D5200 Anyone got it ???

Re: aperture control
Last weekend I directed a workshop on DSLR video for photographers. When I was talking about the different cameras, I mentioned the Nikon you-can't-change-the-aperture-while-in-video-mode issue. A couple of them said "that's strange" and picked up their cameras (a D90 and a D800), put them in in video mode, and changed aperture: it worked. One said "maybe it's while recording", so the other guy hit record, and changed aperture. Again, it worked. They showed me the video recorded, with exposure clearly changing. I was looking as a clueless idiot, so I went for "no idea, I'm not a Nikon user, that's what they say in the forums, maybe it's only for some particular cameras..." and escaped towards the next topic as fast as I could.
I think they were both using moderately old lenses (those that use screws to control focus and aperture). Can anybody explain to me what happened there? :(
 
The d800 and d4 has "power-aperure", a mechanical arm which can change the aperture while the mirror is up. Didnt know this about the d90 though.
 
sharry said:
Andrea ill be looking at d7100. Hope it performs similarly to d5200. Thank you.
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Though I tried the D5200 only for a half an hour in the shop and I have far more experience with the Nikon D7100, IMO the latter performs actually better than the D5200.
 
Samuel H said:
I think they were both using moderately old lenses (those that use screws to control focus and aperture). Can anybody explain to me what happened there? :(
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From your description, it seems that they used the manual aperture ring on the lenses to change the f/stop.
 
^ no, they were using the wheel in the camera (but I don't know which lenses those were: they were two 50mm primes, none of them current, but not AI-S or anything that old either; I don't know the nikon lineup well enough to be sure about any of this)
 
How is the 720 60P on this cam? Any files at all? I like the instant rebate and don't mind picking one up right now. Thanks for the help.
 
Probably the D-series, which is autofocus but has the manual aperture-ring. These can be set to have aperture-control with the wheel i belive.
 
In short, 720p is garbage ;)
Moire is present, resolution is absent. (So said it's the opposite of the 1080p25 mode...)
 
Samuel H said:
Re: aperture control
Last weekend I directed a workshop on DSLR video for photographers. When I was talking about the different cameras, I mentioned the Nikon you-can't-change-the-aperture-while-in-video-mode issue. A couple of them said "that's strange" and picked up their cameras (a D90 and a D800), put them in in video mode, and changed aperture: it worked.... Can anybody explain to me what happened there? :(
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According to DPReview, the D90 has the same aperture control limitations as the D3x00, D5x00, D7x00, and D600:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond90/18

In Live View mode, none of these cameras are able to adjust the lens iris via in-camera controls. This is a mechanical limitation due to the design of the mirror box and it cannot be fixed by any firmware update. The way that these cameras operate in Live View is highly misleading - they appear to allow you to change the aperture in the viewfinder and LCD screen, but in reality, the lens iris is not adjusted until you either leave Live View mode or snap a photo.
 
...being slightly interested in the d5200 for it's cost/quality benefits , I've been following this discussion ( here and personal-view). It appears that the tradeoff is VR. If you want a lens with VR , you can't have an aperture ring. One question I have is just how long/hard is it to exit liveview and change the aperture, and if it's prohibitively difficult, then why can't you use a variable nd to simply adjust your exposure a small amount on the fly, leaving aperture where it is ? And while I'm up to this questioning, about in the middle of this thread there were a few videos ( small spanish street scenes) that showed some kind of shake . Was this caused by not using VR lenses ? And if that's the case, then should this camera only be considered paired with a VR lens ( or tied down) , which makes the lenses , nikon and samyang or whatever with aperture rings , virtually unusable , at least hand-held ?

...and I've seen some good shooters purchasing this little jewel, so I hope they can give us a experts scoop. thanks
 
Here is one I test it with my new slider. It was shot with just the kit lens, flat10 profile and edit in ppcs6.
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/64194268" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
 
kurth said:
...being slightly interested in the d5200 for it's cost/quality benefits , I've been following this discussion ( here and personal-view). It appears that the tradeoff is VR. If you want a lens with VR , you can't have an aperture ring. One question I have is just how long/hard is it to exit liveview and change the aperture, and if it's prohibitively difficult, then why can't you use a variable nd to simply adjust your exposure a small amount on the fly, leaving aperture where it is ? And while I'm up to this questioning, about in the middle of this thread there were a few videos ( small spanish street scenes) that showed some kind of shake . Was this caused by not using VR lenses ? And if that's the case, then should this camera only be considered paired with a VR lens ( or tied down) , which makes the lenses , nikon and samyang or whatever with aperture rings , virtually unusable , at least hand-held ?

...and I've seen some good shooters purchasing this little jewel, so I hope they can give us a experts scoop. thanks
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Personally, to me the aperture thing is not a big deal....since DSLRs viewfinders go blank upon entering live view, I find it's a good flow to set up the shot, focus, and change the aperture while looking through the optical view finder. Of course this only works perfectly with "set up" shots, but I don't use DSLRs for casual or event video.
 
I've done back to back tests with the D5200, 5D MKIII, and GH3. Here's how I rate them-

Resolution
1 GH3
2 D5200
3 MKIII

Dynamic range
1 D5200
2 MKIII
3 GH3

Noise
1 GH3
2 MKIII
3 D5200

Rolling shutter
1 GH3
2 MKIII
3 D5200​
 
^ interesting rankings
The GH3 is looking very well, wins 3 out of 4... but it's last on DR! A real pity, given that the sensor itself could get up to 12.4 stops of DR, and it's the picture settings (ANY picture settings) that are killing nearly 3 stops from that.

Also, I'm surprised that you'd rate the D5200 behind the 5D3 in terms of noise. That's at high ISO, right? Are you taking into account that the 5D3 has even less resolution at high ISO? That is, you could probably apply a ton of NR to the D5200 footage and still have no less detail than with the 5D3.
Also, macgregor's test showed a lot less FPN with the D5200 than with the 5D3 at low ISO.
 
Squig, thanks for posting the results of your tests. If you were to rate the cameras in terms of colour rendition and overall image quality, would would hte score be?
 
squig, interesting results, I would put GH3 lower than D5200 in terms of noise, it produces more noise, no doubt about that.
Did test recently, with C100 among the group. Got all three cameras at the time, can do another test, if you like. Shot a project recently with C100 and D5200 along. They match pretty well in well lit conditions, curious if you see the difference, there is some, C100 better a bit with resolution and about a stop in DR.
uploading it, link http://youtu.be/qe2JEJ5iONw
 
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Samuel H said:
Also, I'm surprised that you'd rate the D5200 behind the 5D3 in terms of noise. That's at high ISO, right? Are you taking into account that the 5D3 has even less resolution at high ISO? That is, you could probably apply a ton of NR to the D5200 footage and still have no less detail than with the 5D3.
Also, macgregor's test showed a lot less FPN with the D5200 than with the 5D3 at low ISO.
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It's the vertical red fixed pattern noise that bugs me on the MKIII and used to bug me on the MKII. Interestingly the FPN is visible from 100 ISO up but 1250 ISO is the only ISO virtually free of FPN, I've always tended to shoot @ 1250 ISO because it just looks more organic.

The D5200 isn't too bad at low ISOs but the FPN starts to get noticeable pretty fast as you go up the scale.

The GH3 noise is quite analogue looking and ok up to about 1600 ISO.

Anything over 1600 ISO and the MKIII is cleaner overall but I'm rating the cameras in overall usability for filmmaking. The problem with the MKIII and D5200 is if you're moving the camera the FPN can become quite visible and then you have to denoise which is gonna soften an already soft image. The GH3 noise is more random and organic but the low dynamic range is going to be an issue when you underexpose or push the ISO.

The NR on the D5200 doesn't lower the noise level it just muddies it a bit. All my tests were done with NR off on the GH3 and D5200, you can't turn it off on the MKIII.
 
Andrea189 said:
Squig, thanks for posting the results of your tests. If you were to rate the cameras in terms of colour rendition and overall image quality, would would hte score be?
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That's a tough one, the 5D is warmer, more magenta. The other two are cooler, more cyan. I can get better skin tones easier out of the 5D but I've been using it for a long time so I'm used to grading it. It really depends on what I'm shooting which one would look best. It's the same with IQ, each camera does well in different areas related to IQ and one will beat the other depending on what you're shooting. For instance if you're shooting a wide daylight landscape you're gonna want the GH3 resolution but you'll also want the D5200 dynamic range. Same goes for low light you'll want the GH3 sensor noise and the D5200 or 5D dynamic range. Unfortunately there's still compromises to be made with these 2nd gen DSLRs. The good news is they are better in low light, have less or no aliasing and moire, and less rolling shutter than the gen 1 DSLRs.

Colour wise I could probably live with any of the 3. IQ wise the GH3 meets my resolution requirements but not my dynamic range requirements and it's the opposite with the other 2..... grrr!
 
...what's amazing about that rating is that the d5200 cost half of what the gh3 cost....and a 1/5 of what the mkIII cost ! And concerning the fpn, what about what eoshd said about just using the d5200 with profiles burned in, rather than the flat profiles. Does that or doesn't that negate the banding ? And since I shoot mostly b&w, noise doesn't bother me as much as banding . Thanks for the comparison /k
 
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