Bill, Thanks for the feedback as it was very helpful. I was sort of leaning in that direction and your posting cemented my thoughts. I do like the fact that the HD110 supports DV 60p and I am surprised that the HD200 does not.

Could you possibly elaborate on what you did not like about the standard 16x lens? Also, how do you like your HD110 in general?

Peter

Peter...

Coming from an XL2, I LOVE my HD110! The images are flawless in progressive HDV. Ergonomics on this camera are the best I've ever handled. I use cineform HDLink to capture, and it's a flawless process with Vegas. Stay away from FCP. ConnectHD allows me to uprez to 1080i during capture and these images, when compared to true 1080i, are indistinguishable...to my eye anyway. Pull focus is easy with the focussing aid, but, it doesnt work so good in low light. There were some early reports of a split image, but, the HD110 doesnt have this flaw unless the lighting conditions are very unfavorable.

The stock lens has pretty bad CA when zoomed in at full open aperture. Easy workaround is just to not zoom the last little bit, and keep the aperture at f/4-f/5.6. The 17x lens is better, but not perfect. The 17x breathes less than the 16x and has a wider zoom range. The 16x lens has a plastic lens barrel, at least around the first optic and included filter screw threads. It deforms, badly, if you clamp a matte box on it, and jams the zoom ring. The 17x lens is metal and wont do this. The workaround is to buy a metal filter adapter ring and clamp the matte box to the filter ring.

Oh, one more thing. If you buy an HD110, right now, you can get a free IDX battery system. Do it!! I bought the IDX NP7 battery system. It makes the camera balance perfectly on my shoulder, gives you an additional connection for a light, and lasts about 3 hours on a charge. The free promotional offer will save you about $1200. The stock JVC batteries won't last more than 15-30 mnutes of shooting.

I'm glad to hear you are so please with the cam. You've got me quite eager to get it now.

With regard to the CA on the stock lens, is it obvious just on outer fringes or all over the image? I'm not too happy about the plastic lens barrel, particularly with regard to the fine threads that hold the filters. I would be very reluctant to put a direct-mount matte box on it based on this news. You would think that for the sort of pricing they have and the professional nature of this model JVC would do a better job.

yeah...I was kinda pissed when I realized why my lens was jamming. I think the 16x was a cheap solution to get the camera to market. it retails for about $2200, while the 17x is $3300. The really good lens, the 18x, is about $9k...a little out of my price range. You might be able to find a place to sell you an HD110 body with a 17x lens. Try TAPEWORKS in texas.
As far as the CA is concerned, its pretty much all across the lens, green/magenta fringing. It's worst on the out of focus part of the image and on high contrast edges.

By the way, Steve Mullen has a VERY informative book available at his website on the HD100/110. http://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c/ Well worth the price of admission. Also, there are a number of good scene files available at dvinfo.net for the HD110. My favorites are PANAMATCH, BLEACH BYPASS, and TRUCOLOR3.