The end of 35mm adapers and hv20s....

Yeah, this is posted over at dvinfo.net...but I'm 100% sure they have "auto exposure lock" and "auto focus lock" ...that's what the AE-L and AF-L are. So far whatever works in still mode is seemingly possible in d-mode. So we can bet that the flicker will dissappear.
 
So the guys over a nikon usa will get it about 2weeks before it's released so probably by next week, if it's supposedly going to release on 8-16 they, they should have it. The guy straight up said he works there because he likes photography but more of a film/video guy himself and is interested in the d-mode too.
 
Yes! I was just going to say that over at Chris jarvis's blog (who tested the d90) a person said this (I think he was one of the d90 testers with chris) in response to many questions about the dreaded automatic exposure:

"The exposure is lockable in D-Movie mode, no jumpy auto exposure changes."

BRILLIANT!
 
okay, here's the clip i tried to upload to vimeo. vimeo denied it for some reason.

i imported the original AVI into FCP, made three passes of alternating color grades, then rendered out as DVCPROHD 720/24p. as i said before, when looked at with a critical eye, i'd say it looks like HV20 footage top me in terms of rolling shutter and compression artifacts. as long as exposure is lockable in d-movie mode. i'm buying one.

http://www.sabillc.com/nikond90_colortests.mov (136mb)
 
"The exposure is lockable in D-Movie mode, no jumpy auto exposure changes."

Now I am paying attention.

So with that short video with the stunt bike doing a 360 - was that lock in or auto?
It seemed real jumpy.
 
Exposure is definitely lockable. The only thing that cannot be adjusted is the metering mode.
So you can use the cameras automatic focus all the way until you push the 'liveview' button. From there on you cannot use auto-focus (obvious right? Nope - see edit).
So you are in Liveview mode and you can set the iso and shutter speed and aperture and picture style and exposure lock. All in Liveview mode. Then you press the centre 'o.k' button and you begin recording. EDIT - you can auto-focus in Live view as well - in 'contast-detect' mode and there is a face-tracking feature! When in focus a square around the persons face will go from yellow to green to show focus lock!
When you look on Nikons website that showcases the D-Movie mode you can see there are a number of videos that don't jump in exposure. I particularly like the 'picture style' video in black and white. In this video you can see no exposure compensation or jumpiness going on.
The 'picture style' mode is great - you could dial in whatever style you like. ISO can be pushed to 6400! What is not to like? The LCD is the best quality LCD on a 'prosumer' video camera to date - accurate focusing wont be a problem.
You can even auto-focus out of 'live view' then switch to 'live view' and record then stop and auto-focus again quickly and back into live view and record again - bam bam bam. Very quickly and with stealth.
If the quality is as good as as the HV20 then we are winning. But of course this is a great stills camera as well. And some of the Nikon lenses are to die for. Minimal lighting shots will absolutely possible.
As for editing - Photoshop extended will be easily able to deal with this footage and I can apply some of my great Photoshop plug-ins - like Noiseware - to smooth out footage shot at ISO 6400 etc etc.
It's great and I think it might change the way footage is edited - at least color corrected and graded?
 
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Until we get some decent samples I'm yet to be sold regarding picture quality. I'm praying someone will prove me wrong :)
 
guess it's a matter of taste, but the bike footage avi, not streaming, was great.
i was playing with it in CS3 which is a dream come true for me seeing how i sit and do photoshop 10hrs a day. This will make grading soooooo awesome. And it played smooth the entire time. things like rgb, hue sat, exposure, are just one of many things that can be done in CS3.
 
Where is Juan? I want him to start dissecting the D-90 when it comes out and give us an Andromeda/Hydro version!

If you don't know, this guy is a genius and in the past has been hacking into the DVX/HVX camera CCD's and getting a super clean, larger resolution, 4-4-4 sample. By skipping the compression and codec stage you are basically getting a huge data stream directly off of the sensor and through a custom Ethernet or firewire cable to a computer.

Imagine if he could drag that 720 signal off the D-90 without having to compress that video to mpeg2 or whatever it is.

lol

Waaaaay to early to start this conversation but it's a cool thought.
 
Ohh, if the HDMI out works on D90 all the time and the output is selectable to different display modes, with live histogram, grid etc you can attach a hyper quality external LCD to the cam's hotshoe and off you go.
An interesting and really affordable HDMI LCD development is seen here http://www.smallhd.com/showcase.html - they are coming up with 10" LCD in two weeks if I remember correctly, with 1280px native resolution HDMI input!

Cheers,
T
 
rawfa said:
That would be incredible, Ryan...but want' the whole Andromeda/Hydra project officialy over?
Click to expand...

Yeah, he stopped doing work on the HVX and DVX. I heard someone bought him out or something, which prevented him from continuing to make the mods.

I figured this might be a slightly different process perhaps allowing him, if he so desired to hack away. Let's get Juan back out from where ever he went! :)
 
At Cineform's website there's a prototype for a HDMI capture device for the HV20. Maybe this could be adapted for the D90. The device is pretty small, which would not limit the D90's portability.
 
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