New Nikon DSLR specs

On the quick I didn´t find anything about the data rate of the new D5000. If they have slightly enhanced it and some other things - maybe the chances are growing to get a firmware update for the D90 soon...
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So with all this "high corporate philosophy" why did they hack the D90 video image. The first thing I said to myself when I started using my D90 was "why did they make a camera that produces broken video from a company that makes such good equipment?" It's not the mjpeg artifacts that get me, it's the stairstepping, the bad way they handled scaling. Doesn't seem right coming from such a great company.

Why put the same in a D60x and not fix the image(just do better scaling)? And if they do fix the image why not update the D90 in a firmware fix? This D60x thing smells fishy.
 
So with all this "high corporate philosophy" why did they hack the D90 video image. The first thing I said to myself when I started using my D90 was "why did they make a camera that produces broken video from a company that makes such good equipment?" It's not the mjpeg artifacts that get me, it's the stairstepping, the bad way they handled scaling. Doesn't seem right coming from such a great company.

Why put the same in a D60x and not fix the image(just do better scaling)? And if they do fix the image why not update the D90 in a firmware fix? This D60x thing smells fishy.


I have zero experience with the D90, but one of my faves in the most recent LossFest was shot entirely on a D90 ("Model/Photographer") and it looked pretty smart to me. What does "broken video" mean exactly?
 
So with all this "high corporate philosophy" why did they hack the D90 video image. The first thing I said to myself when I started using my D90 was "why did they make a camera that produces broken video from a company that makes such good equipment?"

Nikon makes good equipment (D3x, 2.8 lenses etc)

and also toys (D40, joke kit zooms)

Its almost like two different companies, one creating the brand desire, the ugly sister shifting the units to the masses

the 90 is a toy for taking on holiday or safari - put in that context the video is great

I would imagine the video is highly compressed for the simple reason that processing a lot of data is complex/expensive (same reason as 20p in the new canonette)

S
 
So with all this "high corporate philosophy" why did they hack the D90 video image. The first thing I said to myself when I started using my D90 was "why did they make a camera that produces broken video from a company that makes such good equipment?" It's not the mjpeg artifacts that get me, it's the stairstepping, the bad way they handled scaling. Doesn't seem right coming from such a great company.

Why put the same in a D60x and not fix the image(just do better scaling)? And if they do fix the image why not update the D90 in a firmware fix? This D60x thing smells fishy.

There are probably more politics than we are aware of.

The D90 is new and a first generation technology from Nikon (Canon does not have this same excuse). And you can't really judge the D60x yet, because it's not official.

I'll start judging after the next semi-professional camera specs are released.

But if Nikon is buying sensors from other competitors with a video business (sony), I could see where it would/could get complicated.
 
So with all this "high corporate philosophy" why did they hack the D90 video image. The first thing I said to myself when I started using my D90 was "why did they make a camera that produces broken video from a company that makes such good equipment?" It's not the mjpeg artifacts that get me, it's the stairstepping, the bad way they handled scaling. Doesn't seem right coming from such a great company.

Why put the same in a D60x and not fix the image(just do better scaling)? And if they do fix the image why not update the D90 in a firmware fix? This D60x thing smells fishy.

I wouldn't say that Nikon is in some moral high-ground, but the issue is whether Nikon intentionally handicaps their lower-end model to force people to by their higher-end ones. An example, of this would be older Rebels that used the same sensor/image processor as their xxD models, but had their ISO purposefully locked by software to 1600, a firmware hack could easily unlock it. Of course they stopped doing this after competition starting getting fierce, but the flash-sync speeds on the 5DII are another example, to disincentive studio photographers from picking the 5DII over their 1DsIII.

As for the D90, the video short-coming seem to be a hardware one, not an intentional one. Nikon afterall, doesn't have a video market to protect, there is no reason to intentionally cripple their device. However, there is NO excuse for a lack of manual controls.

This D60x(D5000) may very well have a minor improvements over the D90 on things like compression and rolling-shutter, etc. The sensors/image processors may be almost the same but there are hardware fixes/revisions that they do implement.

An example of this would be the D90 and D300. Both use the IMX021 sensor derived sensor, however the D90 uses the newer revision of IMX038 which incorporated video, but also certain fixes and improvements to still-photography image quality. So in many ways, the D90 does have marginally better imagine quality then its more-expensive sibling. But there is only so much they can do within the confines of the existing hardware.
 
I have zero experience with the D90, but one of my faves in the most recent LossFest was shot entirely on a D90 ("Model/Photographer") and it looked pretty smart to me. What does "broken video" mean exactly?

Some of the stuff I've seen form the D90 like you said is really good. Maybe all these people are from the Red or the HVX200 sales team!!

it looks like Nikon has done a good job here. I would think they will try to improve it and it will be a big problem for Canon, Panasonic etc.
 
the 90 is a toy for taking on holiday or safari
thats quite a pompous statement Mr Moore :( if i owned a D90 i'd feel somewhat insulted especially after checking some of the stunning pics i have seen taken with
the D90 or did u mean the Video section ?
 
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What does "broken video" mean exactly?

It is a term I use for the horizontal pixel lines that are missing from the original movies from D90. They have to be added back in in post. i.e. Matt's plugin's.

Yes, there are some great short films shot with the D90, Zak's is a great example but the original clips from the camera have been fixed in post.
 
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It is a term I use for the horizontal pixel lines that are missing from the original movies from D90. They have to be added back in in post. i.e. Matt's plugin's.

Yes, there are some great short films shot with the D90, Zak's is a great example but the original clips from the camera have been fixed in post.

Lines are missing from the original video and are added in post? This is probably above my technical pay grade, yeah? Do you mean that the lines are there but that you need an additional program to enhance them, or are you literally creating the pixel lines in post? I can't imagine how creating lines in post would lend a decent final product.

Any further explanation would be awesome. Or maybe a link to Matt's plug-in and what exactly it entails -- a more detailed analysis?
 
the lines are literally created in post, using linear interpolation. it produces decent results because it's only 10% of the lines, and besides a line even if interpolated must always be better quality than no line, right? that's the whole idea. the lines are missing, what do we do? we let them stay missing or we try to recreate them. simple as that.

/matt
 
dude, the guy shoots catalogs, getting the chance to shoot a safari home movie would be a huge step up for him, it's not a diss.

/matt
 
"the 90 is a toy for taking on holiday or safari - put in that context the video is great"

What I mean is that in terms of Nikons engineering brief and marketing strategy that is what it has been designed for

That does not mean creative individuals cannot make great work with it - my strongest moving shots to date have been made with the 90 - the reason they are strong is that the content is strongest - partly because at that price point Im not scared of bungeeing it to the front of a surfboard or mountainbike - It was that camera that got me into shooting moving images at all - I will be greatful to it for that reason for ever

I am not elitist having used nikons professionally for years and often not elected to go for thier top end body

I thought ,for example, that I was better off with 2 D100s than 1 D1x in the old days (probably not what nikons marketing people would have desired) and a desision I could not have made if the D100 had been jammed into Program mode !

Any competent working professional (stills) photographer could please 98% of clients with a 90 90% of the time - but that is NOT what it was deisgned for

It is my hope that given a different breif the Nikon engineering/design department will produce a machine that is not crippled but is actually atributed with all the facilities that Nikon percieve a professional to need (manual control - decent codec variable frame rate)

This will be, I would guess, a device that is more expensive than the D3x but still 30% of the price of a Red or 5-10% of the price of an Arri offering

ps I think the 5d is a toy too - a great one but still a toy - oh and I like toys - toys are often cheap and designd to be abused by kids

S
 
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