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JVC camera


During our studio production rehearsals, I was behind the JVC camera. Everyone in our camera crew agreed that it was the best to stick by one camera and master working with it instead of bouncing from one to another. I've never worked with a JVC camera so it was tricky to figure out. The first day I picked it up felt like my first day in uni when I knew very little about cameras, it took me ages to find the on/off switch.
To help me better to understand where I can find all of the settings and buttons I took the camera out. I wanted to go through the settings so I would be confident in knowing where I can find certain settings if needed.









Before that, I couldn't find peaking on it which helps with keeping everything in focus especially when people move more.
Found out that if you turn the peaking on you can only see things in black and white and the peaking colour, of which I wasn't a fan, but at the same time I found out that you can increase peaking on the LED screen and the highlights of the image get sharper so you can see the coloured image and the peaking in white.


The panel by the LED screen controls the screen, you can make the image brighter or the peaking stronger and vice versa. The settings you make there only apply to the LED screen and won't affect the end image 
I didn't look into the audio settings as I didn't need to worry about the audio in our studio production.
I just noticed that the camera has a lot of buttons that do the same action. They are placed in 3 different places so that no matter how you're filming (handheld and holding it by the handle, on the shoulder or in the tripod) you have full access to the most important functions.
The main menu is pretty well accessed from everywhere, it can be a bit tricky to find your way around it when you just pick up the camera and are using the LED screen as it blocks the menu buttons, but other than that, it's easy to use.  
The top switches are for controlling the viewfinder. Personally, I didn't spend too much time on it because I knew I won't be using the viewfinder when the camera is going to be mounted on the tripod for the studio show. 









The camera also has a macro lens option. It has a fixed distance so you need to physically move closer to the object you want to focus on. Once again, I didn't spend much time on this function as I didn't really need it for studio production, but I can see it being very handy for docs where you need a close up where you can see the smallest details.
  
The more important part for me was how to manually put in the white balance temperature.
When you first go into the WB settings it doesn't give you all of the options, only the most usual ones, but if you press the >More you get all possible temperatures and can set them manually.
Another way to set the AWB is the same as in most cameras, which is to get an ECU on an evenly lit piece of white paper and press the AWB button located near the lens. Although it's not always accurate and especially when working on a studio production you have to make sure that all cameras look the same when you do the lineup. Thus the best way to do it is manually.

The camera also has a Skin Detail Function which can make somebody's skin look smoother and more even. (to turn it on go to [Main Menu] > [Camera Process] > [Detail/Adjust] > [Skin Detail] to "On")(JVC KENWOOD Corporation, 2017). It's a function we did not use for our production, but it's handy to know that it is possible.

Bibliography:
JVC KENWOOD Corporation (2017) HD MEMORY CARD CAMERA RECORDER GY-HM890U/GY-HM890E GY-HM890CHU/GY-HM890CHE GY-HM890RE/GY-HM890RCHE GY-HM850U/GY-HM850E GY-HM850CHU/GY-HM850CHE GY-HM850RE/GY-HM850RCHE INSTRUCTIONS
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