D5200 for the first test...Suggestions

S

Stelvium

Well-known member
Hallo guys,
today i'm testing for the first time the d5200. I'm downloading the flat profile suggested from you guys. I wanted to ask you why when i record in M Mode, and i walk from a dark room to a lit room it seems that the camera compensate the exposure....
I didn't noticed this in he d7100
How come?
Thx guys
 
I set the manual movie mode to on and now it won't let me change the aperture....How come?
If i set the focus to M it won't make the continuous reserach of focus when i move the camera
thx
 
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If you are using Nikon G lenses then you cannot change aperture when in live mode. You have to switch out of live mode, make your aperture change and then switch back into live mode again. It sounds a bit of a pain, but isn't really that much of a hardship.

I generally use Nikon Ai-S lenses on my D5200 which have manual aperture rings. You can change the aperture on these lenses when in live mode, seeing the results straight away.

The secret is to get a feel for light levels at your normal shutter speed. I use a great iPhone light meter app to quickly assess what the light level is for a shutter speed of 1/50, giving me a 180 degree shutter speed at 24 fps.

I know what depth of field I want to achieve and set the 5200 up manually with fixed shutter speed, set the aperture and ISO accordingly. This means that there is not much messing around with aperture when using live view anyway, no matter what lenses you are using.

The 5200 gives really great results, particularly with the 64 Mb/s hack. I love the look, the colours straight out if the camera and rate it very highly. There is rarely need to do much post processing. In my opinion it is a very underrated and over looked video camera.

Here is a segment of a cooking video I shot on the 5200 with the excellent Nikon 85mm F2 Ai-S lens:

 
I shoot with the 7100 and 5300 and concur with the above, except that in the US, I use 1/60th shutter. With so many LEDs and flos in location work, I'm seeing less flicker with oddball light sources at 1/60th. Shot a concert the other night and the Nikons were fine, but a Panasonic cam (really there as a 2nd audio recorder) got some flicker from some LED stage lights. I see the occasional flicker at 1/50th on the Nikons, 60th clears it up.

All of my glass has aperture rings, and I do use ISO to some extent to tweak exposure. For outdoor shooting, ND is an absolute must. And personally I'd avoid variable ND, as that's just 2 polarizers stacked in a rotating mount. Fine if you want your footage polarized, but don't like it on skin in closeups AT ALL...

I wouldn't use the Flaat profile as a knee-jerk all-the-time thing... Nikon footage is robust but you can break it pretty easily - if you want some deep shadows or color saturation, dial it in in the camera. Flaat is pretty conservative though, it won't ruin your shadows but if you want to shoot flat and get your look in post, it is VERY VERY easy to find some teeth marks on your ass!!! This isn't raw footage, it's not true log footage, it's not 4-2-2. It's just a good version of 8-bit H264. So don't ignore data you might need in post.

Also, I've found my 7100 footage to be at least 1 stop darker in playback than when shooting - so always shoot a couple seconds and check the histogram and playback image. The histogram is a kickass exposure tool and is very very easy to understand without doing any mental translations (ala false color, etc). The histo is an exact story of where the data really is.
 
Also, I've found my 7100 footage to be at least 1 stop darker in playback than when shooting - so always shoot a couple seconds and check the histogram and playback image. The histogram is a kickass exposure tool and is very very easy to understand without doing any mental translations (ala false color, etc). The histo is an exact story of where the data really is.
Click to expand...

Yep, that is great advice. I always take a still with the highlights indicator turned on so that I can check for blown out highlights.

There are definitely a few hurdles that you have to jump through when shooting video on these Nikons, but with practise it becomes instinctive, and they do reward you with great image quality.

You can buy a 5200 for around £250 in the UK now, which is really cheap for such a good video and stills camera.
 
With 64Mbps hack u can use Flaat10/11 alot. It helps in post and u can push shadows now quite high whitout it breaking up :) Theres more "data" in the shadows with hack. (dont go any higher than iso 400, the noise will ruin the futage if u use Flaat 11 in low light)
 
Thank you guys for the suggestions. I'm playing with it for 2 days....
i have to learn to use the histogram, any video sample for nikon out there?

the main question persists: how come if i'm shooting the sky then i tilt to the ground, the clouds get brighter and don't maintain the original exposure?
I m shooting in M mode ...
i took off the delighting Now i don't have idea what should this be
thx
 
i have to learn to use the histogram, any video sample for nikon out there?
Click to expand...

The video in my post above was shot with the Nikon D5200.

This is a video that I shot when I was testing the D5200 and the 64 Mb/s hack out. It shows the dynamic range and colours that you get straight out of the camera.

Getting the exposure right on this video was challenging, given the need for sky detail and the white boats, but it shows whats possible using the techniques I mentioned in my post above in this thread

 
Hallo guys,

would it be a good choice to use the d5200 on a shoulder mount for helicopter shooting? I wanted to use it as i have stabilyzed nikon lenses but i'm afraid of Moire and Rolling shutter.....
Thank you for the help
 
I had a helicopter shoot last year, but ended up using a Panasonic AC130. Very very good stabilizing, and a much easier camera to "get every shot" and change things very quickly.

I was strapped in with a lap belt with the side doors removed and one foot on the skid - most of my shots would have been hard to use without the OIS, it really save a lot of shots. I was on an island with no rentals of any kind, no gimbals or helicopter-related gear. I think that stuff matters more than the camera... with the door off (at least on a big turbo helicopter) there's this insane sort of "pogo" oscillation of wind. You really want a camera with a shoulder mount and a loupe or EVF so you can just PIN the damn thing to your body with all the force you have.

With the door off and just a lap belt, it's also mildy terrifying...the EVF made it easy to convince myself I was just watching a movie and not actually hanging out 200' over a crashing rocky surf...
 
Here's a promo it was used in, you can see a couple copter shots - somewhere there's an edit that's all footage I shot, not sure where it ended up though...

BTW, this kid is freaking amazing. He actually pulled this off, not a day late. The footage from the event is just painful to watch... pushing a wheelchair uphill through the damn rocky mountains, 2 mph all day.

He stayed at our place a few weekends back, just a great guy too.

 
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