I was the first video company in Glasgow to cover Glasgow Speedway from 1988 to 1992 at Shawfield Stadium, Glasgow. Today the Glasgow Tigers are at a new home on the North side of Glasgow at a newly re-generated Ashfield Stadium.
JVC have kindly sent me their new GY-LS300 to review, a Super 35mm 4K camera with a micro 4/3″ lens mount. This is the reason for the trip to Ashfield Stadium today, to do a production recce.
Ashfield used to be a greyhound track but is now solely owned by Glasgow Tigers Speedway. Today I had my first look at the all new stadium and I was more than impressed. I am hoping to produce some sexy footage from the JVC LS300.
Although the LS300 has 4K abilities I am using the cameras full HD capabilities 1920 x 1080 50p because of the nature of the sport, fast action never looks good at 25p.
I am looking forward to filming Speedway once more, its a very exiting sport and can be very dangerous.
Back in 1988 we filmed Speedway with the first commercially available CCD camera called a Panasonic F10, recording onto a portable VHS recorder. The camera had an interchangeable 12x lens.
I am almost having a reunion on Sunday bringing back Chris Malcolm, my good friend who used to interview the Tigers…23 years ago !
I took this photograph back in 1992, the last year Steve Lawson (2nd from left) rode for the Glasgow Tigers. We produced a documentary called the Steve Lawson Story and went to Steve’s farm at Workington. The youngest chap on the far right, Richard Lawson now rides for the Glasgow Tigers.
So lets hope the JVC GY-LS300 puts in a good account of itself, I hope to use some sexy Canon glass to get some cracking shallow depth of field shots.
Great. I, for one, will be looking forward to your review of the JVC. I’ve already produced some videos for an organization I belong to and the footage came out looking lovely. I’m liking the results of the cam more and more, and fine it is easy to navigate the menus and buttons. Are there negatives? I have my list, but I’ll be anxious to hear about your, Phillip.
There are many, many positives here in my estimation, but I do hope they’ll acquiesce and give the cam a histograms and ISO. That would end much of my opining.
One question I have for you Phillip is something you may be able to answer without an in-depth analysis of the LS300: Does it have OIS capabilities. I see it listed in the camera menu, but it’s always grayed out, no matter what settings I have the camera on.
Frustraing–if there’s no OIS, then there’s no walkabout shooting without a MFT lens from Panasonic that has in-lens OIS: bummer!
Perhaps they will put OIS in a firmware update????
HDW : I will ask JVC this morning. Answer…Optical Image Stabiliser only operates when you have a lens like the Panasonic OIS in place..but I see it does not so JVC are looking further into this.
That Panasonic F10 looks really cool. I can’t believe it was a VHS. It looks more professional than many of the camcorders in the market today. I specially like the shoulder mount and the EVF. Wish they would go back to that form factor.
I’ve been to the Glasgow Speedway and watched the races! Not many Canadians can say that.
I’m looking forward to the review of the JVC camera although I’m more interested in the new Panasonic AG DVX200 or the new Ursa mini 4K.
Just noticed this newly announced Kipon ‘Canon EF-MFT electronic autofocus adapter’ which appears to offer full electronic communication between Canon EF lenses and M4/3 mount bodies:
http://www.kipon.com/en/articledetail.asp?id=80
http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/04/23/kipon-announce-canon-ef-to-m43-lens-adapter-with-full-auto-focus-and-is-capabilities/
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/04/20/kipon-unveils-worlds-first-canon-ef-mft-electronic-autofocus-adapter
If this all works as claimed (autofocus, optical image stabilisation [on lenses that have it!] and EXIF data feed to body) then it opens up an even greater choice of more easily usable lenses for the JVC GY-LS300, Panasonic GH4, Blackmagic Micro Cinema Camera and others using the M4/3 mount.
As it appears to have no optical elements I would expect both ‘Full Frame’ EF lenses and ‘APS-C Crop’ EF-S lenses to have enough coverage for the ‘Super 35mm’ sensor of the GY-LS300 (assuming the adapter itself doesn’t cause any cutoff of the imaging circle).
The arrival of this converter makes the JVC GY-LS300 even more attractive (pity they didn’t give it 4K 50p recording capability …I believe the same sensor is used in the forthcoming JVC GW-SP100E remote head 4KCAM camera system which can record up to 4K 50/60p) and also makes the fixed lens of the Panasonic AG-DVX200 even more frustrating for those of us who prefer the option to change from the supplied zoom if required (as was possible with the Panasonic F10 shown above).
Philip, if you have enough time with the camera, could I ask you consider doing a quick test to see if there is any obvious difference in image quality when shooting 4K UHD (downsampled to Full HD in post) and Full HD 25/50p recorded directly in camera.
If there is no obvious difference (unlike what I find with the GH4 where the in-camera Full HD is noticeably poorer [as well as the different crop factors]) then I might be inclined to forgo the 4K, for much of the time, for a clean Full HD 50p image.
Thanks …Peter
I’m most interested in the color science, albeit how close it matches other cameras. Would be great if you can dial it in and intercut with the DVX200.
For users who might prefer an all-in-one 4K camcorder solution JVC have also introduced two other models (GY-HM170 & GY-HM200) which share most of the features of the GY-LS300 but have a smaller sensor (1/2.33″ backside-illuminated CMOS sensor) and a fixed 12x optical zoom lens.
This B&H video gives a good outline of the feature set of all three models for comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLmKfvALFwI
Rick Young has started testing the JVC GY-HM200, and says he is “seriously impressed” with the results, as seen in this video which shows some nice examples of the cameras output:
It seems the sensor used in the GY-LS300 (AltaSens AL41410C) is capable of UHD & 4K at up to 72fps and Full HD at up to 240fps. It would be great if JVC could enable recording of some of the higher frame rates, in a future firmware upgrade, but it may be that limitations of processing power and/or cooling in the existing body preclude such changes.
Looking forward to seeing Philip’s take on the GY-LS300 which looks very promising for us GH4 users who couldn’t contemplate the extra size (system including lenses) and costs (camera …plus XQD cards!) of the Sony FS7 or similar.