JVC GZ-MG505 Camcorder Review

Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (6.5)
The GZ-MG505 makes selecting Auto Mode easy, as there is a prominent button inside the LCD cavity analogous to the Easy button found on Sony camcorders. The camcorder performs reasonably well in Auto mode, adjusting smoothly to changes in exposure, shutter speed, gain, and white balance. The feel of these automatic controls is not as refined as what you’ll find on high-end Sony camcorders, with a greater lag in adjustment time. The auto control that stood out was exposure in low light situations. This control worked quite well in tandem with gain to produce an image that looked relatively natural. While this exposure/gain combo adds noise to the video, it keeps them bright, and the camcorder’s tendency to oversaturate keeps images colorful.

The LCD cavity, which houses the Auto/Manual button.

Auto white balance was less accurate than we’d hope, and the GZ-MG505 struggled to produce accurate colors in mixed light even more than most camcorders. This may be partly a function of the saturation levels of this camcorder, and we’d recommend getting acquainted with the manual white balance function, explained in the next section. In addition to auto and manual, there are several presets for white balance: Halogen, Cloud, and Fine (sunlight). Unfortunately, we found these presets leave something to be desired; the halogen pre-set left halogen light with a bluish cast. The sunlight setting over-emphasized reds and oranges, creating an overly warm image which JVC must think is appealing to casual users.

The GZ-MG505 includes a number of additional pre-sets for fine-tuning the camcorder’s image automatically in different shooting environments. To access these settings, the camcorder must be in Manual mode. JVC’s night shooting mode, NightAlive, can be engaged by pressing the joystick left. NightAlive automatically drops the shutter speed to between 1/2 and 1/30 of a second. The slowed shutter allows more light to reach the CCD, but it also causes the image to stutter to a degree dependant on how slow the shutter is. Backlight Compensation (BLC) is a remedy for very bright places like beaches or ski slopes, where the brightness of the environment can cause the subject to be underexposed. BLC boosts the image’s exposure, making the subject brighter while also possibly blowing out the background. Spot Exposure Control is JVC’s answer and allows a user to select a portion of the right, left or center of the image for exposure metering. It’s a way of keeping exposure readings isolated to the most important part of the video image. Sony’s spot metering feature offers even more precision by offering nine sections of the screen for spot metering rather than just three on this JVC.

The Spot Exposure control.

The GZ-MG505 also has four AE (auto exposure) modes for specific shooting situations. AE modes include Twilight, Spotlight, Snow, and Sport. AE modes are commonly found on consumer camcorders, and should be regarded as shorthand approaches to getting better video when Auto mode is not producing the desired results. If you use AE modes on the GZ-MG505, you should test them in advance so you have an understanding what they do to the image. Twilight mode, for example, adjusts exposure, gain, and shutter speed in tandem. This feature may add more noise or blur to your image than you’d like but if you know what to expect, you’ll be able to use it in an informed manner.

And of course, the GZ-MG505 offers a slate of cheesy in-camcorder effects that no consumer camcorder would be complete without. These effects allow you to apply an instant look to your video, and include Strobe, Classic Film, Monotone (black and white), and Sepia. You may find these effects to be great party tricks, but applying effects to your footage using a non-linear editor (NLE) like Adobe Premiere or iMovie will generally produce better results.

Overall Manual Control (6.5)
The JVC GZ-MG505 has a wide range of manual controls. First, let us tour the menu. It’s split into two sections – the administrative menu and the manual control menu. The administrative menu is accessed via the Menu button in the LCD cavity, and the joystick on the edge of the LCD panel is the navigation tool.

The admin menu contains all the controls that you probably won’t need at hand during shooting (therefore digging around in the menu is not such a hassle). The first level of the menu is broken into 16 headings. Some of the categories, like Basic Setting and Rec Media Setting, have multiple submenus and options. It can be easy to lose your place in a menu the first time through, as the headings loop around – there is no absolute end or beginning (JVC apparently adheres to a dharmic theory of space and time). Some of the headings are more specific, like Wind Cut, Gain Up, and Quality, controls that cut down on digging time. It’s a smart design.

The administrative menu

The manual control menu is a separate thing altogether. While in video mode, pushing down on the joystick will call up a small menu along the bottom of the screen. Unlike the admin menu, this allows you to see what you’re shooting while you make changes – a shooter-friendly design. The manual control menu contains options for Exposure Adjustment (similar to EV comp), White Balance, Aperture Priority (with F-stop control), Shutter Priority (with shutter speed) control, Program AE, and Effects.

The manual control menu

This level of control is topped only by Panasonic, which gives you fully independent manual aperture and manual shutter speed control. Priority modes mean that you can have full jurisdiction of either one or the other control. Panasonics also give you manual gain control. However, making adjustments on a JVC is much easier. Panasonic relies on your ability to parse a series of confusing icons.

We love a good joystick. This one on the GZ-MG505 does the job.

The joystick itself is a great control, on the whole. Joysticks are simple and intuitive to operate. Touch screens get dirty, affecting your ability to judge image quality. Jog dials, as on last year’s Canons, and touch pads, are often too small to make an effective control. The problem with this particular joystick, however, is that JVC has created an over-reliance on the control. In addition to navigating the menus, the joystick has a multitude of other controls. Push left, and the NiteOwl function turns on and off. Push left, and you can switch between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. Push down, and the Manual Control menu appears. Push inward, and it activates the manual focus. Push up, and it activates two controls, backlight compensation, then Spot Exposure control when you push up again. How’s that for juicing a feature for all it’s worth?

Zoom (6.5)
The JVC GZ-MG505 has a 10x optical zoom and a digital zoom that can be capped at 40x and 300x. The zoom control is located on the rear upper part of the body. It’s a thin protrusion of plastic that works very effectively for fine zoom control. With the right finger pressure, you can get three zoom speeds. The slow crawl looks great with the image stabilization on (even better with a tripod). The only thing not to like about this zoom control is that it clicks audibly against the body when you push it, and clicks again when you release it. All this clicking gets picked up by the built-in mic. So if you’re shooting a quiet scene and you must zoom, be careful not to let it snap into place and ruin your audio.

By comparison, Sony offers additional zoom controls on the LCD panel. Canon offers three controlled zoom speeds in addition to the pressure sensitive setting.

Zoom Power/Ratio (10.0)
The JVC GZ-MG505 has a relatively modest optical zoom power of 10x, equivalent to the step-down GZ-MG77 and a significant drop from the 32x optical zoom of the GZ-MG37. Although it might seem a drawback, the lower zoom rating on this camcorder is due largely to lower ratio between imager and lens size. This camcorder boasts a large CCD at 1/4.5” (vs. 1/6” for the GZ-MG37) which makes an eye-popping 30x-plus zoom power impractical. The benefits of a larger imager more than outweigh the loss of optical zoom power in our opinion, as you can usually move closer to your subject, whereas the picture quality produced by a 1/6” imager just can’t match one that’s bigger.

The GZ-MG505 also has a digital zoom feature that can be disabled, capped at 40x, or set to its maximum of 300x. With some digital zooms on consumer camcorders ranging over 1000x, the may seem unimpressive, but it is a feature that is best seen in relation to a camcorder’s optical zoom power. Digital zooms magnify the video image by digitally enlarging the pixels available at a camcorder’s highest optical zoom setting, which results in a steep loss in detail resolution as you climb into digital zoom range. While a camcorder with an optical zoom of 32x might have a digital zoom of 1000x, or a ratio of roughly 1:30, this camcorder maxes out at 300x with the same ratio in place.

Most experienced shooters regard a high digital zoom as a marketing gimmick, because digital magnification has such a detrimental effect on image quality. Unless you want a pixilated effect, we recommend that you turn off this camcorder’s digital zoom feature to maintain the sharpness of your image. If you’re too far from your subject, do what the pros do: move closer. At the very least, consider capping your zoom at a somewhat reasonable 40x so that you’re only enlarging your pixels by, at worst, 4 times.

Focus (4.0)
The manual focus control on consumer camcorders is typically the weakest of all manual controls. Part of this is because proper focus requires several components usually including a focus ring.  Pros often rely on a second monitor with exceptional resolution. Without some combination of these, your manual focus is little else but guesswork. It can look fine in the LCD, but when you put it up on the big screen, the flaws are enlarged proportionately.

The manual focus control leaves a lot to be desired.

There are, of course, times when you have to use the manual focus. To activate it, push in on the joystick. A small icon set of a man and a mountain appears at the bottom of the screen. To make adjustments, push the joystick to the right or the left. You have to keep a close eye on the image in the LCD screen until you hit the right focus. There is no scale to tell you where in the focal range you are.

Our general advice for consumer camcorders is to let the auto controls do the work when they can. Auto focus systems are generally of an excellent quality. Last year’s GZ-MC500 had a manual focus ring. We complained about the size, but we’re sad to see it go.

Exposure (Aperture) (5.5)
There are two ways to control exposure on the JVC GZ-MG505. The more precise method is to use the Aperture Priority mode, which is accessed through the manual control menu. In this mode, you can set the F-stop, and the shutter speed is automatically adjusted to compensate. You cannot, however, set both the F-Stop and the shutter speed. As soon as you set one, the other is shifted to auto mode. The F-Stop range on the GZ-MG505 is F1.8, F2.0, F2.8, F4.0, F5.6, and F8.0. This is not much of a range, considering that Panasonic gives you more than twice as many stops.

The second control is the exposure compensation, which JVC calls AE. This is an EV bump up or down, from -6 to +6, thirteen increments in all. The manual indicates, however, that these increments are not exactly full EV stops, but rather made-up numbers. (They are, however, 1/3 EV stops when in still mode. More on that in Still Features).

Shutter Speed (6.5)
The GZ-MG505 has a shutter priority mode, accessed through the manual control menu. Shutter speeds range from 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000 and 1/4000 of a second. As mentioned above, when in shutter priority mode, the aperture will be adjusted automatically. If you had made an aperture setting in aperture priority mode, the setting would be lost and the newer shutter adjustment would take precedence.

This is a pretty decent shutter speed range. Panasonic gives you more, but JVC is the only other major camcorder manufacturer that gives you the control.

White Balance (7.0)
The JVC GZ-MG505 offers three white balance presets – Halogen, Cloud, and Fine (sunny) – as well as an auto mode and a manual setting, all found in the manual control menu. In order to make a manual white balance adjustment, choose the MWB setting and press the joystick until the icon stops blinking. This takes 4-6 seconds, and seems quite accurate. The number of presets is few, but that’s okay. While some camcorders load on the pre-sets, auto mode is usually satisfactory. If you have a white surface, a manual white balance is always idea.

Gain (1.0)
There is no manual gain on the JVC GZ-MG505 – that’s a feature you’ll only find on Panasonic camcorders in the consumer range. However, JVCs do offer a particularly potent auto gain control, so potent, in fact, that you can turn it off. No other manufacturer gives you that option. Chances are that you won’t want to turn it off. The imagers are not particularly effective in low light, and you’ll need all the help you can get.

Other Manual Control (0.0)
There is no other manual control on the JVC GZ-MG505. In still mode, and even then only in playback, JVC offers a histogram. How useful is that after you’ve already taken the image? A little, but it doesn’t do us any good in video.