Beats me how long it would take to cool down after recording a five-minute HD video clip, but look at it this way... on a paying gig, in a pro environment, or anytime you're working with a crew, or wherever other people's time is involved, why would you *not* want two...? Seems to me that a backup camera in those kinds of situations is a necessity, not a luxury.

So if this "Overheat after 5 minutes" thing is true. Theoretically, if I shoot another 5 minutes after just shooting 5 minutes already (Maybe by accident) I would kill an £800 camera. Seems like too much of a risk if you ask me.

Hmm. I think I will wait until some "Guinea Pigs" try it out before I purchase :D.

@ Chris: Yeah.

Reading up on HDMI … will do 8-channels … hmm. Why'd Nikon include an AV-Out port? For the camera's remote?

I highly doubt this is even possible. Most likely the camera won't let you record another clip until the mandatory cool-down period is completed.

I can't think of one single camcorder, D-SLR or other digital still camera from a major manufacturer that currently does *not* include an AV output. They all have one. It's pretty much standard equipment across the board. There are lots of standard-definition televisions and monitors left in the world...

So AV-Out is a low-end video-out? How's it differ, generally, from HDMI? Throughput?

On the cool-down:

It's easy to imagine a few Nikon guys grinning over the idea of recording Live View:

ENGINEER 1: Look, I made a movie with it.
ENGINEER 2: Awesome! How long can you crank the chip like that?
ENGINEER 1: About ten minutes, maybe fifteen.
QC GUY (sticks his head in): Call it eight. I got too much shrinkage in Destructive Testing.
LEGAL GUY (same): Call it three.
MARKETING GUY (wedges between them): Please, give me five minutes on this thing …

Cut to a store:

RETAIL GUY: So, the amazing thing about the D90 is you can record video—
CUSTOMER: Whatever. How many megapixels is it again?

###

AV-Out = standard definition (and analog)
HDMI = high definition (and digital)

Of course. Thanks.

Nikon D90 movie function
 

Here is the link -

D90 | D-MOVIE

Looks nice to shoot a movie using 10.5 fisheye or a 200 macro lens.

Just wondering how good the movie will be compared to - say - XL2 or HVX202 ....

TS

I think something like the Zoom H2 (Samson - Zoom - H2) would work great with it. Could even mount it on the hot shoe.

Doesn't temp have a big impact on noise with CMOS? If the 5 minute limit is due to overheating I wonder if we'll see rising noise levels over long shots.

Hi all. My first post. I just jumped in on this D-90 thread and I must say, I'm likely to buy it. I've been promising myself a new digicam for a while and being as conservative (stingy) with the $ as I am- I have no excuse not to jump on this gem and Hi-Def Vids to boot- Woot! After all, the D-90 will replace my previous Nikon digicam...
that cost me $1000 in 2004...
That's the Nikon Coolpix 5000- believe it or not.
Do you think the D90 will help me make better pictures than these....
GearNinja.com Home ?
I hope so ;)

What is the mutilplication factor?
 

I wanted to buy a brevis, but I will probably go for the D-90 or the next camera Canon or Nikon with video mode.I have already lenses Nikon and Canon.
And No loss of light comare to 35mm adaptor, but I am wondering if their is a multiplication factor.
The 5min don't bother me because thats what I shoot in video usually.
Now I am thinking of selling my Sony A1u and buy the D-90 plus a second Sony HC-5(they are $500new in montreal these days) and I wil be able to do 3 cam set up.
For the audio edirol,zoom or tascam recorder or my Macbook pro with usb mic.

x 1.5 (the same as other DSLRs)

The no light loss is very good, as is not having to buy a flip module to get the image the right way up and no bad vignetting in the corners and no grain at high shutter speeds and edge to edge sharpness and 4:4:4 colour ! (depending on the M-Jpeg compression used) etc etc . . .


But if you can only shoot 5 minutes because the sensor heats up (this is what Nikon claim) then you might have to wait for 10-15 minutes for the sensor to cool before the camera will allow you to shoot some more - could be problematic if true - but currently just speculation.

"… because the sensor heats up (this is what Nikon claim)"

Lee, where did you see this? I can't find anything by Nikon that explains the need for the runtime limit.

I can live with the 5 minute limit and the waiting time
 

Lee
I remember that astrophotographer used to or maybe still does cooling the ccd's
to have less noise.I live in a place cold 6 month per year and it may help me(for the 1st time).
Or I need a second D-90, so by the time one cam cool down the other shoot, so longer film in the end!

I forget now, in a 'hands on review' - they went on to say that they think the real reason maybe that above 5 minutes the product is considered a video camera and would incur greater tax burden - but this idea has also been questioned.

Actual original, straight from the camera no additional compression footage: (download the original source file - bottom right - you need to join Vimeo to do this - it's free)

Untitled on Vimeo

Would be interesting if they can eventually get HD video out of the unique Sigma DSLR...

Sigma
 

What is so special about the Sigma DSLR ?

Cineform capture of the HDMI signal on D90
 

If someone can pass on David at Cineform a camera, he is willing to do tests to see if the HDMI signal (1080i) can be captured..

Cineform capture with the Nikon D90 - The Digital Video Information Network

Anmol -- It uses the Foveon "direct image sensor", which uses three layers of Pixel Sensors (one each for absorbing red, green and blue light). This avoids use of (or the need for) a mosaic pattern scheme (which involves colour interpolation). As far as I know, Sigma is the only maker to adopt it, so I called it "unique"!

Go here and download the videos and see for yourself if it is worth the money ....

Just Posted! Nikon D90 Sample Gallery: Digital Photography Review

These are the non-Nikon produced videos :-).

Interesting. I watched the Duck one and it seems that the shutter speed is a bit too high and iris a little hot. What was your shutter speed and other settings?

Looking at the top MOV file (what kind of bird is that anyway?), there's definitely some exposure hunting going on.

It's still not clear if the exposure level can be locked and solid.

Well, I have some raw footage from this camera. It's safe to say that HD camcorders will be safe for a few more years. The compression used in the D90 is quite bad and certainly won't be useable for things like short films.

Oh well, it was exciting for a short while. It will be Interesting to see how future SLR's develop the video option though.

"Well, I have some raw footage from this camera. It's safe to say that HD camcorders will be safe for a few more years. The compression used in the D90 is quite bad and certainly won't be useable for things like short films."

LET US SEE IT THEN.

Sorry, i'm not sure how to get HD footage onto the net. It would be pointless putting it onto Youtube.

The compression problem (At least I think that it's a compression problem) appears mostly on videos containing detailed objects and high contrast (like light reflections).

You can kind-of see what i'm talking about on one of the DP site sample videos:

Just Posted! Nikon D90 Sample Gallery: Digital Photography Review

Download the raw "Sample Movie 3", it's a video of a duck. Then look at the pebbles in the top-right of the video. It looks quite ugly and jaggy and this isn't the worst example either.

PS, there is a small chance that my WMP is set up badly and only I am seeing the problem (At least I hope that is the case)

Based on the topic for this thread we are still lacking some answers. Can one get a direct HDMi feed off the cam without overlay? Can one control the exposure when shooting 24p, and would using the HDMi out bypass the 5min record length?

Agreed, that very thing (pebbles in the upper right) caught my eye immediately.

Take any well focused still off a good quality HDV camera, put it in Photoshop, run in through the 'Dust and Scratches' filter with the values - radius 1 and threshold 0 - and that gets you surprisingly close to the feel of the D90s output.

In addition I have seen quite a bit of poor aliasing in the vertical direction on a few of the sample + I don't doubt the MJpeg codec seems to be doing it's own damage as well.

Nope! It's real ok, I have seen it on other D90 samples.

Vimeo - is quick and free, easy to use and after you have uploaded you sample people can download the original source footage (so don't re-encode! just upload the raw file).

Please !! :)

Contact me directly by email, chris at dvinfo dot net. I'm happy to host the raw video for you. I can give you our FTP upload account info right away. I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon,

I think the people saying that this camera isnt good enough for film-making are going to be in for a surprise.

I see the biggest problem with D90 implementation so far - no manual metering. Only matrix metering. And no over-ride either.

The duck (or was it a swan) from DPREVIEW appears over exposed on my monitor. Way too bright - nearly pure white - and I doubt I ever seen a bird's feathers whitewashed to this extent.

Not sure if this was already addressed in this thread: the sensor is very likely running in a sub-sampled mode and not a binned-mode (the former reduces off-sensor bandwidth requirement, power, and heat), so you'll end up with aliasing artifacts. my guess is the video won't be very useable for high-quality situations because of that. :(

new video of D-90 with spec
 

found on youtube from a Japan user who sent me the spec

lens:AF-S DX 18-105G VR
■original spec■
size:28.3MB
1280*720
24fps
ISO:200
He cannot say more because his ppage is in japanese but I will try to have more info

YouTube - Nikon D90 D-Movie

About Matrix metering
 

Tingsern
You maybe able to fool the camera by putting another iso than it should be.
so get much latitude or put a polarizer.

Can Auto ISO on D90 be turned off ?
 

Here is what I got.

>>
ISO levels on the other hand is made to be equivalent to the old ASA standard for film, the better the sensor's performance is, the less noise in high ISO levels, and most of the time we do not know when does GAIN kick in on most still cameras.
>>

Is this true ? Can Auto ISO be turned off when in video mode ? That may account for gain kicking in in the video footage..

Can Auto ISO on D90 be turned off ? answer
 

Usually auto iso can be turned off, in manual or auto mode but not program or matrix metering mode (true for film cameras like F-100) and probably the same for Digital SLR.

and the video mode of D-90 is on matrix so probably: Program mode

its only probably, this is from my experience with Nikon cameras.
but the answer is coming soon.

I'm not so sure tho....theres a lot of screaming about this cameras "aliasing jaggies etc etc".
Some of the footage looks v nice indeed...as for jaggies etc try filming lots of green leaves etc in hdv...sometimes that looks horrid too...so worst case for me is for filming content for web site green screens and some run n gun stuff this is gonna be sooo much more accesable and easy to use than a camera, a 35mm adapter, a box load of primes and a monitor.

bythe way cheack this vid YouTube - Nikon D90 novinarska predstavitev // press conference Slo
it aint in english so i dont know what is being said but the opening shot is someone filming with one..notice the overexposure that doesnt look like its being corrected.

ps- A guy I know from a big uk camera retailer has a meeting with a rep guy from Nikon wednesday...he has questions from me with him....

Re: the aliasing jaggies...

I'm curious, what programs are people using to watch the original AVI's? I'm looking at the penguin and duck footage from dpreview, using Quicktime Pro 7.3.1 with the High Quality option selected, and I see fewer jaggies than I do in other video footage.

There's no doubt that the MJPEG compression is at work, but I'm more surprised it looks as good as it does, especially given the footage is shot by photographers who don't necessarily know how to make the best video. Even with this crap high contrast footage, my scopes show decent dynamic range and the roll-off into the whites is fairly gentle.

If the auto exposure can be defeated somehow (get the shutter speed down and control the ISO), I'm definitely going to test this camera out against the D300 which I would have bought anyway.

all I can say is the adapterboys best look for another line of work - the videos so far to me look very useful and this might just be the tip of the iceberg.

www.kurthbousman.com