Best nikon Camera

Are we sure the D750 shoots better video than the D810? I know both are great, but I have one troublesome sample from the D750 (the slashcam.de chart test) and none from the D810. It may be because of some wrong settings...

The D810 with external recorder seems near-perfect, the only thing I would ask for is a flatter profile to take advantage of the great RAW DR of the sensor.
 
D810 - Best Detail
D750 - Slightly less detail but better High-ISO performance
D5300 - Best Crop Sensor
D7100 - Almost as good crop sensor with better handling.

My Choice for best cost/performance: D750
 
Here's my situation:


Back in 2011, I bought a Sony NEX-FS100UK. Needless to say, it didn't take long before I started buying new glass:


Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8, and the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8


Since all of my lenses have Nikon mounts, I went with the Novoflex Nikon to Sony E-mount Adapter.


The adapter works good enough, but there's no electronic interface between the body and the lens.


So either I find an adapter with an electronic interface, or I trade my Sony for a Nikon and do away with the adapter altogether.


Any ideas?
 
steditrak said:
Here's my situation:


Back in 2011, I bought a Sony NEX-FS100UK. Needless to say, it didn't take long before I started buying new glass:


Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8, and the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8


Since all of my lenses have Nikon mounts, I went with the Novoflex Nikon to Sony E-mount Adapter.


The adapter works good enough, but there's no electronic interface between the body and the lens.


So either I find an adapter with an electronic interface, or I trade my Sony for a Nikon and do away with the adapter altogether.


Any ideas?
Click to expand...

1) Sell the FS100 and novoflex. Buy D5300/D7100 + Atomos Ninja Blade
2) Sell the FS100 and novoflex. Buy used D800 + Atomos Ninja Blade
(If you like the Sony Image)
2) Sell the FS100 and novoflex. Buy a New Sony A7 Mark 2 with adapter
3) Sell the FS100 and novoflex. Buy a A6000 + Atomos Ninja Blade
 
I liked geffyb's first post... but not the second one.

I think all your lenses except the Tokina are designed for FF. And the Tokina works fine as a 16mm f/2.8 prime on FF. So if I were you I would be trying to get FF.

I would sell the FS100 and adapter, and get one of these options:
1) a7S and electronic adapter: if you want the best image and are ready to fight electronic adapters
2) D810 or D750: you'd get an image quality that is very close to that of the a7s, but you skip the adapter pain (and it can be a big pain, specially with third-party lenses) and get more mpix and DR for your stills
3) a6000 or a5100 with speedbooster: that's going to give you a pretty nice image too, but if you can spare the D750 you'll be happy you foregone the adapter trouble (and IQ is slightly better in these Nikons than in these APS-C Sonys)

With those lenses, I would probably go for 2
Since I use vintage manual primes that work great in nearly every camera, I went for 1)
 
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I use my D800 as a B camera. A few things I noticed when going externally out to my Ninja Blade it crushes the blacks a little bit then what it shoots in-camera (I prefer how in-camera looks compared to the Ninja Blade because of this loss of shadow detail). My D7000 did the same too.

Also it only outputs 1080i via hdmi. I'm not sure if the D810 also only outputs interlaced too.

But in terms of dynamic range the D810 would be the best Nikon camera to choose.
 
Hi chris there are some setting, I forgot which that you have to make for the output from hdmi to be good and not have crush sadows etc. It all started for the video below, just do a little research, I think you should not put full range or something like that. Second thing is that nearly all camera output 60i even progressive footage. As from Ninja two, the ( I forgot the term) like deintelacing to progressive 24p is done automatically.

 
Isn't there an active Nikon adapter for the E mount? That's strange. I would stick with the FS100 if such an adapter exist. Look for it.
 
By the way, I've been using the D810 for a couple of weeks and absolutely loving the image. I just can't buy it because I still haven't tried the D750, if it has the same image but with better lowlight and articulatin screen it would be a perfect camera. TheCameraStore and EOSHD do claim the image is similar and that the D750 is the best video DSLR in Nikon. So I am really looking forward to an image comparison between the D810 and the D750.

I gave some thoughts on the D810 on EOSHD forum, I'll copy it:

So a mini-review for the D810 after a few weeks of shooting:*

I've been shooting with it for quite some time now, and I am officially in love with the image. Hand down this is the prettiest images I have seen come out of any small camera.*

I am a bit romantic when it comes to image quality, meaning that I take into account factors other than absolute IQ parameters, because I've seen many camera with high IQ specs but just don't look good. So the D810 doesn't really have much better actual resolution than the 5D mk III, resolution as in being able to read and see objects that are otherwise not there on the 5D, it's not exactly better in noise performance actually quite a bit worse in the shadows, and they are both full frame and 8bit 4:2:0 h.264, with famously good colours. So on specs and when pixel peeping to scientific parameters it's pretty normal.*

Yet, it produces a significantly better image than the 5D. The image look, the feel, something I can't explain well. There must be a scientifix explanation for it but I don't know it, I'll try anyway!*

In sharpness, it's just a "stronger" edged image, sharper, and I think it comes down to the sharpening algorithm inside which happens before compression, giving a sharp-yet pleasing organic image, no matter how high you crank up sharpness in the picture profile it looks great and organic. If you crank up the sharpness on the 5D, it seems to have as much resolving/detail but with horrible halos and unsharp mask artefacts on the edges, just cheap, and therefore forces you to turn all the sharpening and end up with a pretty soft-looking image, especially if you forget to add it in post. This gives sharp images straight off the cards that have no sharpening artefacts. Very pleasing. It's not GH4 level when scaled down, but I think it hits my personal sweet spot of sharpness level between brutally sharp and flattering to people's faces, this is just the perfect sharpness, I even like it more than a C100/300 in the sharpness level for shooting people. Sharp, yet hides flaws.*

The other main factor is colour, this one is the hardest to explain, it's just something you see in every single image you shoot with the Nikons, the colours are stunning, there's something about it. The "lightness" of each colour, and the hue differences and coldness in the shadows/ warmness the mid tones, the colour compared to the 5D, look almost "happy". I am not a native English speaker so excuse my choice of words here! But the colours just look happy and bright and pleasing, I actually think the image is more suitable for a comedy/bright piece rather than a horror/drama which the "sad" 5D coloirs would work better at. A silly observation I know but it's just what I see comparing both. The Nikon colour science is officially better than Canon, for me that is.*

Third factor is exposure, and I think the Nikons have a different gamma curve than the Canons in video mode, especially with the new Flat profile, I am not quite sure but I think the Nikon lifs the midtones up, where the skin is, and makes people look bright, again contributing to the "happy" look I described earlier. It's the best image I've shot people's faces with, not Reds, not C100, not 1Dc, not GH4, nothing. There is where it's at for shooting people.*

The dynamic range is pleasing somehow also, it's not technically much superior to the 5D in where they both clip but it's how they clip, the D810 while has more noise in the shadows, it's a much better noise structure, therefore the transition to black on the 5D is clean but ugly, you can't bring them up, with this it's pretty noise and you can push it and enjoy the grain too. The highlights also clip more gracefully.*

Because of the noise pattern, highlight look, and lack of any moire/aliasing, lack of any image artefacts, the Nikon images are stronger in pushing and pulling in post, mor robust and gradeable. Again don't be fooled by numbers, where the Nikon has a 24mpbs bit rate and the 5D 90mpbs All-I. Of all the companies out there it's ironic how Nikon got H.264 right.*

So don't look at pixel-peeping and numbers too much, the D810 produces an effectively sharper image, with less edge artefacts, much prettier noise pattern, better looking roll-off, and better colour science and even exposure curve. These things are not visible in spec sheets or in pixel-level tests. They are visible when shooting a face with both cameras side by side, and vieweing them on a TV, sitting back and watching kike normal people.*

So enough with positive ness, lets see what I don't like:*

the user interface and how the camera reacts and talks to me. This includes the button placement, the actuall software and GUI, and the icons/placement of them. It's just worse and more clunky than a 5D to use, liveview zooming, exposure monitoring, framing, audio meters, just overall feel, the 5D is way ahead especially with ML waveform and peaking. If you want to imagine what the difference is like, it's like the difference between using an Iphone and an Android device, that has more crap and elements and icons and text and words, but is not nearly as intuitive as and Iphone, which performs the same functions cleaner and neater and faster.*

Other thing I don't like is the lens mount. The distance between the sensor and the mount is so damn long, that nothing works it other than Nikon glass. I own mostly Canon glass with a shorter flange distance, all out, while if I had Nikon glass they would have been working on the 5D. I sadly have no Nikon glass to mention, and I do prefer the Canon lenses optical quality and performance, so that's the second downside. If you want to buy this camera remember your only option is Nikor lenses, so it's a bigger investment than you might think at first. I currently only using the 85mm prime and that's it, so will be solving this by getting a wide angle zoom like Andy's 28-70mm 2.8 manual lens of the 17-35mm 2.8. That how I shoot anyway, w normal/fast prime for people and a wide angle for wide detailed shots, most of my other lenses stay in the bag anyway. So it's not that bad of a situation.*

Shooting with it for weeks these were the only two things that came into my way, everything else worked perfectly.*

So I have a question to Andrew or anyone who used both the D750 and D810, have you tried seeing how both images compare at all? I would like to find out soon as I am borrowing it and it's getting pretty embarrassing to keep it longer, so I need to either return it and wait for the D750 (which is quite a long time here to come) or buy it. If it has the same image but with a tilt screen and better ISO noise, then the D810 is not for me. I don't need 36mp stills (although they are stupidly nice to have!) Please share your findings on how they compare in terms of the image as soon as possible.

I'll share many frame grabs when I get home tomorrow or the day after. There's nearly no internet connection here in a small village on Egypt's country side, but it's worth it as the poverty and kids showering in virus-filled rivers and mud houses coupled with vast greenery do make beautifully strong images!
 
Thanks for all the info. It's a lot to take in, so I might have a few more questions to narrow the search. One thing I need to find out is exposure control during video mode. Which camera allows manual or automatic control of the aperture while shooting video? How about low light sensitivity? The FS100 does a pretty good job in this department. How does Nikon compare?
 
-The D750 and D810 and D4s allow aperture changing whilst in live view. They call it "Power Aperture". Anything below the D750 you'll have to flick out of liveview, change iris, then go back in (D7100, 5300, 3300)

-Low-light performance on the D810 is a little noisier than the 5D mk III, and the FS100 is even better than the 5D approaching C300 level, mainly due to the low native 1080p 2 megapixel count on a s35 sensor. Expect a stop or two loss in lowlight in switching to anything other than the A7s, FS7, C300, and this kind of cameras.

Unless I really need the small size, I wouldn't sell the FS100 for a DSLR anyway it's a great camcorder and still produces one of the best images out there. It particularly has long recording times, XLRs and proper audio, peaking/zebras/waveform, tilting HQ screen and EVF, buttons for everything, enormous battery life, high senitivity 1080p image, no aliasing/moire, very sharp and detailed. If you want to switch just to use IS on your Nikon lenses I would reconsider. You can even buy the cheap 18-200 kit lens for IS needed situations, it works very well. And I am pretty sure there's a Nikon to E mount adapter active out there, is has the same mount on the NEX cameras, A600/5100, A7/R/S. FS7, FS700, and all these cameras on which every body is uses Nikon lenses on. Are you sure there isn't one? You should even find a speedbooster that effectively makes it a full frame camera when used with Nikon lenses.
 
I had a D800. I used it for photos and videos for years, but upgraded to an a7S. Sony's uninspiring color science annoyed me so much that I didn't want to shoot for fun anymore, so I gave up 4k capability and swapped back to a new D810. Video is much much better than the previous version, and I'm back to the best FF stills camera in the world.
 
This is the best link in terms of D750 video http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Nikon_D750/ he has a set of samples at various frame rate and ISO on his vimeo account https://vimeo.com/user803551/videos/page:3/sort:date.

On the page he has a side by side crop of the two video at 100%. The D810 looks sharper but you have to account for the approximately 5/10% magnification due to the crop in the D810 because the image is a little bigger. In terms of ISO, I think it is very very impressive. In what is very underexpose scene that would promote noise the D750 is noiseless at 1600/3200 and still very good at 6400. The image does degrade at ISO 12800, but from other example I have seen and talked, the ISO is very stable until ISO 10 000 and then a sharp degradation.

Another thing to note about the high ISO is that the level of detail is still very high as the ISO is cranked up. Something that many reviewers don't take into consideration when they look at an image. That is why DXOmark photo benchmark are so good because they were the first that I saw did that. You can do noise reduction so high that you can make almost all camera become noiseless but at the cost of detail and the 5d3 is the best example of it. Eoshd who made his not so scientific test said that it was cleaner than the 5d3, but until now no proper test.

In this test you have a big surprise about rolling shutter LOL you will be surprise which is the worst

 
AdvanTech said:
I had a D800. I used it for photos and videos for years, but upgraded to an a7S. Sony's uninspiring color science annoyed me so much that I didn't want to shoot for fun anymore, so I gave up 4k capability and swapped back to a new D810. Video is much much better than the previous version, and I'm back to the best FF stills camera in the world.
Click to expand...

Amen my friend, I have seen other people who did the same. People have hyped so much this camera because on paper it has great spec, but in the end if you look arround on each and every video forum people asking and complaining about the colour science. People have the corps look as if they are being shot under low cri fluorescent light. You have always the green/magenta bias with harsh transition on skin tones, like someone said it is as if everyone has sun burn effect. Another thing that is not mentioned enough is the rolling shutter of the A7s. In full frame it is about the same than the Nikon D90 outch...
 
I like the colors from my a7s, but of course I don't use s-gamut, which absolutely demands a LUT-based workflow because by itself it is awful. It's a matter either following the right workflow (which I don't want to do in this case) or finding the right settings (this is what I did).
 
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