New JVC GC-PX10 Shoots Video for Stills
t’s easy to miss a shot, even for professionals. It’s a common
occurrence to have camera in hand, finger on the shutter release,
waiting for the right moment to trigger.
You
might be waiting for a slugger to swing his bat or for a race car
driver to pass before you. But after releasing the shutter, all you end
up capturing is the ball approaching the batter or the back bumper of
the race car after it has passed.
Motor drives on film cameras and burst modes on digital cameras are helpful because they capture a series of images, hopefully including the instant you’re after. But it’s still easy to miss that perfect shot, even after capturing a rapid series of stills. Sometimes the only way to effectively capture the exact moment you’re after is in video. But the problem then becomes an issue of pulling a perfect still from your video. Doing so usually results in a fuzzy image, but not if you’re shooting with the new JVC GC-PX10.
JVC’s new GC-PX10 is a video camera at heart, but one that lets you grab any still image you want from the video you’ve recorded. And it does so in perfect form, with stills looking like they were produced by a digital camera, not a camcorder.
It’s curious that for several years now, the focus has been on still cameras being adapted to capture perfect video; now JVC has adapted a video camera to capture perfect stills. It makes a lot of sense. If you can capture every little nuance of a dog leaping into the air to catch a Frisbee, or a marathon runner breaching the finish line and can convert the precise points of interest into crisp still images, then you’ve got a still camera that you’ll never miss a shot with—assuming you’ve got it switched on, that is. This is probably the future of still photography. After all, why capture just a handful of still images when you can simply capture all of them?
With the JVC GC-PX10,
JVC has eliminated all of the problems associated with shooting stills
on camcorders. It has done so with a unique form factor optimized for
shooting still images, but with innards based on camcorder technology.
The GC-PX10 can capture 12-megapixel still images (4000 x 3000 pixels) in real time or capture 8.3-megapixel stills while recording 1920 x 1080p full HD video with a fast sampling of 36 Mbps. After shooting hours of HD video, you review the footage and save any image from the video as a high quality 1920 x 1080 still image. But that’s not all. You can also capture up to 60 still images per second in burst mode, with resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, and up to 130 shots per burst. But that’s still not all.
You can also capture super-slow motion footage by shooting high-speed
VGA resolution video (640 x 360 pixels) at 300 frames per second (fps)
for up to two hours straight. When played back at 60 fps, the 300 fps
video slows down motion to 1/5 normal speed, but the image appears
perfectly sharp and with fluid, though rather viscous motion. And
believe it or not, that’s still not all. A Time Lapse mode records one
frame every interval, from 1 to 40 seconds, allowing you to speed up the
motion of slow-moving objects—say a blooming flower or a rising sun.
The JVC GC-PX10 makes things happen with its 1/2.3” back-illuminated CMOS sensor, high-speed FALCONBRID processor and 10x optical zoom Konica Minolta HD lens. A high-sensitivity ISO 6400 mode allows the capture of crisp stills in dimly lit environments without a flash. 32GB of internal memory is enough to store up to 8,600 12-megapixel stills or two hours of HD video. An SDHC/SDXC card slot can provide additional capacity. Other features include a three inch tilting touch-panel LCD, built-in flash, optical image stabilization, face detection and more. The camera is also Eye-Fi Card Ready so you can upload videos and stills through your Wi-Fi network.
Motor drives on film cameras and burst modes on digital cameras are helpful because they capture a series of images, hopefully including the instant you’re after. But it’s still easy to miss that perfect shot, even after capturing a rapid series of stills. Sometimes the only way to effectively capture the exact moment you’re after is in video. But the problem then becomes an issue of pulling a perfect still from your video. Doing so usually results in a fuzzy image, but not if you’re shooting with the new JVC GC-PX10.
JVC’s new GC-PX10 is a video camera at heart, but one that lets you grab any still image you want from the video you’ve recorded. And it does so in perfect form, with stills looking like they were produced by a digital camera, not a camcorder.
It’s curious that for several years now, the focus has been on still cameras being adapted to capture perfect video; now JVC has adapted a video camera to capture perfect stills. It makes a lot of sense. If you can capture every little nuance of a dog leaping into the air to catch a Frisbee, or a marathon runner breaching the finish line and can convert the precise points of interest into crisp still images, then you’ve got a still camera that you’ll never miss a shot with—assuming you’ve got it switched on, that is. This is probably the future of still photography. After all, why capture just a handful of still images when you can simply capture all of them?
The GC-PX10 can capture 12-megapixel still images (4000 x 3000 pixels) in real time or capture 8.3-megapixel stills while recording 1920 x 1080p full HD video with a fast sampling of 36 Mbps. After shooting hours of HD video, you review the footage and save any image from the video as a high quality 1920 x 1080 still image. But that’s not all. You can also capture up to 60 still images per second in burst mode, with resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, and up to 130 shots per burst. But that’s still not all.
The JVC GC-PX10 makes things happen with its 1/2.3” back-illuminated CMOS sensor, high-speed FALCONBRID processor and 10x optical zoom Konica Minolta HD lens. A high-sensitivity ISO 6400 mode allows the capture of crisp stills in dimly lit environments without a flash. 32GB of internal memory is enough to store up to 8,600 12-megapixel stills or two hours of HD video. An SDHC/SDXC card slot can provide additional capacity. Other features include a three inch tilting touch-panel LCD, built-in flash, optical image stabilization, face detection and more. The camera is also Eye-Fi Card Ready so you can upload videos and stills through your Wi-Fi network.
| JVC GC-PX10 Specs | |
| Sensor | 12 Megapixel |
| Zoom | 10x Optical |
| Filter Size | 46mm |
| Internal Media | Internal Flash Memory 32GB |
| Media Type | SD/SDHC/SDXC |
| Screen | 3.0" LCD |
| Touch Screen | Yes |
| Image Stabilization | Yes |
| Built-in Flash | Yes |
| Accessory Shoe | Hot |
| Connections | USB 2.0, HDMI |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 5.16 x 2.64 x 4.80" / 13.1 x 6.7 x 12.2 cm |
| Weight | 1.14 lb / 520 g with battery |
