D90 short documentary published
 

I just wanted to let you know that the first documentary news feature I've shot mostly on an early Nikon D90 is now live on the the Guardian website http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/oct/01/tibet. Everything apart from the interview footage and file footage from Chinese TV was shot on the D90. Audio for the reporter's pieces was separately recorded on an Edirol R-09 CF recorder and synced later. The shooting conditions were less than ideal as the subject of Tibet is quite sensitive even though we were on an official trip, therefore much of the camera work is handheld. Despite showing the camera's faults in places (such as rolling shutter and flicker due to using a 24fps camera under Chinese lighting) it does prove in my mind what can be done with SLR video.

All editing is in Apple's Final Cut Pro. The colours and saturation have not been altered in the Guardian website version. There are some clips here Nikon D90 in Tibet on Vimeo , in higher res with grading applied.

Dan

Dan - that's excellent - did I say That's excellent - and under real world conditions . This is going to revolutionize video capture .

Dan:

Very nice work, good photography. Unfortunately I find the rolling shutter artifacts distracting, especially in the shot of the soldiers in the back of the truck passing your camera and the guard rails soon after that shot. But you did a great job and it is likely that 99% of the viewers on the web would never notice those artifacts. Sound is quite good from the Edirol.

Thanks for sharing, it's nice to see what people are accomplishing with these new tools.

Which lenses did you use mostly?

Dan

ND filter vs rolling shutter / jello
 

On the soldiers in truck going by, I think the real problem was the shutter speed was too high, causing a strobe effect (lack of motion blur). An ND filter would help with this, or just stopping the lens down a lot so your shutter is closer to the frame rate (24fps, so 1/60th shutter would match better and is still quick enough to not blur too much).

I did see rolling shutter / jello issue on some handheld shots but that's a different problem. My 2cents. :)

Kudos Dan. That wide angle shot, with the worshipper falling forward toward camera's POV is amazing. I love how low you got to the ground on it.
Fantastic work - and great solve with the second system audio.
-C

Thats excellent work Dan.
Nice to see this camera actually used in a professional capacity.

How do you find the 24p footage works on the 25p timeline?
Is that 1fps in the difference noticeable?

What about for output to PAL - SD
How do you find the results?

You demo is pushing me towards getting one now.

I actually puttted this 24p as it was destined for web anyway so I can't comment on 24p to 25p conversion yet.

sorry

Dan

Dan,

Your latest video on the Guardian website "Yak Snacks" was this also shot on the D90 the quality looks great

Bob

Bob,

Sadly no, this was shot conventionally on my Sony EX-1 apart from one shot of monks in a monastery on the D90. I will still use a EX-1 or EX-3 where I can and I don't really need to be discreet or need the 35mm look. What is so great is that you can use any or all of these cameras to produce good stories, you don't need the EX-1 to do it.

Dan