aaton's.

Then it turned out to be limited to 8 bit and devoid of the image quality that i, and everyone else, hoped for. Why, JVC, oh why didn't you do your homework? I would have gladly given you the 5+ grand I'm forking over for the Mini.
 
It does not look good indeed. Actualy pretty bad. But what do you expect? It has al these great features you want for $4000,-. They probably saved on the sensor.
Blackmagic has the oposite problem. That has a GREAT image and a lack of features. You get where you pay for.
 
Did you get a chance to see the footage we shot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S47dceBcuJI&feature=youtu.be

......30p w/ Cinema subdued, 24p with Cinema standard, various ISOs & lenses, night shots, and big back light to see how well it handles the range of exposure.....it seems that some are trashing this camera saying its a piece of ....really?....It's not crap and it's not 100% perfect either...no camera is. What LS 300 is.....is a really good value for the money. A functioning camera that you do not need a work around or extra gear to make it perform. Take it out of the box, put a battery in it, put a card in it, put a lens on it and go. If you remember when the C300 launched, many posted that "it's only 8 bit" or "only good for some TV stuff"....it was better than the camera they shot the last Star Wars with AND, you know how successful the camera became. I also venture to say that very few here that are posting "absolutes" have not had the camera in their hands, have not shot with it, have not worked with the footage in post.......I've said this before, try to keep it to constructive discussions, not mine is better than yours or "It's Terrible!".....as for BlackMagic, it's not a "Juggernaut" , they have been successful in a portion of the market but it's not like they have dominated. We have the 3 biggest reality show producers as clients here (40+ shows between them) and none of them are using any BM cameras.....so let's try to keep things in perspective when posting.
Sorry for the rant but I get tired of people posting negatives.....I'm a "half-full person...

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com
 
Jim Martin said:
Did you get a chance to see the footage we shot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S47dceBcuJI&feature=youtu.be

......30p w/ Cinema subdued, 24p with Cinema standard, various ISOs & lenses, night shots, and big back light to see how well it handles the range of exposure.....it seems that some are trashing this camera saying its a piece of ....really?....It's not crap and it's not 100% perfect either...no camera is. What LS 300 is.....is a really good value for the money. A functioning camera that you do not need a work around or extra gear to make it perform. Take it out of the box, put a battery in it, put a card in it, put a lens on it and go. If you remember when the C300 launched, many posted that "it's only 8 bit" or "only good for some TV stuff"....it was better than the camera they shot the last Star Wars with AND, you know how successful the camera became. I also venture to say that very few here that are posting "absolutes" have not had the camera in their hands, have not shot with it, have not worked with the footage in post.......I've said this before, try to keep it to constructive discussions, not mine is better than yours or "It's Terrible!".....as for BlackMagic, it's not a "Juggernaut" , they have been successful in a portion of the market but it's not like they have dominated. We have the 3 biggest reality show producers as clients here (40+ shows between them) and none of them are using any BM cameras.....so let's try to keep things in perspective when posting.
Sorry for the rant but I get tired of people posting negatives.....I'm a "half-full person...

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com
Click to expand...

i wanted this camera to succeed. but the general consensus i've seen on here is that people are unimpressed and disappointed. if you find yourself still having to convince people it really is a good camera after they've watched the footage, that's a problem. the footage should speak for itself.

it's a bummer hearing a particular camera is a turkey. although that feedback may not be constructive, there is value in knowing what different segments think about that camera (good or bad).
 
Jim Martin said:
We have the 3 biggest reality show producers as clients here (40+ shows between them) and none of them are using any BM cameras.....so let's try to keep things in perspective when posting.
Click to expand...

And probably none of them uses JVC cameras...?

I started video with MII cameras and later briefly worked with D9.
So I´m kind of nostalgic when it comes to JVC.

The LS300 might find its market, because of the price. But the picture and IQ?
Let's just say, people on DVXuser expect sth else. Even the run'n gun people.
But when upgrading up a local news outfit to 4K (for whatever reasons) and buying 10 cams in one batch, the price might be the tipping point towards JVC.
Just let's not think this will be another initially underrated camera and later-turned goldmine like the C300 (or C100). Not in 2015 anymore.
 
" unimpressed and disappointed"
....my point is that I suspect most have not had the camera in their hands......as for our reality clients, they have looked at the camera and are considering it for their "arsenal"

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com
 
Jim: I don't argue that it's a terrific value for the price. In fact, I would probably buy one just to put it through it's paces (that's exactly what I did do with the AF100)... The point I was making is that for $1500 more it could have been a GREAT camera for the price.

It may be true that you "get what you pay for", but I still have a $60,000 Aaton package sitting in my closet because it is obsolete. As an independent documentary filmmaker I don't want to be forced to take jobs that I don't want to pay for a camera. My ceiling (after a disastrous experience with the HPX500 that cost over 30 grand with the 16x9 finder) is $5-6000. I already have a terrific 8 bit camera (C100), but this is nearly four years later, so we should get more for that money, and Canon blew it.

JVC could have been the tortoise in the race with the hare, that's all I'm saying.
 
I think it is fine. But I have a problem with products that are just "fine" in general. After the march forward in tech since the HD era, I look at this camera with its 8bit video and 16bit audio and wonder why it is kind of limited. Would it really cost much more to have 24bit audio and 10bit video in HD? I guess JVC is comparing to Canon but it does not make me want to be a part of it. I will keep it on the radar but I do not know what I would want to pay for it.
 
Jim Martin said:
Did you get a chance to see the footage we shot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S47dceBcuJI&feature=youtu.be

We have the 3 biggest reality show producers as clients here (40+ shows between them) and none of them are using any BM cameras.....so let's try to keep things in perspective when posting.
Sorry for the rant but I get tired of people posting negatives.....I'm a "half-full person...

Jim Martin
EVSonline.com
Click to expand...

I saw your video and it is shot terrific and with great skill, but still not like the (skin)colors and the way it handels highlights. If you want to make a reality-show with big sensor and in 4K it would probably a considerable camera. But if you want something that is focust on aesthetics (wich I always do) I would prefer the BM.
 
At the risk of starting one of those dreadful internet arguments, I have to say that I'm not seeing "horrible" highlights in any of the footage. After two years with the AF100 following three+ years with the HPX500, I know what horrible highlights are - those avocado green and/or purple chroma clipping uglies that are so distracting that it doesn't take a pixel peeper to notice them.

The footage I've seen from the JVC here has been all over the place - I mean, what was JVC thinking to let some of that out? - but the highlight clipping I'm seeing isn't near that bad. The macro blocking worries me more, but most of that could be attributed to the uploads. If the camera can deliver a good image directly out of the camera without needing much in post, the 8 bit isn't as much of an issue (re: C100). I'm interested to see what can be done down and dirty, in HD instead of 4K, using S16 and MFT lenses.

I think I'm going to spring for one - what the heck, if nothing else it'll be a good travel/crash cam to replace my XF100. I'll let you know what I think...
 
Last edited:
Mac said:
... The footage I've seen from the JVC here has been all over the place - I mean, what was JVC thinking to let some of that out? - but the highlight clipping I'm seeing isn't near that bad. The macro blocking worries me more, but most of that could be attributed to the uploads. If the camera can deliver a good image directly out of the camera without needing much in post, the 8 bit isn't as much of an issue (re: C100). I'm interested to see what can be done down and dirty, in HD instead of 4K, using S16 and MFT lenses...
Click to expand...

The latest footage is not unpleasant and one has wonder how much can be brought out in post -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KWkm43rMnU

A sales spiel -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW_U93HJbAo
 
Well the very first shot has severe yellow chroma clipping on the elephant's trunk, the second on the monkey's tail - of course those portions of the clips are about four stops over. The dynamic range certainly isn't stellar. It looks like this camera can deliver very nice, if videoish, images as long as you're experienced and very careful about your exposure - it reminds me of shooting Ektachrome reversal in the early 70s - not for the faint at heart... I'm anxious to shoot a variety of things and try bashing it with FilmConvert...

The appeal of this camera to me, besides the ability to use virtually every lens I own, is the small size and the fact that it has NDs and XLR inputs - of course it's yet to be known if the audio preamps are any good.. so many questions, so few answers.
 
In the first one the trunk looks great compared to the crushed white ground with the crazy yellow rectangles sprinkled around!
 
That's the worst looking footage I ever saw - JVC should try to get it pulled. This isn't official launch footage is it? It can't be!
 
Footage from this camera has been mediocre to lackluster to just plain bad. The zoo footage is ridiculous. It's clear this is just a bad camera. I don't see how having the camera in your hands, an argument that keeps being rubbed on our faces will change that. It was already bad by current standards before the Ursa Mini was announced. Now I would only even look at it if it was $2000 and I desperately needed built in ND.
 
Aside from dof versatility vs a stock lens you can get this image from the AX33 correct?
 
I'm certain if I take the Ursa Mini out to a zoo and violently overexpose everything, that it would also look equivalently turdish.

Still planning to rent one and see if it angers me or thrills me, then decide accordingly. Internet opinioneering has limited value.
 
Just downloaded all the available footage and looked at them properly on my new 4K TV. Here are my notes: you guys are over exaggerating, the footage looks fantastic. The samples prpvided here are not cinematic shots, not drama shots, most of them are at very high F/numbers, with kit zoom lenses at m43s crop mode, and at 60p and 30p, which is not bad it's just a different kind of genre than the film-emulating type. Even note some of the sample shooters taking about servo zoom, these footage are clearly shot with that genre in mind. -Second thing is, the only technical elememt that's bad in the footage is how the highlights clip harshly sometimes, but they are very exaggerated here by bluntly over exposing the footage by 2-3 stops (zoo shots) and by the high contrast grade + edge sharpening. All highlight clipping is bad, don't clip them, that down to exposure setting and grading. -All the other elements of IQ look great even in these examples, the resolution, the colour rendition, the noise structure and amount, everything looks great, in fact it reminds me very much of the samsung nx1. The DR seems to be a couple stops below the greatest (alexa, c300ii, f65, fs7), the image looka great, just shot with a ''video approach'' -I can't imagine the camera that produces this image would be able to produce filmic/cinematic images when the gamma is set to the flatest mode, shot at 24p at 180° shutter, exposed correctly for the highlights, shot on a prime lens with shallow DOF, and graded properly, or by adding a film-emulsion instagram filter that we associate with film now, that would definitely take off the video edge, I even tried it on the youtube footage shot at 60p and it looks great and "cinematic''. -Wait until someone shoots it as a ''film'' environment at proper settings to pass judgment on it being a 'lemon'' or a ''turkey'' or ''DOA'' or any of that. I can make Alexa looks videoish, wanna bet? Just wait a bit. I have high hopes for the image from I am seeing, especially the colour science.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top