Nikon d3s announcement - 720p only, absurdly good low light, high price

I was hoping to see 1080p for video, however 720 can be quite nice as long as the bit rate, the rolling shutter and the downsampling are done well.

Lets see what the results are...

Low light sounds fantastic for video too
 
The article says: "Motion-JPEG...has been 'newly refined' for the D3s" -- hopefully an improvement on the video quality of the D90, then, but as this is a £4,000+ camera still seems a bit lame (I know, I know, this is first and foremost a still camera).

"Most of the camera's still shooting functions...are available in the video mode" -- good news.

Now what's this: "Single frames can be saved on the fly as JPEGs. Although these frames are of low resolution, they are sufficient for multimedia presentations, says Nikon, and could be used for newspaper print"-- what speed are they talking about? Sequence frames at 24 fps?
 
It is not just a still camera its nikons chance to get another $4k off me

Ive got a perfectly good D3 which im just not looking to upgrade for stills, so the video must rock

it will be interesting to see if a well resolved 720 can outdo a fairly poor 1080

unless theyv'e got a bunch of very intelligent features Im keeping by 7d and my $4k

S
 
I did not expect this - Canon is opening a whole new market segment and Nikon is totally failing to respond.

I just bought a D300s because I was sure that Nikon would catch up on video, but they seem to be ignoring it... or focusing on the Journalism segment.

It's also a let down from the still photography side. They have nothing that competes with a 5Dm2. Sad. Nikon can do what they want but they do not seem to be the brand that is heading in the directions I want to go.

Dammit. I may have to switch brands and I really didn't want to do that.
 
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iHartVideo said:
I did not expect this - Canon is opening a whole new market segment and Nikon is totally failing to respond.

I just bought a D300s because I was sure that Nikon would catch up on video, but they seem to be ignoring it... or focusing on the Journalism segment.

It's also a let down from the still photography side. They have nothing that competes with a 5Dm2. Sad. Nikon can do what they want but they do not seem to be the brand that is heading in the directions I want to go.

Dammit. I may have to switch brands and I really didn't want to do that.
Click to expand...

I had to make that decision and switch from Nikon to Canon. Although I still own some Nikon stuff, I'm primarily using Canon now. My decision was made the day Canon announced the 1.1.0 firmware update for the 5DmkII.
I'm still looking forward to the day that Nikon does step it up, because in all honesty I'm still a little more partial to Nikon over Canon.
But hey, at least neither are acting like Sony, who has yet to implement any video functionality into their DSLRs.
 
I just can't wrap my head around 720 and M-JPEG. Why? Maybe it'll be damn good 720 and M-JPEG but it's still 720 and M-JPEG in a $4000 body.

I guess they've signaled pretty strongly that this thing is made for stills, not motion.

*correction*
this thing is made for news gathering and not cinema.
 
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First thoughts - total dissapointment

Then..

720

Well is the 7d really more than 720, once you have sorted done a bit of post to get rid of rolling shutter or alaising?

Sound levels

That gives you some control where as the 7d is total sound roulette

Noise

im not too happy with the 7d when you take it off base, D3 should be better

AF

I dont under stand this feature, but you may get some ?

Rolling Shutter

nikon says they have this better ?

Manual Control

The cam has 50 and 60HZ 'modes' but I dont understand ??

If that locks the cam at 1/50 and 1/60 that is a good basic

Large chip

Shoud be good on noise

So all is actually not lost or understood at this point - if you agree with my theory that 720 good pixels is better than 1080 bad ones

S
 
Morgan - all good points. But, $5,000 usd, body only. Nothing more to say really. If you're only in it for video I don't think this cam makes much sense at all. Not on first blush, and not on paper.
 
You dont know that

It could be the best non 30p camera less than $18k if a big chip is your thing

Really know one knows until the controls are fully understood and some properly shot clips are around

my suspicion is not to feel good about it

S
 
IMO, 720p is good enough. The 7D does not deliver more than 700 lines anyway, even less. The Pana 1/3-inch CCD camcorder deliver about 600 lines and yet most users are happy. I applaud Nikon's decision to not push frame size numbers but to use sensible frame size that reflects effective resolution and saves bandwitdh. 24p? Good, though absense of higher frame rate is regretful. MJPEG? Does not the GH1 shoot MJPEG in 720p60? Does it look good? Better than AVCHD? So what is the problem? And it can be edited with greater ease. Saving frame into a still is absolutely not unique in the world of videocams, it is so lame that Nikon brags about it. AF? Good. What about focus assist features? Zebras?
 
Spatial resolution doesn't really matter to me as much as other features, If one of these cameras shot RAW movies at SD I'd buy it, for example.

One thing so obscure, and it just frustrates me, does this camera have manual control in the sense that I can dial in ISO/aperture and most important in Nikon's 24fps case, shutter speed?

Manual control would've made me keep my D90. I was happy with everything else, even a lame codec just forces you to get it right on camera, the 5D still sounds like the FF cam of choice here. I'd rather go with manual control and convert to PAL than shoot 24 (is it 24 or 23.976 on the D3s I wonder) without manual control.

And it seems waaaay too pricey if you're after video only.

The minute I spend more than 4000 dollars I hope I'd be spending it on a camcorder with a high bitrate/file quality.

Has anyone ever found or made the still camera pie graph that shows how big our slice is as primarily 'video' users with dslr's? I wonder how big that slice looks.

Cheers all.

dunno what to think about the D3s.

I suppose my excuse to get it is that I sold the last camera I had with a mirror.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but if I buy it, I'll buy it for stills. This camera is not too smart a buy unless you're really sincerely using it for stills as well, cause for stills it's kinda crazy.

Cheers again

'It'll be more extreme... and kinda awesome"

-Charlie Day
 
Though it's still a bit early to tell, on first looks it's just a marginally updated D3 with D-Movie mode. Nothing to get excited about for either Video or Photo professionals. If you're only shooting stills the old D3 is just as good and in fact the D700 is still the best value for money if you're doing event photography.

If you're only shooting video then Nikon has made it clear that their loyalty lies with professional still photographers.

From another standpoint this lack of competition means Canon is now under no pressure to produce better HDSLRs.
 
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