Nikon D90 - Harbinger of the Future?

puredrifting

puredrifting

Major Contributor
Hi all:

Not sure if you saw, but today Nikon formally introduced the D90, a brand new consumer DSLR. What is amazing about it is that it does almost everything that the D300 I just bought does (same CMOS 12.3MB Imager), but it costs about $500.00 less AND, get ready for it. It shoots 720P HiDef. Keep in mind that the DX sensor in this camera is HUGE in comparison to most "video" cameras (this camera makes us have to re-think what a 'video' camera is). And you are using 35mm quality interchangeable lenses with this camera with the accompanying quality and depth of field.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0808/08082702nikond90previewed.asp

There are a few clips out there of video from this camera http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2008/08/chase-jarvis-raw-advance-testing-nikon.html and while the D90 won't make many professional videographers/cinematographers give up their RED Ones or even their HVXs and EX-1s, this camera is groundbreaking because it is the future. Still cameras and video cameras are merging. How many news photographers are shooting with HDV camcorders now instead of Nikons and Canons? When the outlet is low res newsprint and stills for the web mainly, why not shoot at 24 or 30 fps and have the extra added appeal of motion video for the newspaper's website? The D90 comes from the other direction. You can see that eventually we will be shooting HUGE image files at better than HD quality in small, affordable packages in a few years. With the ability to extract beautiful, detailed high resolution stills from the video as well as uncomprehensible as of today quality video.

Yes, the ergonomics are not setup for video shooting yet. Yes, the audio will be lacking. Yes, it's only 720P video (for now). But imagine what this product will evolve into by 2,010.

Interesting times we live in friends.

Discuss.

Dan
 
Dan,

That's a great find as a friend and I were going to possibly be doing a joint venture utilizing the 300D, and at this price.. might be the way to go. I do think you are totally right about where things are going and the merging of the techs. I don't think it'll be too long before the wedding guy who shoots video.. will also be simultaneoulsy be shooting pro looking stills, the client will then be able to watch the video and pick out the still shots to use from this..



Good find indeed! Do you know is this cam has the live video too?
 
Justyn said:
Dan,

That's a great find as a friend and I were going to possibly be doing a joint venture utilizing the 300D, and at this price.. might be the way to go. I do think you are totally right about where things are going and the merging of the techs. I don't think it'll be too long before the wedding guy who shoots video.. will also be simultaneoulsy be shooting pro looking stills, the client will then be able to watch the video and pick out the still shots to use from this..



Good find indeed! Do you know is this cam has the live video too?
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Yes, it has LiveView like the D300. I just bought the D300 and I am loving it. I knew that the D90 was coming but I needed the D300 for a trip so I went for it. I don't regret it but it would have been sweet to have had the D90 to play around with the video stuff. I also have and am hanging on to my D80 as a spare body. It seems as if I am always going to the desert or beach where the wind will be blowing and I would rather have a cheaper body to take into "higher risk" situations where sand, dirt and debris might invade the body.

Yes, I do see a future where "still" cameras become obsolete. And it is only a couple of years away!

Dan
 
there is a studio here in texas, dallas i think that rigged some sort of input interface to convert input from their dslr into a video capture situation. i forget who it was, i'll try to dig up info
 
If Nikon could come out with something that recorded even just one channel of audio via an XLR and had a decent screen and monitor output for the same price range I think they would kill. I don't know about the egronimcs about holding an SLR for video all day, but the sensor size almost makes that a non issue. This sensor is the 1.5x crop DX sensor (compared to 35mm) right?
 
The really exciting part is that this is just the first one. When Nikon sells a few hundred thousand D90s and sees that filmmakers are creating real film and video projects with them, the light bulb will click on with them. When you think about it, this camera solves many issues with low end filmmaking, killer lenses, depth of field, solid state media. Of course the ergonomics, audio and support gear preclude it from being an ideal filmmaking tool but it does seem capable in most areas.

Mark my words, our world of HD Video is RADICALLY changing and high quality, cheap and accessible trumps REDs, Genesis and all of the other unobtainable by mere mortal gear. I don't think many of us may realize that this is a MAJOR event, the day that D-SLRs turned into HD Video DSLRs. This is a big deal and will change everything. IMHO, for many of those who thought RED was a revolution, it is in a way for well heeled productions. But the D90 may finally find it's way into the hand's of Coppola's proverbial "Little Fat Girl" and she will make an important and siginificant film with it.

Little Fat Girl isn't buying a RED.

I am so excited by the possibilities that this sudden, unexpected left turn in the highway has taken.

Dan
 
To be honest with you, I don't think that anything is going to change dramatically as a result of the D90.

To say that a D90 or successor is going to "trump REDS, Genesis . . . ." is to me at least wishful thinking.

But I hope I'm incorrect.
 
Just wait a while, thats all. This is just the beginning. At least Nikon has nothing to loose and a lot to win if they persue this even further. Those that can't see the future can stay in the past.
 
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David S. said:
To be honest with you, I don't think that anything is going to change dramatically as a result of the D90.

To say that a D90 or successor is going to "trump REDS, Genesis . . . ." is to me at least wishful thinking.

But I hope I'm incorrect.
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David:

You misunderstood me, I don't think that the D90 will even trump an HVX-200 for serious production but I do think that it could become a breakthrough product since it has a high bang for buck value. Cheapness and ease of use trumps ultimate quality for popularity in the same way that YouTube has trumped HD Television. Sure, the quality of YouTube is pretty bad but it is much more popular than HD Television, right? The audience for YouTube is much more rapid, quickly responding and voracious consumers of media than the average viewer of Discovery HD. Same idea.

When kids and neophytes who may have a little talent can shoot shallow depth of field pretty high quality 720P HD images images for less than $1,000.00, that is very significant in my mind. I think it shows that if Nikon so desired, they could produce a camcorder that could be competitive with the HPX-170 and EX-1 for a lot less money that would have possibly better images, glass and shallow depth of field and of course, better ergonomics for shooting video than the D90.

Based upon what I have seen and read, I don't think that the D90 itself is that big of a deal, but as a "concept car", it shows that Nikon may could become a serious player in the video market. They have excellent marketing, design, manufacturing, lens and imaging technology and they are giving exactly what a fairly large community wants accidentally in a way. It will be interesting to see what they make of it and if they pursue video further or prompt Canon to get their act together with video.

I didn't mean that I think that anyone will use a D90 in lieu of a RED or Genesis (if they could afford the rentals), I meant that as a product, I feel that the D90 has the potential to be a much more significant breakthrough as a bellweather concept than either of those esoteric high-end cameras.

Dan
 
Come on, 24fps @ 720, Nikon lenses, manageable Avi File, S35 size sensor in version 1.0? Thats heavy duty stuff my friends. Im am sure that Nikon will develop its motion picture camera business from here. Wait until they figure out a way to compress their RAW files and start using a full 35mm still frame sensor in a perhaps bigger body dedicated mainly to motion capture with still photography to compliment it. At a price we can all afford. They were lagging behind in their digital camera business and they have come back with a vengeance. I am sure they are looking at new markets. They knew people in the indie side of the business were clamoring their lenses for the adapters. So why not give them the whole package? They have the power and resources to do it.
 
John Caballero said:
Just wait a while, thats all. This is just the beginning. At least Nikon has nothing to loose and a lot to win if they persue this even further. Those that can't see the future can stay in the past.
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The future is cheap, in that, I am in total agreement. Being in the entertainment and media industry, there have been huge changes in how work is done. Since I cover a lot of making of, EPK and BTS for television shows and features, I can see how it is rapdily evolving, almost everytime I step on to a set. Crews are smaller. Shows that shot of film largely want to switch to digital for the simple reason that studios want to save money and producers and show runners want to put more bottom line into their pocket.

I am convinced that in ten years, the way that mass entertainment media is created and consumed will have very little resemblance to how it is created and consumed today. Everything will be made much cheaper, smaller and more rapidly than it is today. Gear will be cheap, small and pretty high quality. In ten years, I would not be surprised if we look back on how production is created today in the same way that filmmakers in 1939 looked back on how silents were made ten years earlier except our change will be a lot more groundbreaking than it was in that era.

I think that the era of big studios, big stars, big directors and budgets that exceed 150 million dollars will also be looked back upon as a product of an era, gone forever (fondly by some, loathed by so many others). Figure this, television is primarily aimed at women, right? Feature films are primarily aimed at 15 year old males who will see the same movie, if they like if 2-4 times, correct? Teens are already leaving the theater in droves for the lure of the Internet, mobile video, YouTube and video games.

Women are more loyal as far as not totally abondoning television for the Internet, YouTube and games, but the as we all know, the television audience becomes more fragmented by the day. Channels are multiplying exponentially, narrowcasting is all of the rage and it will only increase. More shows on more channels and the Internet = hugely reduced budgets because of smaller and narrower audiences. Water cooler TV is dead. Only 2-4 events a year (SuperBowl, Oscars, Olympics, Rose Parade types of shows) seem to have truly mass appeal, the rest is "your shows" and "my shows"

As I stated, the future is cheap. Much cheaper than today. At some point, technology like the D90 will be creating "real content" on a regular basis. Not the D90 itself, but cheap products that will have, by today's standards, pretty amazing quality.

Dan
 
"I am convinced that in ten years, the way that mass entertainment media is created and consumed will have very little resemblance to how it is created and consumed today."

Interesting point Dan but in reality very little has changed since the creation of motion pictures... over the past hundred years we've really not advanced that much... film is still being distributed on reels and played in projectors that have changed very little of the past 100 years...

The story we tell are still crafted in a similar method as our founding fathers.. yes special effects have come a long way.. but King Kong was pretty impressive in 1939 and I don't really think Peter Jackson version recently really debunks the original...

Our toys are faster and more advanced.. but we're really working off an established model...

We have more content now but is it of any quality???

The D90 is a fascinating concept and I'm sure I'll be playing with one soon... but will it actually change the way stories are told... ???

We live interesting times...

Cheers
 
Hi Lez:

Lez said:
Interesting point Dan but in reality very little has changed since the creation of motion pictures... over the past hundred years we've really not advanced that much... film is still being distributed on reels and played in projectors that have changed very little of the past 100 years...
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But that's the whole point, I think that if you analyze the media landscape from an insider's POV, theatrical growth has been on a downhill slide for years, the market is overglutted with product, Video Games and the Internet surpassed the filmed entertainment business in dollars and growth years ago. We are talking about two different things here, I am discussing the film business as a whole and you are thinking about filmmaking as a process.

The film business will fundamentally change over the next decade and other than a few "event" types of films, the key operating word will be cheap. Yes, of course, the process and workflow of creating films is an established and successful model, but the distribution, financing and advertising of films is and will continue to go through massive changes and upheaval.

Lez said:
The story we tell are still crafted in a similar method as our founding fathers.. yes special effects have come a long way.. but King Kong was pretty impressive in 1939 and I don't really think Peter Jackson version recently really debunks the original...
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I agree with you 100% here, I don't think that the fundamentals of storytelling through cinema will change very much. Most of the more recent experiences with films like Dogme95, the film Timecode, other experiments have all been commercial failures. These are all films that tried to fundamentally change the language of film and while interesting and some of them were good, none changed the way that films are made today or how stories are told with film.

Lez said:
Our toys are faster and more advanced.. but we're really working off an established model...
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I agree but here is something interesting to think about. Much of the visual style of films like The Bourne Identity stems from the quick cut/handheld process that evolved as a way to offset the low quality of standard definition television. In NTSC and PAL video, the resolution of the medium was so low that the tricks known as the MTV aesthetic evolved as a way to compensate for the low resolution of the format. The standard was always wide/establishing, mediums, then CUs and ECUs. NSTC/PAL cannot hold a wide shot because you can't see any detail. The MTV aesthetic was given birth to in the 80s, evolved, crept into commercials and now has evolved to the big screen, which I find extremely obnoxious visually.

As a huge fan of John Ford and his visual sense of storytelling, many of us had hoped that once HD became established, that filmmakers and television directors would realize with the resolution and wide screen of the HD format that they don't have to always resort to quick cutting/shakycam type of visuals to hold the viewers attention. Ford was known as the master of the master shot, he liked to set a perfect carefully chosen composition and have the actors enter and exit the frame and let the visuals take their cue from the actors and their movement. He rarely moved the camera and when he did, the effect was always amazing since the movement was not abused. Since Ford was a director from the early days of silents, he kept of bit of the "place the camera in front of the proscenium" from the silent era. I for one, love his visual style because less was more and for Ford, a single dolly shot, like the shot where John Wayne is visually introduced in "Stagecoach" is 100 times more powerful than the headache inducing visual clutter that 95% of directors use today. Just like when profanity loses it's impact through overuse, classic visual storytelling has lost it's impact because directors today, generally, don't know the vocabulary. They think, "always keep the camera moving...dollies, jibs, Steadicam, handheld fight scenes" Yawn.

The reason for this long diatribe is that the current visual style of television and many (not all) films did not evolve from classic filmmaking visual style, it is a mutant aberration that really didn't exist even as little as 30 years ago. Kind of funny that much of modern cinema has derived it's aesthetic from televison and the Internet. So as far as working off of an established model from the dawn of cinema, yes and no. Certain parts of the process remain in place but many of the parts of the process, the visual language and sound have all evolved rapidly in the past 20 or so years. This process will accelerate rapidly as we move forward, much as the technology has so rapidly changed.

Lez said:
We have more content now but is it of any quality???
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IMHO, no, not at all. I channel surf, it's depressing. 500 channels of nothing. If you want to become depressed, take a look a the clips that pass as humor over on www.funnyordie.com I was looking yesterday, very depressing. No original ideas, totally base humor, horrible production values, even on the clips made by Hollywood names over there. I have no problem with raunch in comedy, if the writing is really funny but most of what is out there is raunch with no intelligence, none. So therefore, not funny. But it sells. They keep making Meet the Spartans, it sells. I pretty much rarely go to the movies anymore because most of the output is so bad. Thank goodness for Netflix.

Lez said:
The D90 is a fascinating concept and I'm sure I'll be playing with one soon... but will it actually change the way stories are told... ???
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I don't necessarily think that the D90 itself will, but I do think that something that may evolve from the D90 could.

Lez said:
We live interesting times...
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Definitely. Thanks for your conversation, it's good. ;-)

Dan

Cheers[/QUOTE]
 
Wow.. that is one serious post....

I agree with you... It will be interesting to have a play with the D90...

Cheers
 
Yeah, I gotta quit that, but sometimes it's just fun. I need to channel that more into my magazine articles and web journalism ;-)

D
 
I see this as a mistake.

I own a D3, D100, SD800IS...I own a HVX. I get to use F23s, F35s, Red Ones, EX1, Panaflexs, Arris, etc etc etc all day long.

DSLRs should be just that, a DSLR...I am personally against the idea of incorporating video. Shoot stills with your DSLR, Shoot motion pictures with your motion picture cameras. Instead of worrying about getting video into the damn thing, worry about getting ISO performance and resolution. Worry about color gamma. Not making a damn movie.

Some knucklehead somewhere is going to buy one of these with the full intention of trying to make a film on it. And when that time comes I'll be anti-that as well.

All I have to say is if I were ever get the call saying someone needs a focus puller or DP and they tell me the camera is D90...I would laugh at them and hang up.
 
The Sarlacc said:
I see this as a mistake.

I own a D3, D100, SD800IS...I own a HVX. I get to use F23s, F35s, Red Ones, EX1, Panaflexs, Arris, etc etc etc all day long.

DSLRs should be just that, a DSLR...I am personally against the idea of incorporating video. Shoot stills with your DSLR, Shoot motion pictures with your motion picture cameras. Instead of worrying about getting video into the damn thing, worry about getting ISO performance and resolution. Worry about color gamma. Not making a damn movie.

Some knucklehead somewhere is going to buy one of these with the full intention of trying to make a film on it. And when that time comes I'll be anti-that as well.

All I have to say is if I were ever get the call saying someone needs a focus puller or DP and they tell me the camera is D90...I would laugh at them and hang up.
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haha! that's okay. plenty of people are laughing at you too.
 
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