Time to hire a lawyer?

P

Paul Cahill

Member
Call me a babe in the woods. Call me naive. Call me whatever, but call me with a solution. After a fair amount of comparative shopping, I dug in and bought a JVC GY-HD100. I like the camera, too, 'cept for a pesky little problem with "chromatic aberration." Apparently, the problem is with Fujinon lens that was packaged with the camera. According to Matt Barrett, the guy at JVC, the problem goes away if I buy the $11k "accessory" lens.

I'm leaving for Thailand on July 4 to shoot a program using -- you guessed it -- the HD-100. Surprise! No one has the recommended lens in stock. (And I'm not sure that I would have gone with the camera in the first place if I knew that it's one and only lens cost nearly twice as much as the camera.)

So I have a question and a concern that you who are wiser might answer. First off, is there anything I can do with settings, etc. that might minimize the problem -- short of renting an lens adaptor and better glass? (I'm presently using Paulo's "reality" setting and Tim Dashwood's "warm" settings, and I like the look -- except for the occasional chromatic aberration.)

Now the concern: Is it time to hire a lawyer and try to coerce JVC to "make good?" I suspect they knew this problem existed before they marketed the camera, but chose to do nothing except take my money. After all, nothing in the marketing literature says, "but watch out for our giveaway lens. It's kinda flakey!"

Looking forward to your responses.
 
Well you could have asked first here. Why not just return or sell the camera? AFAIK you cannot sue a company because you didn't do your research. Or I take that back you can sue anyone you want but you aren't likely to win. Every camera in this price range has some trade-offs. You might as well sue them for compressing their HD so much while you're at it.
 
Paul Cahill said:
I'm leaving for Thailand on July 4 to shoot a program using -- you guessed it -- the HD-100. Surprise! No one has the recommended lens in stock. (And I'm not sure that I would have gone with the camera in the first place if I knew that it's one and only lens cost nearly twice as much as the camera.)

So I have a question and a concern that you who are wiser might answer. First off, is there anything I can do with settings, etc. that might minimize the problem -- short of renting an lens adaptor and better glass? (I'm presently using Paulo's "reality" setting and Tim Dashwood's "warm" settings, and I like the look -- except for the occasional chromatic aberration.).
Click to expand...
Try keeping your lens off of either extreme of the lens. Try setting it up so that you can shoot anywhere between F2.8 to F5.6. Do not overexpose and make sure to use your zebras. Set the zebra to the 60-70 range in the menu and set you highest highlight up so that the zebras are apparent on it and let the other stuff in your scene ride below your zebra'd highlight. In other words, learn the camera. It'd have been nice if you had the camera for some time. The HD-100 is no point and shooter. You'll get great results with your stock lens if you follow the rules.

S.Noe
 
stephenlnoe said:
Try keeping your lens off of either extreme of the lens. Try setting it up so that you can shoot anywhere between F2.8 to F5.6.
Click to expand...

Like Stephen says, if you keep the lens stopped down a little, it doesn't show much.

Using the zoom at longer settings tends to make it show up a little more as you have shallower depth of field and, on my lens at least, objects in sharp focus don't exhibit much CA.

I have now shot several projects with the camera and it hasn't been an issue at all in real world shooting.
 
Post some images here. Maybe there is a genuine problem with the camera, in which case you should be able to return it.
 
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