JVC GZ-X900

Auto Mode (7.0)

The fancy mode dial on the back of the camcorder.

The GZ-X900 has a strange set up for a consumer camcorder. The mode dial on the back of the camcorder has quite a few options. It is here that you switch between photo and video modes, manual and automatic control, and choose high-speed shooting modes for video, or scene modes for photos. In auto video mode (represented on the mode dial with a camcorder icon), you cannot adjust manual controls like aperture, shutter speed, etc, but you do have access to some options when you press the menu button.

Auto focus worked quickly on the X900 and we only noticed the camcorder having trouble when we moved from tele macro to wider shots (often taking a few seconds for the camcorder to get the focus right). You can turn on face detection without going into the camcorder's menu screen. A small icon of a rather strange face (it has no mouth or nose, just eyes) is located on the left side of the LCD screen. Just tap the portion of the laser touch strip that is next to this icon and face detection is activated. When activated, another icon of a face appears on the screen above the original icon. This is an example of JVC's over-cluttered LCD, which is stuffed with info, buttons, and icons. You can press the display button inside the LCD cavity to clear things up, but some icons and text are impossible to get rid of.

We were impressed with the GZ-X900's auto exposure ability. The camcorder tended to adjust exposure levels quickly and accurately, without much overexposure in bright areas. There were some problems with underexposing in poorly-lit scenes, but this was likely due to the camcorder's weak low light performance. In manual mode, the camcorder's photometry area can be set between whole screen or spot (which measures the exposure levels from the centre). The camcorder also has a backlight compensation option in manual mode that will help expose silhouetted figures correctly.

Auto white balance worked very well in bright light (even under mixed light indoors), but our low light testing had a slight greenish hue. We aren't sure if this green discolouration was a result of the camcorder's high noise levels in low light, but it was definitely noticeable at 60 lux, which is the brightness level we do our low light testing.

Low Light Modes
There are no low light modes on the GZ-X900. You can turn an auto slow shutter on by setting Gain Up to Auto. This allows the camcorder's shutter speed to drop down to 1/30 of a second when the lights go dim. This will, however, produce a blurry, slow shutter effect when engaged.

Scene Modes
While the camcorder has plenty of scene modes in photo mode, it doesn't offer any in video mode. This is rather strange, considering JVC already programmed the modes for the camcorder, but simply did not make them available in video mode. For a complete run-down of the scene modes available in photo mode, read the Still Features section of this review.

Zoom (6.5)

The GZ-X900 has a standard zoom toggle located on the top of the camcorder. Although there are numerous ways you can hold the X900, the zoom toggle feels well-placed and comfortable with just about every handling configuration. JVC also includes an alternate zoom control on the LCD panel, which is adjusted using the laser touch system. This extra zoom system doesn't work very well and can be awkward to use. For instance, the zoom buttons don't appear unless you press the upper portion of the laser touch. We recommend sticking with the regular zoom toggle for all your zooming needs.

The zoom toggle on the top of the X900

The zoom toggle offers variable speed control, so you can adjust how fast you want the zoom to be by just applying more or less pressure on the toggle. There are no manual speed control settings for the zoom, however. There is also no numerical display for how far you've zoomed in or out, but there is the standard bar display that shows you where you are in the zoom range.

Zoom Ratio (2.55)

The Konica Minolta HD lens on the GZ-X900 has a 5x optical zoom. This is a good amount zoom for an ultra-compact camcorder, but most high-end HD camcorders have an optical zoom somewhere between 10x - 15x. To give the zoom a bit of a boost, JVC includes an 8x dynamic zoom, which takes advantage of the camcorder's unused pixels to provide an extra bump in zoom ratio. Dynamic zoom shouldn't result in loss of image quality like digital zoom does, but it is created with an internal process rather than simply from optics. There are also two digital zoom levels on the X900: 32x and 200x. These digital zooms severely degrade the image and we don't recommend using them if you care about maintaining a high-quality image.

Zoom Comparisons
Wide Angle	Mid Zoom	5x Zoom

Focus (5.5)

The GZ-X900 has manual focus, which is adjusted using the laser touch slider on the left side of the LCD. The ability to slide along the length of the laser touch is useful if you want to pull focus very quickly, but it is almost impossible to get a precise focus adjustment using the laser touch. There is no numerical display for focus (i.e. no listing of focal lengths or distance markers). Instead, when adjusting focus, a small bar appears on the left side of the LCD with icons of a mountain and a person. You scroll the laser touch up, towards the mountain, to focus on a subject that is far away. To focus on closer subjects you scroll the opposite way. This focus system is simple once you figure it out, but the lack of any numerical display can be very confusing for first-time users of the X900.

The focus assist feature is a good asset when using manual focus.

To help with manual focus, JVC includes a focus assist function on the GZ-X900. The focus assist is essentially a peaking feature, which displays a collection of fine, coloured specks around the edges of your framed subject. The more specks that appear on the LCD, the more your subject is in focus. The specks will disappear, or become less prominent, as your subject goes out of focus. Peaking is a very common feature on professional or prosumer camcorders, but it is rarely found on consumer camcorders (Canon includes it on the HF S100 and HF S10 as well). With focus assist turned on, the LCD shows a black and white image so you can see the coloured specks better. The recorded image will be in colour, however, and the specks will not show up on your footage.

You can choose either red, green, or blue for the colour you want to use with the focus assist feature. Unfortunately, you can't select the colour when you turn on focus assist—you need to set the colour by going through the display settings menu. It is unclear why JVC chose to bury this option in another menu entirely.

Exposure Controls

-6 to +6

Aperture Controls

f/3.4, f/4, f/5.6, f/8

Shutter Speeds

In Manual mode: 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/80, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000

White Balance Controls

Auto, Manual, Fine, Cloud, Halogen

Gain Controls

AGC on/off, ISO control for photos

Exposure (7.5)

Exposure, called brightness by JVC, can be adjusted on the GZ-X900 as long as the camcorder is in manual mode. When engaged, brightness is adjusted by sliding the laser touch up or down. Exposure can be set from -6 to +6 in one-step intervals. The laser touch strip is simple to use, but often times it doesn't respond to your slides or touches—resulting in some frustrating use when you attempt to make precise adjustments.

JVC labels exposure as brightness

Aperture (5.0)

Aperture can be adjusted on the GZ-X900, but it cannot be set independently of shutter speed (it's an aperture priority mode). So, whenever you go to adjust aperture, shutter speed will always revert back to automated control. The camcorder doesn't offer too many aperture settings either. The widest aperture available is f/3.4.

There's only four aperture options in aperture-priority mode

Aperture is adjusted the same way as exposure—using the laser touch operation. The laser touch is useful if you want to sift through a large range of options (i.e. scrolling through menus), but it isn't very helpful for selecting from one of the 4 aperture options on the camcorder.

Shutter Speed (7.6)

The GZ-X900 has lots of options for shutter speed control, especially slow shutters below 1/60 of a second. The camcorder's available shutter speeds go as low as 1/2 a second, which is extremely slow. There's also a 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, and 1/30 of a second option. Shutter speeds this slow offer an entirely different aesthetic with lots of trailing and jerky motion (somewhat like a strobe effect). While you wouldn't want to do any regular shooting with these modes, they can be fun to play around with and they can create some neat effects. You can also turn on an auto slow shutter by setting the camcorder's gain control to auto. This allows the GZ-X900 to automatically drop to a 1/30 of a second shutter speed in low light situations.

The X900 has lots of manual shutter speed settings.

The X900 also has a number of fast shutter speeds, topping out at 1/4000 of a second. The camcorder offers 13 shutter speeds in all. Shutter speed is adjusted using the laser touch slider, just like the rest of the manual controls.

White Balance (7.25)

There aren't too many white balance options on the GZ-X900. In addition to automatic and manual control, there are three white balance pre-sets: Fine, Cloud, Halogen. The GZ-X900's manual white balance produces good results, but performing the white balance isn't exactly intuitive. You need to select manual white balance and then hold down the OK button for a few seconds before the camcorder registers the manual setting. It's easy to think you've sent a manual white balance, while in reality you didn't hold down the OK button long enough. It's a strange system that is likely to confuse first-time users.

The manual white balance offerings

Gain (2.0)

The GZ-X900 doesn't have explicit gain control, but you can turn auto gain control (AGC) on and off. By turning AGC off, the camcorder's low light sensitivity drops drastically and the X900 can barely pick up an image even under moderate indoor light. With AGC off, however, the camcorder uses no gain, which means noise levels are lower and the image, if you have enough light, should be cleaner. The GZ-X900 also has an Auto mode for AGC, which turns AGC on and allows the camcorder to use its 1/30 of a second slow shutter in low light situations.

Not many camcorders offer complete gain control. Panasonic does on some of its high-end and mid-range models, although you have to open the aperture all the way before gain can be adjusted. The Canon HF S10 and HF S100 have AGC limit settings that allow you to set a maximum decibel level for the auto gain to go up to. Sanyo has an ISO control on its camcorders that works in both video and photos mode. The JVC GZ-X900 offers ISO control as well, but only for still photos.

Colour & Image Controls (2.0)

The GZ-X900 isn't loaded with colour and image controls, but it does have a few basic features.

Colour/Image Control	Description
x.v. Colour	Allows the camcorder to capture video using the expanded xvYCC colour gamut. Only xvYCC-compatible televisions will be able to display this larger colour space, otherwise the colours won't look any different.
Tele Macro	Changes the focal length on the camcorder's lens to allow you to maintain focus when you're really close to your subject or with extreme close-ups.

Other Manual Controls (2.0)

Control	Description
Grid	Splits the screen into nine equal sections (two lines vertical, two lines horizontal) to assist with framing. The lines don't end up on the final video and are for display purposes only.