Re: From MFT to FF a good idea (GH2 to Nikon D600)?
 

There is the issue of the D600 not having the adjustable aperture and the 100% hdmi out that the D800 has. Both problems have been mentioned as possible firmware fixes, but who knows. I moved from the D7000 to the D600 and am pretty happy with the camera for video. You can use manual lenses for adjusting the aperture directly, or do a two step process with g lenses by getting out of liveview, changing the aperture and getting back into liveview. I don't have a D800, so I can't tell you how the video IQ compares between the cameras. I can tell you that the still image IQ is very nice and hardly worth the upgrade to the D800.

Using an exterior mic on D4
 

When I first plugged in my Sennheiser shotgun mic to my D4, I was still in AF mode and later I could hear the AF motor turning. I'm not with my D4 manual right now so can't check it, but can anyone tell me if you can shut off the D4 mic so you're only getting audio from the Sennheiser?

I'd appreciate any feedback.

Ron

Nikon V1 Shooting 4K RAW at 60fps
 

Ran across this article at Eoshd.com. I'll be giving the Nikon V1 a little more attention this weekend.

Nikon V1 – shooting 4K 60fps raw for $200 | EOSHD.com

Re: Nikon V1 Shooting 4K RAW at 60fps
 

That is very cool. I started doing 4k a few weeks ago using the JVC 4k camera and D800 burst. Once you see how detailed these files look, even on a 1080p display, it's hard to go back to HD.

I'll be adding one of these to my collection.

Re: Using an exterior mic on D4
 

The input should automatically switch to the external mic, however if you keep it too close to the camera / lens, you will hear its noise. If you have some sort of mount which is attached to the camera, noise will likely be transmitted through the body.

Nikon D3100
 

Hello everybody. I wanted to post my experiences with shooting with the Nikon D3100.

This is based off of my experience as a DP on a short film we just wrapped 2 nights ago. I don't consider myself an awesome DP. I DO consider myself as a couple steps ahead of beginner, but lower than a pro.

This camera is not marketed to me, and I didn't buy it. The director wanted to use it because he owned this camera.
What I liked:

1. The camera had a great feel and was very light.
2. The camera worked very well on a homemade steadycam rig.
3. The camera got the job done.

What I didn't like:

1. Exposure via changing F stops did not have real time display feed back. The display had to "think" about the change. Same thing happened when plugged in to my monitor.

2. Pushing the film via EV had to be done in a separate menu. So I couldn't see the results in real time. I would change the setting and then go back to check the visual.

3. The "M" mode (manual) is not completely manual. The camera was always trying to change exposure to insure a good image so you never really could tell for sure what your settings produced. I later found out, that in M mode, the camera would change the exposure in order to show you what it suggested. The suggested value is shown in () to the right of my settings. But again, you can't turn that off so you can't tell for sure what your getting for an image. Good news is that the camera produced an image (found on import to fcpx) close to what I wanted.

4. This camera HATES low light. I went for manual white balance and the camera could never get it. So I blew out the scene by removing all scrims & diffusion, set white balance, and then determined it would be better to use AWB! I don't usually trust it, but it worked well for this film.

Other notes: The location was a laundry mat with daylight fluorescents all on and 3 Arri tungsten lights. The Gaffer did not get any CTO or CTB gels, so that made an interesting color combo!

I told the Dir. I will work with the camera again, but if I'm finding its limits with my level of expertise, then please pay me to get you a better camera or buy a good used 5dMkII or rent something.
Other cameras I used in the past: Canon 5d MKII, XL1, XL2, Pana PDX200 (most of the time)

D800 CF thingy Bent Pin
 

Well, the contraption is only 8 months old and I've used it maybe a dozen times and I have a bent pin. Sent it to Nikon and the estimate is 247.00. I've asked them to explain why it's not covered, but I think I'm swimming upstream. I have a D300 that has plenty of use, over three years and no bent pins. Infact, other than some ancient computers, this is the first pin issue I've ever had.

This is my heads up for my friends. Bah

Nikon D7100 - Video settings
 

Just got my new D7100 today. Video looks great but a bit jerky. I tried to force fixed shutter speed in P mode but got confused by camera behavior. I'm new to DSLR video. Can somebody share video settings and modes to use? Manual is very vague.

- 30p Video is not very smooth, much more jerky than 30p video from my HDV prosumer camcorder set in in 1/60 shutter speed. Any solutions?

- What exposure settings to use in manual mode? 1/60 and whatever aperture required? Can ISO be adjusted live or has to be fixed?

- What auto mode to use for best video when auto is needed? When set to S shutter displayed in live view jumps all the time, so not sure what's happening, shouldn't it stay the same? What shutter speed will give me smoothest video and how to force is on automatic mode so the shutter is fixed and ISO is adjusted automatically (aperture is not adjustable during shoot, I know)?

- What picture settings to use for video that will be graded and edited?

- What picture settings to use for family-type video that just needs to be the best out of the box ("cinema" look not required).


Any advice appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Nikon D7100 - Video settings - A weird BUG!
 

Update: I just confirmed a very strange bug! I did some shooting today outdoors in the bright light and in the S (shutter priority mode) with shutter set to 60 as soon as switch to video live view, shutter drops to 30 and stays that way no matter what I do. It does not respond to any dials etc. Obviously camera can't change aperture, so it changes ISO to keep good exposure. But I can's set shutter to 60 in any other mode but full Manual (M). The camera always drops shutter to 30. Why??? Note that if I switch to Photo Live View (not video) then shutter stays 60 and is also fully changeable by command dial.

I can't explain it by anything but a weird bug. I would be OK if it fixes the sutter to one value, but it should at least be the best suitable value (60 for 30p video)! Or user-editable. Instead it drips it to 30 even in bright light. It's not just not optimal setting, but also makes even harder to use wider aperture as there's just too much light at shutter 30. It forces to use manual mode, but with no metering I can't even properly change it during recording, because it's hard to see in a bright light if your exposure is OK and there is no meter to tell you otherwise. Any ideas about how to solve it?

Nikon Battery Recall
 

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Service-A...-Advisory.html


Yep, affects all my batteries. Oh Joy.


Please delete this one, sorry for the double post. I blame Mozilla

maintaining focus on subject coming toward you
 

I don't think this really matters for which Nikon dSLR that you use. I'm back to shooting video on my D4 after being a wedding videographer for a few years about 10 years ago with a Canon XL1. Focusing was easy, kept it on MF and utilized the AF button.

With these dSLR's, it's a lot tougher. For one, you can hardly see the back of the screen when you're shooting video. But worse, the only way to really track a moving subject is to move the MF with them, using the focus ring, and I'm just not very good at that at all.

What are your tricks? What do I need to learn here? Are you guys using AF for moving subjects?

Ron

Re: maintaining focus on subject coming toward you
 

Ron,
We've talked about a lot especially lately. When you use a pro type lens you need to do 1 of 2 things.
1) get really really good at follow focus
2) Learn how to Spot focus

To do the first (and you should learn how to anyway) you need to practice practice practice. Shoot the kids, dog (uh, not literally of course) go to the corner and shoot cars going down the street. I used to shoot some NASCAR and always had corner 3. Cars coming at me at up to 190mph. Follow the leader thru the turn and to the next corner (or until the director called another shot). I would practice even when we weren't on the air. Not hours but 10 minutes here and there just to keep my skills up.

To do 2) spot focus (or also called zone focus) is where you place yourself at a certain point and focus on a point say 1/2 way down the aisle. Now keep in mind that DoF is not just iris opening (F/stop) but also how long the lens is and how far to your focus point. Wide lenses are more forgiving. Zoom a lens in and they are less so. Some more than others.
I use mostly spot focusing today using the HM700 with the Fuji17 lens. Of course making sure your point of focus is 110% sharp is critical.
Again, practice practice practice!

Nikon 5100 firmware hack for manually iso
 

I just saw this yesterday. Seems Nikonhacker has a new firmware hack that allows manual control over iso and shutter while in liveview mode. Here is a YT video with a link to hack. I have not tried it yet, but I'm seriously thinking about it.

Re: Nikon 5100 firmware hack for manually iso
 

I loaded on the firmware the other day and so far, so good. Read the directions carefully, and it only works with the 1.1 firmware, not the new 1.2 official. There are many choices to change like extend or no recording limit. (It seemed to add 4 more minutes of recording time but I still need to look at it), NEF no compression, less compressed JPGs, support for third party batteries and the manual ISO control. I just activated the extended recording, battery and iso control. I didn't bother with the others. Here is what I found with a quick test. In liveview, you can manually control the iso and shutter, but nothing seems to happen when adjusting the f-stop. I'm not sure if you have to set that before going into liveview or not. So I'm still testing but having some manual control is cool so far.

Nikon V3
 

One of the specs is supposedly 120 fps at 1280x720.

Depending on the price of the camera and something like Red Giant's Instant HD, may be a cheap (relatively) slow motion solution if it works.

400 fps and 1,200 fps at lower resolutions.

This is the Nikon 1 V3 camera | Nikon Rumors

.... Now.... if they could just do something like this in a new D400/7200/9000 - I'd buy that!

Nikon D3200
 

Anyone use or have used this DSLR for shoots? Thoughts? My Wife just got one for some stills and it looks good with some quick test vids I did. But just seeing what anyone else's thoughts would be. I know its not as nice as the D4's and higher end Canon's, but I couldn't convince her to get a BMD pocket. :(

Re: Nikon D3200
 

I have a D5100, which is similar. Coming from more of the video background, I've found that you can take really nice video with it but it takes a lot more work. Controlling your environment is very helpful, and testing and adjusting your settings. I bought it because I wanted to be able to take stills and/or video at some of the events that I go to. I was tired to trying to decide which camera to take and didn't want to carry 2. Look on line and you can find some tutorials that help out with lens choice, ND filters etc.

Nikon V1 + FT1 for video.
 

Last Thursday, I got my used FT1 (Adorama $149) and began playing around with it on my V1.

Saturday, a friend of mine was filming a wedding up in near Nashville and I asked him if I could bring my new set up and test it out at his wedding shoot. He said sure, so I loaded up the car with my V1, FT1, F2.8 trinity, Manfrotto 561 monopod, and Konova K3 slider.

It was a sunny afternoon with little clouds and it was an outdoors wedding.

Overall I'd say the V1 worked quite well for the video. It took me a while to get use to everything, but shooting in manual mode allowed for great control. Some things I noted

(1) Of course, the hardest part was viewing the LCD screen in the super bright sunlight. Needed some sort of hood or something. I did resort to using the viewfinder as the day went on.

(2) Shooting on the monopod, while good for tight quarters indoors, still yielded noticeable "wobble" for lack of a better term. Would have been better to be on a tripod, even for indoor shots.

(3) I like that while recording, I can push the focus button and it requires focus. For instance, when the bride was coming down the aisle, she was in focus for say 5 or 6 feet, and then I'd have to refocus as she got closer.

This will now be my poor man's solution to getting shallow DOF shots, as the quality is very good in my opinion.

New Nikon D810 Filmmaker's Kit
 

Last night, Nikon unveiled their new D810 which upgrades the camera to 1080 60p and uncompressed output to external recorders. There is also a newe filmmakers kit option:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1062611-REG/nikon_13456_d_810_dig_cam_w_35mm_50mm_85mm.html

Story:
Nikon D810 now available for pre-order | Nikon Rumors

I may be upgrading my D90. As I've noted elsewhere, I've been using my Nikon V1 extensively for video the past few months at weddings and it does a fantastic job. I can only imagine that something like a D810 would be even better... especially ergonomically. Yes, I do have regular ENG type cameras I use at weddings, and external audio recorders etc, but for all my creative shallow DOF type shots, these kinds of cameras are the way to go!

Re: New Nikon D810 Filmmaker's Kit
 

I was wondering about the video output. Even with the 800/800e video is un-compressed going into an external recorder. So nothing new there.

Is there any information about a setting for shooting non-h.264 right to CF card? That would be really cool.

Jonathan

Nikon 1 10-100mm video lens.
 

I saw the other day that Henry's Camera is selling the very useful Nikon 10-100mm video lens for $250!

At that price, I may have to pick one up for my V1.

NIKON 1 10-100MM F4.5-5.6 VR BLACK PD-ZOOM 3318

Nikon D4 and macro video
 

Menu Screen Capture on D750
 

I am trying to capture the menu screen on the D750, I am using a BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle with HDMI in. This capture the Live Screen output OK but will not capture the Menu screens. When I plug the HDMI cable into my TV set I do see all the menu screens on the TV. Can anyone shed some light on this and hopefully a solution.

Re: Menu Screen Capture on D750
 

Problem solved. Just for information the camera has to be set to 1080i and the capture format on the BlackMagic set to HD 1080i 59.94. Found that out by going through every setting one at a time.

D7200 and newe mic
 

Looks like Nikon introduced their latest DSLR last night, the Nikon D7200. Upgraded video specs and some neat in camera features like timelapse.

What caught my attention though is their new ME-W1 mireless microphone system. It uses Bluetooth and claims it's good for 164'.

I dunno... I can't get more than about 30' out of my iPhone 5 and Bose Soundlink mini speaker. lol

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1127273-REG/nikon_27159_me_w1_wireless_microphone.html

Nikon 1 J5 - UDH, 4K video.... 15fps
 

Maybe they'll do a Nikon 1 V4 with UHD at 24 or 30fps...

Unveiled: The Nikon 1 J5 Mirrorless Camera with Selfie-Ready Screen | explora

Testing the Nikon 5200
 

Hi Folks,

Just added a Nikon 5200 to my arsenal. Only reason I went with Nikon was because I already had a couple of nice Nikon lenses that I inherited from my father in law when he passed away a few years ago. This is my second experience with a DSLR after over 30 years of ENG/EFP work. I DP'ed a horror short with one back in 2011, I was skeptical at the time about DSLR's for video in general, they're not the run and gun TV cameras I was used to. I've learned that hand holding can be steadied a bit by putting the strap around the neck and holding a little pressure with the arms. It seems to work pretty well following my hyper Jack Russell Terrier-American Bulldog mix, Loki around. He's epileptic and we're working him in as kind of a mascot for the local Epilepsy Foundation here in Windsor.

I've noticed that in movie mode, the shutter speed will not go any lower than a 30th. You can't slow it enough to get a streaky motion blur effect. Is there a way to achieve this? Also the camera has an interval timer that would work for time lapse. Is there a function in iMovie that can animate single frames and also is there a way to do custom still picture moves? The program seems to randomly pick moves on its own.

Here are some of the videos I've test shot so far.






Compare this to the video I shot with a Canon Gl-1 last year.


Thanks,

Marty Hamrick

Raindance Media Centre

Windsor, Ontario

Perseid Timelapse
 

Used the interval timer last night for the first time. Got a few!

I was super impressed with the battery life of the EN EL15.

I started at 10:00PM and it last until 2:30AM! I put a new battery in at 3:00 AM when I work up and continued. At that point though dew was setting in heavy and since I was asleep the lens got foggy.

Loving my D750 more every day!

D750 vs d600
 

Couple of days ago bought d750 and my first impressions are positive.
The extra button called 'I' at the back of the camera bottom left is very useful. It allows quick changes to the current mode that you are in. As I am shooting a video at the moment I found it very useful for quick reference check.
What I find annoying that you cannot assign the FN button to change between the full frame FX and Dx mode as I have done on my D600. It is also not given as an option as you toggle between various things. POssible due to the factr that D750 has three option here the FX, 1.2 and DX.

D610 / D750 - how stable is the hack?
 

I was wondering how stable is the high bitrate hack on the d610 and d750. Is playback on camera available yet? Can I revert to the original firmware if necessary?

Re: D610 / D750 - how stable is the hack?
 

What hack are you talking about?

Pixel Aspect Ratio D750 Video?
 

Hello, curious as to what the PAR setting of a D750 1920x1080 video is for Photoshop CS6?

Regards Aaron

Nikon D500 4k UHD Sample Video
 

Ungraded video short I put together today while my kid played with Legos. This was shot handheld with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 macro using the Flat Picture Profile.

More D500 Tests: Rolling Shutter, D-Light, Face Detection
 

More tests with the new Nikon D500. This time in HD: Active D-Light, Stabilization, Face Detection and Rolling Shutter.

Sony FS7 vs. Nikon D500?
 

Today I put a Nikon D500 vs. my Sony FS7 to see if I could get a comparable look out of each with minimal fuss. I was pretty impressed with the results.


Details: In this video we shot several scenes on both the Sony FS7 $8000 cinema camera and the new $2000 Nikon D500 DSLR. The Sony was in Cinema EI mode and shot on Slog3.cine with an Alexa-like LUT applied (Sony provided), it then received minor saturation and luma tweaks. The Nikon was shot using the Flat color mode and it too received saturation and luma tweaks. With more tweaking we're sure we could get color even closer but this was to test a quick grade since not everyone is a color master. We feel this is an easily-achievable match for almost any video editor. One thing to note is that the FS7 has a mountain more color information at its disposal. The Nikon requires that footage be shot correctly from the start.

The Nikon was equipped with the Tokina 11-20 f/2.8 lens, the Sony camera used the Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 DX.

Nikon 1 series for wedding work
 

I've posted elsewhere that I use my Nikon 1 V1 with 6.7-13mm lens for processional safety shots. It works great.

This past weekend, we had a situation where that camera ended up being the rear shot with a 10-100mm lens. It wasn't quite enough reach to get a "tight" shot.

I rectified that situation by getting the 70-300, which is a 810mm max equivalent. lol This is an amazing lens and will be perfect for outdoor weddings.

That's always been one of my hesitations of DSLRs at weddings... being able to get tight shots, because a lot of times 70-200mm even with a 1.5x boost isn't enough.

That's why I like my Sony NX5 and Canon XA20.. 600mm zoom range.

Re: Nikon D500 4k UHD Sample Video
 

Hello,

thank you for posting your sample. May I ask, would you be kind and tell us the bit rate mbps for video UHD and 1080p at 60fps?

I understand the camera is using rolling shutter (CMOS sensor design), what is your experience with andti-aliasing, bending and other artifacts caused by motion?

Best regards,
Pavel