Notes From My First D90 Shoot

chris f

chris f

Veteran
Background Info​
After having some HD equipment fall through for a shoot, I decided last minute to try out the world of D90 video as a replacement. After a crash course on the internet over a few days I learned as much as I could about the camera and did as much testing as I could with my limited time frame before the shoot.

There is lots of good D90 information on this board, but because the D90 is still relatively uncharted territory I thought I'd keep somewhat of a production journal on here as to help others learn from my experience and for me to learn as well from those who have more experience with the D90.

I have no previous HD experience (only DVX100a, VX1000, VX2000, Gl-1, Gl-2, etc. etc.) and figured it's about time to jump into the world of HD and get as much hands on experience with everything from the cameras to the media to the workflow.

This particular project was a pro-bono "Love Story" section of a wedding video for some friends, which I plan to post once the project is completed.


The Equipment / Set up​
For this project I used:
Nikon D90
Nikkor AF 50mm 1.8
Audio-Technica AT899 Wired Lav connected to my DVX for sound
Bogen 503 Tripod
1 Flexfill Reflector
1 C-Stand

Final Cut Pro 5
Streamclip 1.9
Quicktime Pro
Photoshop CS
MacBook 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB SDRAM, OS 10.4.11



Round One​
Right after I rented the camera I had to go to work so I took the camera along with me without knowing how to lock exposure or any other camera tricks. I absolutely loved the LCD screen in Live View. It was very easy to focus off of it and the picture was sharp, I can't believe how big that screen is, much bigger than my D70. However, not knowing any of the tricks, the picture looked pretty bad with auto everything; crazy shutter and exposure changing at the drop of a hat. Also, no tripod so the camera was in full Jello Jiggler mode.

I also made the wrong assumption that everything would be as crystal clear and sharp on my computer in full 720p as it was on the LCD screen. Initially I was a little disappointed at how soft the image was for being HD (maybe the camera, maybe my unrealistic expectations, or a little of both?), but this was later alleviated after I dropped it into Final Cut, plugged in my DVX to the computer and my TV (SD, standard glass screen), and turned on external video view. The image was surprisingly sharp and looked just like the LCD screen, so that was a relief.

Lessons Learned from Round One
1. This camera isn't magic, just like any other camera you have to learn how to use it to create good images with it.
2. Learn all the tricks posted about this camera and Practice Practice Practice so it is burned into your memory.
3. Like anything, learning and testing is extremely valuable and takes longer than you estimate.
4. Renting equipment over holiday weekends is about the best deal you can ever get. I rented the D90 and an extra 4gb memory card for $104 bucks for 4 days.



Round Two

After coming home that night and re-reading the stickies on here quite a few times I played with the camera and figured out how to lock exposure and trick the camera into creating the best image (which I never got down to a complete science with consistency, but hey that's what testing and multiple takes are for right?).

The next morning I grabbed my roommate away from his breakfast to go to the park down the street so I could test out the camera on a tripod, as well recording and synching double sound and testing early morning outdoor lighting and the reflector/c-stand.

The footage needed quite a bit of touching up in the computer, but with a quick and rough touch up and a quick edit, I was pretty happy with what I came up with. I wasn't completely satisfied, but it was nice to get quite a few of the bumps and mistakes out of the way before it really counted.

Here's a quick edit I put together: http://vimeo.com/2403804

Lessons from Round 2
1. A fluid head tripod makes a world of difference. It keeps the Jello in the kitchen and off the set.
1a. Now I know why people on here knock the 503 head, good tripod, not great.
2. Shooting in the shade with a shadier backdrop is much easier and looks good.
3. Getting backlight from a low sun looks better.
4. Getting the reflector to shine the right amount of light to balance the image while not blinding the on-screen talent is much harder than I thought.
5. The high contrast of shooting in the sun is making me a little nervous. I want backlight, but I'm leaning towards not ruining the footage and shooting in the shade.
6. Only having 1 battery and a 1gig and 4gig card may be a problem.
 
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Round Three

After Round Two, I felt better and knew that there was potential to get some great images out of the camera. I also felt worried that I was out of testing time and would have to make any and all adjustments during the actual shoot.

My friend and I went on a very rushed location scout at Balboa Park. If you're familiar with that area it has amazing scenery. As we learned that day it also has half of the city of San Diego in it on the weekends and not a single spot not occupied by visitors or by the sound of street musicians, airplanes, passing cars, and crying babies. This trip was disappointing, but successful in that we avoided the disaster of finding this out the day of.

After some late night Googling I found a nearby park that would have to work. We lucked out and it turned out being a very good location (minus some occasional sound interference from dogs, children, and airplanes).

The shoot went very well and both of the interviews turned out better than I expected. Energetic and Cooperative talent makes any video 10 times better. It took me a while to get the lighting right, but I gambled and went for shooting with the direct sun providing backlight and the reflector filling the front. Overall I am very happy with what I got. As you can see I from the examples I figured out how to improve the lighting for the 2nd interview (The guy went first, then the girl). Here are some screen grabs from the shoot with a little bit of CC and touching up:

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I believe I shot both interviews at f.4 because I was nervous that they might go in and out of focus if they moved much at f2.8. So far from the footage I have reviewed everything seems to have stayed within the focus range and I am satisfied with the focus level of the backgrounds.

Lessons from Round Three

1. The D90 DOES NOT have a lens hood like your DVX! Don't be dumb like me and try to shoot in the sun without a lens hood. This is a lesson I half learned from Round Two. I couldn't figure out why the sun footage was so dull and lacked detail, until I looked at the shade footage and put 2 and 2 together. I say I half learned this because for the actual shoot I held my microphone case above the lens to block the sun, but didn't realize it wasn't blocking it completely on every take until I loaded the footage onto my comp. Moral of the story: USE A LENS HOOD, THE BIGGEST ONE YOU CAN
2. The D90, when set up right creates a beautiful image. I was ecstatic when I previewed the footage on my TV and my friends (the couple) were equally excited.
3. Getting the D90 to create a beautiful image can be like getting a toddler to sit still. Although I am very happy with what I got, the process for which it took to get it is making me seriously reconsider whether I should use the D90 again for this kind of project.
4. Completely guessing here, but I was able to get 30min+ of footage comfortably with a 1 and 4 gig card.
5. I was able to do a 2 hour shoot with one battery.
6. During the 2nd interview the Live View started needing a few minutes of rest every now and then before I could continue shooting.
7. The LCD screen is great, but don't trust it completely. While shooting I thought the footage of the guy looked perfect and was afraid that the footage of the girl looked too dark and contrasty, but upon loading the footage onto the computer the raw footage of the guy was a little over exposed and soft and the raw footage of the girl was perfect.
8. Using a clapper marked with what question is being answered before each question would have been way better than me standing in front of the camera and clapping and forgetting to do it for every question. Sound synch fun here I come!
9. Doing this for pay with a production assistant would be much easier and faster.
10. Limiting your location to places that have a good natural sitting object (park bench, log, big rock, etc.) isn't really necessary. I thought it would be in the wide shot, but it wasn't. I'm going to start looking for a good, comfortable stool to buy and bring along for people to sit on for future outdoor interviews.
11. Mark your tripod so the heights are consistent. For some reason I randomly made the close up on the guy higher up (see screen grab). I don't think it will be that big of a deal in editing, but something to avoid in the future.
12. When you test your equipment in Round Two, put the tripod plate back on the tripod when you are done. Putting it in a random pocket in the camera bag may cost you 1.5 hours of wasted production time, your interviewer's availability, trips back to your apartment, the Round Two location, and back to the Round Three location, the sinking feeling of ruining the shoot, the sinking feeling of thinking the rental house is going to charge your debit card for an extra $200 ( I later learned a baseplate only costs like $25), and looking stupid when your interviewee suggests you check the only pocket you haven't checked to which you reply that there's no way it's in there to which she suggests you check just incase to which you oblige and sheepishly find the baseplate.
 
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Round 4

It's been a while since I started this project, but after some vacations/other projects I am back to the D90 test. I was going to wait until I had the project finished in its entirety before I posted about my Editing/Post-Production experiences with the D90, but I've realized its going to be a while until I have the project completely polished the way I want it. Also considering that the intended audience for this video (the couple and their reception guests) and the crowd on DVXUSER would have a much different interest in the content of the video, I've decided to post a small excerpt from the video. While this segment may have the most technical flaws, it's probably more entertaining for the general public and will also show the results of some of the mistakes/lessons I have mentioned in previous posts. Below is a sample of my video, through the export/encoding process I managed to lose a lot of my color and contrast (see still grabs from the video in Round 3^^^^). The image looks great exported to DVD, but my web export skills are lacking. (If anyone has good export settings for the web I'd love to know them)

D90 Sample Video - First Date

As I mentioned in Round 1 I am operating in Final Cut Pro 5 so I don't have the luxury of using the ProRes Codec/Timeline that newer versions of Final Cut provide. After alot of research this is the process I settled on. It may or may not be the best route, but so far I am very happy with the results and workability of the process (albeit a kind of long one, but one that is efficient).

Step One
Transfer the raw video files from the camera to the computer using Nikon Transfer

Step Two
Batch Process all of the files using Streamclip (free download) with the settings posted here.

Step Three
Open the new Quicktime files you just created with Cinema Tools and conform them to 23.98fps.

Step Four
Import those files into a Final Cut Project with the following settings:
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(* I adjusted the quality setting from 50% to 100%, not sure if this makes a difference since the encode in Step 3 used the 50% setting)

Step Five
Line up your audio from your other source and edit away with no need to render as you go.

*If anyone has any suggestions for better steps or settings please share them with all of us.


Lessons from Round 4

1. As others have mentioned the 720p on this camera should have an asterisk next to it. While I'm very happy with the quality when exported on a DVD and played on a SD TV, when I connect my laptop to my 42" 720p Plasma TV, the quality of the uncompressed footage looks far from "High Def".
2. The video also has noted drawbacks such as the "stair-stepping", but there is a plugin based on the theory posted on these boards that should get rid of it. I was going to try it out for this sample, but the render time was 4 hours, so it will have to wait for Round 5.
3. I don't know if it's because of the camera or just the nature of HD (or maybe both) but possibly the biggest advantage in using this camera is the range of image correction you can make in post without sacrificing much quality to the image. On some of my footage the before and after is incredible and definitely beyond the realm of DVX100a image correction.
4. Most of my other lessons deal more with directing and editing the content of the video and not the D90 specifically, but if anyone has any feedback on the video itself I'd love to have it. At this point I'm still working on a structured style and format to the entire program and have a few more elements to add in (photos, b-roll, etc.).
 
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Kudos to you for putting your money where your mouth is and going out and actually shooting something! Reading your "lessons" prompted a few things I thought I might mention.

1. Typically, rental houses charge only one day for weekend rentals. They also typically charge a three- or four-day rate per week, or a 12-day rate for a month.

2. Sun low in the sky always a good thing.

3. While shooting entirely in open shade makes exposing within your camera's dynamic range more manageable, I love the "snap" that a hard daylight kick can bring to a scene.

Ahh . . . I wrote all that before viewing your clip. You did shoot in direct sun! Although this is purely subjective, I would've chosen to put the sun at his back (in the medium-shot) so that it rimmed his head on the camera-left side, rather than from on the right (achieved by simply re-directing his eyeline to camera-left, rather than to camera-right). It would have then emulated a more conventional placement of the backlight source. Even nicer, IMO, is when part of your backlight slashes your subject's cheek from the side opposite the eyeline (in this case, the camera-left side, and shifting his shoulder angle a few degrees clockwise). But in general, your exposure was quite nice. The easiest trick in the book when shooting video outdoors is to put the sun at your subject's back (as you did), and filling him/her as hot as you can in front (in order to balance your background exposure). I think this camera looks great in direct sunlight. Great job!

P.S. How did the audio synching go?
 
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Chris:

good stuff my friend...I had put my order for the D90 but after reading some of the issues and getting to play with one at Best Buy I decided to cancel the order. After watching your video at vimeo...I am back to ordering that sucker!

Hey..byt the way...your lens is a manual lens correct?

Thanks for posting your findings...awesome reference for everyone to see
 
Ralph Oshiro said:
. But in general, your exposure was quite nice. The easiest trick in the book when shooting video outdoors is to put the sun at your subject's back (as you did), and filling him/her as hot as you can in front (in order to balance your background exposure).
Click to expand...

ND filters would have helped to bring more detail to the background rather than blowing it correct?
 
Hey..byt the way...your lens is a manual lens correct?

Thanks for posting your findings...awesome reference for everyone to see
Click to expand...

Your welcome, hopefully this thread will help you and alot of others in making their D90 decisions. Forgive my lack of phot tech knowledge, but my lens is an auto focus lens, but can be switched into manual. In the sticky somewhere in the thread it has the steps you need to take to use your AF lens with the Live View mode. I'll try to find it somewhere, but basically after you lock the exposure you put the cam into Live View and then switch the lens to manual and select your aperature. The camera will give you the EE error, but you can disregard it because it will still record video.

good stuff my friend...I had put my order for the D90 but after reading some of the issues and getting to play with one at Best Buy I decided to cancel the order. After watching your video at vimeo...I am back to ordering that sucker!
Click to expand...

Sweet, good luck. You may want to call around and see if any of the camera shops around rent the camera. After going through this process I don't think I'll ever by any equipment without renting it and testing it for myself. It doesn't hurt when you can chalk this up as some R & D for your business expense account. Back in Indiana there is nowhere to rent so I always had to buy and cross my fingers, but out in Southern California you can rent just about anything.
 
Chris:

when editing in FCP...when you load the videos into your timeline...do you have to render them in order to play them back?
 
P.S. How did the audio synching go?
Click to expand...

For the little test edit it was pretty simple. My method was very sloppy and would not be wise for a longer form interview, but I just clapped my hands in front of my friend before the take. For this edit though I didn't even use the clap to synch, I just scrubbed until I found the part I used and then just guesstimated and then nudged frames until it overlapped perfectly with the source sound from the D90.

The easiest trick in the book when shooting video outdoors is to put the sun at your subject's back
Click to expand...

The one (and only) thing I learned in a Film Theory class I took in college was a little antidote about John Ford's Stagecoach. The teacher mentioned how he had the set of the town built facing north so that no matter what time of day it was the sun would always be in the back for every shot. For some reason this took a few years of me shooting into the sun to remember, ha.
 
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Chris:

when editing in FCP...when you load the videos into your timeline...do you have to render them in order to play them back?
Click to expand...

No, I have found what seems to be a good solution for post, but since I haven't been through the whole process I'm not 100% sure it's the best route yet, but so far I'm happy with how the Vimeo test turned out.

I'll be covering my Editing adventures in "Round 4", which is where I'll probably be needing as much help as I'll be giving out. Tomorrow I hope to do some editing and post Round 4, and this will include all of my settings.
 
Super8 said:
ND filters would have helped to bring more detail to the background rather than blowing it correct?
Click to expand...

An ND filter would only have allowed the shooter to open up his aperture (larger opening, smaller numerical aperture), further decreasing his apparent depth-of-field (i.e., the background elements would have been even more out of focus). If, on the other hand, you meant, "What if the shooter stopped down, to increase his apparent depth-of-field, to 'bring more detail into the background,'" then, I would say that this is often less desirable in an interview set-up. Most photographers prefer a shallowed depth-of-field when shooting a sit-down interview subject. Throwing the background out of focus decreases the amount of distracting detail in the scene.

The term "blowing it out" more often refers to exposure, as in "those highlights are 'blown out.'" Meaning that the exposure on the background exceeded the sensor's ability to resolve any detail. An ND filter doesn't prevent this. ND filters lower the exposure for the ENTIRE scene--the scene's contrast ratio remains unchanged. If you want to selectively reduce the contrast of a scene, this is most effectively achieved with grip and lighting (HMIs, silks, nets, etc.). On a static scene (e.g., a skyline), a graduated ND filter could also be used to lower the brightness of say, the top of the frame, where a too-bright sky would have been otherwise "blown out."
 
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I find that adding about +20 on sharpness in Final Cut Pro helps a lot of the time unless it's really soft, then you can bump it up a little more. But going +40 is pushing it because the image starts to really break up by then.

Also, I find that going brighter and darkening in post is really helpful because sometimes you can get deep shadow details and then the next shot has "Black Widow"-black shadows that you can't do anything with in post. Well, that is if you really need to do any color correction, the D90 gives pretty accurate color right off the bat.

TRICK: Okay, I found a simple way of adjusting exposure on the fly, it's not 100% but it's easier than trying to point the camera at the right amount of light.

Just raise the lens cap in front of the lens in steps.

Yep. That's it. The exposure will change by the position of the lens cap from 1/4 of the way, half way, 3/4 of the way, and, of course, fully covered. It helps during daylight scenes to raise exposure a touch if things seem too dark. Once you've found the exposure you want, lock it.
 
does changing f-stops matter when doing video on the d90? in live view whenever i change the stop from 1.8 to whatever it all seems to be the same. anyone can elaborate on this?
 
manual lenses will stop down when in live view, and you can adjust as you like, same with af lenses that have an aperture ring, although it causes an error message. i think with auto lenses you have to adjust it before entering live view, if you do it after it only changes the still exposure, not live view itself or video recording.

/matt
 
You have to lock the exposure first. Go look at the D90 quality results sticky and read up on it for a more technical explanation.

Basically you start by aiming at something dark at a low f-stop, some say f/5.6 but I just go down to the lowest setting on my lens, f/16 on my 50mm 1.2, and adjust from there as it can differ by a stop or two every time you reset the exposure for different angles and whatnot. Then, you lock it with the AE/L button, and then you can open your lens up from there with noticeable change.

If you set it without doing the exposure lock trick beforehand, you're just setting yourself up for hurt later on in post when each shot has a different amount of gain applied to it.

Not doing an exposure lock at all will give you the dreaded fluctuating exposure that we all saw in the early D90 promo videos.

Also, either I'm doing something wrong or that's simply how it is, but when you change f-stops on a digital lens, like the 18-105mm that came with the D90, you don't get the option of changing the f-stop as the camera is in full control of it. You need to have lenses with aperture rings to allow for full manual control. The AF-S lenses like the 17-35, 28-70, and 80-200, as well as an assortment of other manual zooms, are your best bet. Otherwise, the digital lenses are mostly useful for daylight work but, if you want to play with the exposure trick a little more than usual, you can use them for night work without much hassle. However, I tried to film some night footage over Thanksgiving back in Las Vegas and all I had was the 18-105mm. I tried to film some examples of what the fog looked like but all I could get was footage around brightly lit areas in the city and when I went home, all I could see was the darkness of night with a few spots my house lights were shining on. If I had had my 50mm 1.2, I would have been all set to take some awesome footage but alas, that wasn't the case.
 
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