Review: JVC GR-DA30 vs. Canon Elura 100

The year of 2007 signified the shift to tapeless format in the middle and mid-high segments of consumer video. Hard drives and memory cards offer more flexibility, while miniDVDs are more consumer friendly than tapes. The top segment cameras still use tape because it is a proven and working format recognized by professionals. Tape-based camcorders are still offered in the low-level segment as well, because the decade-old technology allows producing inexpensive products for the masses. The latest entry in the beginner's segment is the JVC GR-DA30/GR-DA30US with the extremely affordable price: only $199.

Obviously, you don't get much for this record-breaking price. No accessory shoe, no external microphone input, no headphone output, no memory card slot and therefore no still image capability, no built-in light, no widescreen LCD, and even no viewfinder. On the other hand, you get true widescreen recording capability in a very compact package.

Design

The GR-DA30US differs from everything else on the market. While some camcorders like Canon ZR series are slim and tall, the newcomer from JVC is almost square. The main reason of its chunky appearance is the LCD screen mounted on the rear instead of being hinged on the left side. There is no viewfinder, getting rid of viewfinders has become a popular trend recently. The tiny eyepieces are all but useless anyway as they often do not extend or flip up.

By removing the eyepiece altogether and moving the LCD on the back of the camera, JVC saved money and also somewhat improved the ruggedness of the camera. Now a clumsy user or his one-year old child will have less chance to break the LCD panel off.

If you expect to find a lot of buttons on the camera body you will be disappointed. The LCD panel contains all the buttons needed to control the camera except for the Start/Stop recording button. The only eye-catching piece on the camera body is a "MiniDV" ornament on the left side that glows with blue. Has JVC been bought by AKAI? No, actually this ornament is not completely dysfunctional, it is in fact a battery charge indicator. If the battery is not installed the light glows steadily. If the battery is installed but not fully charged, the light blinks. When the battery is charged completely, the lights turns off. I think it is a nice touch.

Freed from the LCD screen, the left side of the camera houses a battery under the sliding cover. Some do not like enclosed batteries because there is no way to use a larger one. I, on the other hand, think that this design is cleaner and the camera itself looks nicer. After all, everyone who shoots a lot buy additional batteries. I'd rather have two or three small batteries than a large one that weighs a ton and hangs a good inch back from the camera. Anyway, if you need more juice, JVC offers more powerful batteries that have the same physical size.

The right side of the camera is a plain gray cover for the tape mechanism with zoom toggle on top and hand strap on bottom. Nothing fancy, all business. The grip is comfortable, the tape compartment opens easily and the strap does not get in the way.

The bottom of the camera is outfitted with both tripod mounting socket and a stud hole. This is a welcome difference from the Canon Elura 100 that has no hole for the tripod locking pin. Also, the tripod socket is located closer to the center of mass of the camera. This again compares favorably to the Elura 100 design, which has tripod socket close to the front end of the camera.

Lens and Recording Format

The GR-DA30US/GR-DA20 is a MiniDV camcorder, which records in both SP and LP speeds. Unlike some other camcorders, this camcorder does not read HDV tapes. Also unlike many other camcorders this one does not take still pictures, because it does not have memory card slot.

The 30x lens with f/2.0 - f/4.1 speed is a just a bit slower than the Elura's lens, especially at the longest focal distance. But do not forget that the Elura has only 20x zoom. Just like on the Elura, image stabilization is digital. The GR-DA30US uses one CCD chip, while the Elura 100 uses one CMOS chip. Both chips have similar sizes, though the Elura is ahead with 1/5" chip against 1/6" of the GR-DA30US. The resolution of the Elura's imager is twice higher, but this seems to affect mostly still image quality.

Both camcorders are equipped with lens thread for attachments, a rare treat these days. Incidentally, both threads have the same diameter - 27mm. Not a very popular size, but with a 27mm-to-37mm step-up ring you can use popular 37mm filters and lens converters.

Performance

With the GR-DA30US being very similar in optics department to my Elura 100, I was very interested to compare two cameras in real-world conditions. First I thought about bying the camera, bringing it home, testing it and then returning it back to the store. But i would have to pay 15% restoking fee, that is $30. I am cheap, I know. So I just went to a nearby store and took couple of shots with my Elura and with the GR-DA30US that was on display in fully automatic mode. I white-balanced both cameras with a sheet of white paper. Then I came home, started my computer, loaded the video editing program (I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio), and snapped several frames from the timeline. Below are the results, and they are quite interesting.

In all pairs of shots first comes a frame from the Canon, then a frame from the JVC.

The pair of frames above are from the shot of some boxed product. The boxes are located on the upper shelf, so the are pretty well lit. These frames are not corrected for color, brightness or contrast. They are just direct grabs from the timeline, reduced in size. You can see that the Elura produced a brighter picture (first image), but it was payed with the gain. I used a handy DV Media Player program to check aperture, shutter speed and gain of the video. This information is usually written into video stream by a camera.

Turns out that the Elura used widest aperture and 10dB gain to brighten up the image. Curiously, the 1/120 shutter speed was not the lowest possible. I don't know why Canon engineers preferred to increase gain instead of decreasing shutter speed to 1/60. All it all, the image is bright and the noise is barely visible.

The frame from the JVC is notably darker. Maybe JVC engineers decided to use less gain to decrease noise? We will never know, because the GR-DA30US does not write video metadata into video stream. At least, the DV Media Player could not extract it. The JVC camcorder does not display aperture and shutter speed neither during recording, nor during playback. So, there is no information about what parameters were used for the shoot.

In any case, the difference evens out after I loaded both frames into Photoshop and used auto levels and auto contrast. Below is the same pair of frames corrected from color and contrast. They look almost the same, do not they?

To check for the differences, I magnified the same portions of the frames, see the closeups below. You can see that the JVC has softer image, or dare I say that the Canon oversharpens the picture. See at the bottom-right part of the bag above compact disks, it has definite ringing. The JVC image is softer, but in a good way. So far, it is a tie. But not for long.

The next pair of frames are from the shot of the bottom shelf in an isle. The gray shelf is poorly lit, so both cameras had problems with autofocusing. It was not possible to focus manually in full automatic mode ("Easy" mode for the Canon). Both cameras were focus-hunting, so I selected two sharp frames from both clips. First come uncorrected frames. Uh-uh, the image from the JVC is barely visible. Complete loss of information. Or is it?

Again, I loaded both frames in Photoshop. I used auto levels and auto contrast for the Canon frame, then I manually corrected the JVC frame so it would look alike, because the automatic correction did not brighten it enough. As you see on the images below, the frame that seemed almost completely black, actually contains quite a bit of information. Here you can see more pronounced differences between video from the Canon and from the JVC. Canon uses a lot of gain, in fact, gain in this shot is maxed out to 16dB, but again, the shutter speed is strangely fast for the conditions, 1/120. The noise from the Elura has red cast. This was not noticeable on the previous shot, because the product box has a lot of red color. But in this shot the objects are either gray or green, and there is no red. The red noisy dots get especially noticeable after brightness and contrast correction.

The GR-DA30US has no red tint, its color is much truer to life. But it lost more detail and the image is noticeably blocky. It seems that MJPEG encoder of the GR-DA30US is inferior to the Elura encoder.

Now let us see the closeups. Here you can witness the loss of near-black detail by the JVC. The top right portion of the fragment became a uniform black splotch. There is no detail there, increasing brightness does not help. On the other hand, the Canon managed to maintain the detail, you can clearly see the edge of the shelf and the holes in it. Again, the Canon's image is noisy with annoying red cast, while the JVC's image has better colors but exhibits visible blocky structure.

So, which one to choose? Noise and detail or better colors and blockiness? First of all, you cannot buy the Elura 100 now, it was discontinued in the beginning of 2007. But you can buy a Canon ZR camera, which should be very close in video quality. Anyway, there is no direct answer, and bear in mind that I used automatic mode on both cameras. While this mode is the one that most likely will be used, it is still possible to do some tweaks in the Manual mode (JVC) or "P" mode (Canon). In particular, the GR-DA30US allows manual control of video gain, which is not possible on the Elura. So at the end of the day the JVC image may turn out quite competitive.

Sound

Most consumers buy a camcorder to record their family events, be it indoors or on vacation. They do not shoot feature movies or interviews, so they do not really need external microphones. They just want the built-in mic to work well. Here is where JVC can teach Canon a lesson or two. Both camcorders have useable built-in microphones, but the Canon exhibit annoying high-pitch whine, which is especially noticeable in quiet quarters, like normal indoor shooting. Therefore, an external mic is a must for the Canon if you want to get decent sound. The JVC seem to work better.

The sound clips below are taken from recordings of both cameras. The recording was done in the store, not an ideal place for testing faint noises. But even in these conditions high-pitch noise of the Canon camcorder clearly be heard. The JVC produces less airy but cleaner sound.

Canon Elura 100 audio test: Canon Elura 100.mp3
JVC GR-DA30US audio test: JVC GR-DA30US.mp3

Auto/Manual Controls

The JVC GR-DA30US has two distinctive modes: Automatic and Manual, which can be switched using a button below the LCD panel. The Elura 100 has comparable "Easy" and "P" modes, that are switched with a slider. Both cameras are fully automatic in their auto modes, even focus cannot be controlled manually. It is manual modes where they are different.

The GR-DA30US allows selecting shutter speed, turning automatic video gain control on or off, adjusting exposure (they do not call it aperture and never display actual f-stops) and locking the iris. The Elura 100 allows selecting shutter speed, and adjusting exposure. The Elura 100 does not display aperture in f-stops in video mode as well, but there is way around it, that is to use still image mode. So, despite that the Elura does not allow to manually control gain, I would say that it has a winning hand. Simply put, it is possible to use ND filters intellegently with the Elura.

One note on the JVC exposure control. It does not lock exposure (that is, aperture) to a specific value, instead this is more like exposure correction on still cameras. The camcorder continues to set exposure automatically, but exposure correction provides a different baseline for its built-in light meter. To lock the exposure you need to use "Lock Iris" function.

Both cameras allow controlling focus manually using a short joystick, but it is simpler on the GR-DA30US. First, you need to do less clicks. All you have to do is turn the joystick up to get into manual focus mode, then left or right to switch focus. The switching focus is reasonably fast but at the same time pretty smooth, so you cannot overshoot. With the Elura, you need to bring focus menu up by pressing the joystick down, then select focus pictogram, then clicking left or right to switch focus. Also, the Elura is not that smooth and it is hard to not overshoot.

Both cameras have tiny zoom toggle. The Canon allows using either variable speed or one of three constant speeds. The JVC is simpler, it does not provide an option to choose zoom speed, but I never felt the need to do so. The JVC zoom control works quite well.

Both cameras has several built-in white-balancing modes, and allow to white-balance manually. After they are balanced, the cameras produce video that is very close in color temperature.

Widescreen Mode

In these days of widescreen high definition televisions widescreen capability of a camcorder is the must. Both camcorders hoot proper widescreen. These are images from the JVC camera, you can see that the widescreen version is indeed wider, while preserving all information in vertical direction. The LCD display of the JVC camera has traditional 4:3 proportions, when you shoot in widescreen mode, the LCD properly letterboxes the image. Don't worry, the black bars are not recorded into the final image.

Other features

The GR-DA30US is really a basic camcorder. It does not offer external microphone input, headphone output, analog-to-digital encoding, still image capability, it has no front light, nor accessory shoe. This is a true point-and-shoot camcorder and it is pretty good at it. It can function as a tape player though, so you can watch your videos on the TV directly from the camcorder. The composite video cable is included.

The camcorder has a FireWire connector, also called IEEE 1394 or DV Link. using this connector, you can import digital video onto a computer, or write video back to tape after you edited it. The Firewire cable is not included though, neither is editing software.

Conclusion

For the price the GR-DA30US has few competitors. Canon ZR camcorders look ugly and feel cheap, the plastic squeaks in your hands when you hold them, but it should produce brighter video. Panasonic PV-GS80/83/85 is larger and heavier, its major benefit is optical stabilization instead of digital. Sony DCR-HC38 costs almost $100 more but just like the JVC, does not have an accessory shoe or still image capability.

The GR-DA30US does one thing and does it pretty decently. Its low-light ability is pitiful, but if you have a decent editing program, you can pull most of image back from black. All in all, this is a good choice for someone who needs a camera for occasional outdoor shooting. For indoor shooting, well, get a decent editing program or a camcorder with more sensitive imager. Whatever works for you.