Boldly Going: This tiny camera is another big step forward for JVC.

By Jay Holben

This last April at NAB, JVC introduced the teeny-tiny (5.5" x 7" x 14.5") ProHD GY-HM100, a 1⁄4" 3-CCD 1920x1080 near-palmcorder-sized camera that shoots in MPEG-2 Long GOP QuickTime .MOV (MP4) format for instant input into Final Cut Pro.

The HM100 is amazingly small. At first glance, it appears to be a consumer camera designed for tech-savvy soccer moms/dads, but it’s far more powerful than that, and aimed squarely at the pro/prosumer market.

The HM100, and its big brother the GY-HM700 (see our review here), represent a bold move forward for JVC. Not only is JVC offering the only professional cameras on the market to shoot in native .MOV QuickTime files, but the cameras shoot in XDCAM compression at 35Mb/s. This is leaps and bounds beyond JVC’s previous HDV cameras at 17Mb/s. In addition, these cameras shoot 1920x1080, not just 1280x720. The HM100 shoots in 1080i 50 and 60fps; 1080p 24 and 30fps; and 720p 24, 25, 30, 50 and 60fps.

First, the bad. I’ll start with the iris control. Not only is it at the back of the camera, and not only is it a flick spring-switch, but you must hit a button before you can flick to change the iris. I can’t complain about this enough. The fundamental aspect of photography is light, and the fundamental aspect of a videographer’s control of light is the iris. Why, oh WHY would it be in such an awkward and fumbling position? And require multiple steps to control? JVC knows better! Their GY-HD250U is one of the best configured/designed 1⁄3" cameras I’ve ever worked with. This is a shame and one of my biggest complaints about the HM100. This same flick switch also controls shutter, auto exposure offset adjustment and headphone/speaker volume.

There are other, smaller, ergonomic issues, such as the earphone jack positioned forward of the right-hand grip, where the additional mic jack is also located.

From there, however, the HM100 is impressive. Starting with audio, the camera comes with a shotgun microphone assembly that slips in and secures to the cold shoe on the top of the camera and then plugs into its own stereo jack. The assembly has two XLR inputs and full controls for line, mic and 48-volt phantom power. Individual volume controls for the audio and a switch to record one channel onto two (e.g., mic input 1 goes to channels 1 and 2) or both channels separately. In addition, the microphone assembly removes quickly and easily to reduce the profile of the camera. And then there’s a built-in stereo mic in the body of the camera — this was a welcome surprise. For those times when you need to go low-profile, this is a nice feature.

As would be expected, the GY-HM100 has a flip-out LCD screen (206,000 pixel 2.8"), but it also has a viewfinder (235,000 pixel .44") and options to run both or leave the viewfinder off when the screen is open to save the battery.

I was very impressed, at first, with the speed of the fixed lens — an f/1.8, which is very unusual for a fixed zoom, but you need it. The 1⁄4" chips in the HM100 have a base ISO of only 125 (24fps, 1⁄24, cine gamma, 1920x1080), so that extra stop or two on the lens is imperative for low-light shooting. However, be aware that although the lens doesn’t state it, it’s not an f/1.8 consistent throughout the zoom range. I first noticed this while testing and found no discernable difference in the exposure (as seen on a waveform) between f/1.8 and f/2.5.

Although the on-screen display still allowed me to “open” to an f/1.8, I wasn’t actually affecting the light levels at all. The camera’s specs state that the lens is actually an f/1.8-2.8, although I think that may be slightly generous. At the far end of the zoom, I noted no difference between 1.8 and 3.5. The lens stops down to only f/8, which could be for performance issues, but the camera has only one stage of built-in ND (1⁄8 or three stops by my calculations, 1⁄10 by documentation), which could be troublesome for individuals shooting in extreme lighting conditions. Anything over 5,600 footcandles is going to be overexposed with no in-camera option. If you’re shooting in harsh daylight, I recommend using a polarizer and ND filters.

In my testing, the HM100 has a five-stop latitude range, 2 2⁄3 underexposure and 1 1⁄3 overexposure.

The fixed lens is a 10x 3.7-37mm. That equates to a 22-223mm on a 35mm motion picture camera (4:3 Academy) or 4.9-49mm on a 1⁄3" camera and a 9-90mm on a 2⁄3" camera. Not very wide at all, but getting a wide angle on a small chip is extremely difficult. If you need wide, you’ll have to go with a third-party lens attachment, like those offered by Century Optics and 16x9. The lens has a built-in macro function, which is really impressive, but you have to select macro from the menu, and there’s no indicator that you’re in or out of macro mode. This made for some confusing focus issues a couple of times, as I didn’t know what mode I was in.

Like many consumer and prosumer cameras, the focus adjustment on the HM100 is a servo ring. Oddly, the same servo ring works the zoom as well, selected through a switch behind the ring itself. Although the camera features the standard rocker control for zoom at the right-hand grip, in addition to zoom control from the tiny knob-joystick that controls menu selection, you can, if you so desire, use the servo ring for zoom. This is a rather odd function that’s asking for more trouble than it’s worth, but the option is there.

The gain control switch is precisely positioned in a convenient and professional spot: just behind and below the lens on the left side. I was really astounded at how quiet this camera is. Even with +18 dB of gain, the noise level was still quite acceptable for most situations. +12 dB looked, to me, like +6 on many other cameras. Going further, the HM100 has a Lolux mode that is mind boggling. Although it is very noisy, switching into Lolux gave me a 2500 ISO! I was able to properly expose an 18 percent gray card to 50 IRE at f/1.8 at 4.8 foot lamberts (approximately 27 footcandles). This mode is almost night vision, but you have full color (not green or black-and-white) and are resolving really stunning detail at this super ISO. For certain applications, this is an incredible low-light tool.

There’s a button to go quickly into full auto mode (focus, white balance, iris, gain, shutter), which is handy, especially since the controls are inconvenient. When you jump back out of full auto, all of the auto settings remain locked in except your gain and white balance, which revert to your switch position settings.

The camera has HDMI and USB connections at the rear but composite and component connections inside the flip-out screen. I’m sure this was a space issue, as trying to fit everything into this small body size had to be a challenge.

The QuickTime files work precisely as purported. I was able to import directly from the camera’s SDHC card into Final Cut Pro 6.0.1 and drop the clips onto an XDCAM timeline with no rendering, transcoding or any fuss. Played perfectly. That, alone, is practically worth the price of the camera.

JVC GY-HM100 Camcorder

SCORE: 

PROS: Small, great low-light modes, excellent sound options, QuickTime native, 35Mb/s data rate.

CONS: Poor ergonomics, odd iris control.

BOTTOM LINE: An impressive unit, especially for location and clandestine shooting.

MSRP: $3,999

CONTACT: www.pro.jvc.com/hm100