Nikon D750

Who knows the real low down on Nikon's confusing published specs?

1. Max video data rate for the D750? I hear 24Mbps in some of the on-line articles on the camera, yet I see "54 Mbps; maximum logical data rates according to IEEE standard; actual rates may differ" in Nikon's published specs, whatever that means? Does that mean stills data rate or video or ? What is the max video data rate of this camera? It will be disappointing if it is 24Mbps only.
2. Max record time? Once again, Nikons specs are not clear, "29 min. 59 s (10 or 20 min. depending on frame size/rate and movie quality settings)" So what does that mean, shooting 1080 23.98 at best video quality? If I can only shoot 10 minute clips, that could be a deal breaker, unless the camera does what the 5D MKIII does and just writes separate files for each 4GB clip without dropping or missing a frame.

I will be using this camera with the Atomos Ninja Blade so when shooting with that device, record times aren't a factor, but when shooting guerrilla style with just the camera's internal recording, lens and a shoulder mount, 10 minute record time per clip, unless it records as long as you want and just breaks the clips up into separate files, could be a deal breaker for me.
 
First colours.
I had no idea of the D750, obviously.
But allthough I am not canikon fanboi, I knew both systems quite well, D200, D300, D3, D700 and now D800 and 5D I, II, II as well as I have worked a lot with this bodies in still photography.
I am not that impressed with the promotion clip, but I could confirm you that colours with Nikon are great and if you knew a little bit about it, and have a good idea of natural lightening, you could very often use footage directly ooc (ok, a bit sharpening, maybe a little graduation here and there and so on, but nothing really serious) and exactly that stuff could look so damned good it's unbelievable from a lousy 8 bit codec (until hacked).
So, yeah, you will get your Canonlook without any doubt, imho even much better.
But I wouldnot take an autofokus lense like the modern 70-200, I would take an ole manuell fokus one, like an 80-200/4 for around 80-100,-, some shoots of the BourneUltimatum were shoot on this. :-)

Second record time.
That's easy: 4 GB maximum intern. That's 20-30 min maximum, depending on the quality.
Yeah, your deal breaker.
 
I have never tried the D750, all I can say is that using the D7100 the aliasing and moire have never been a problem even with the most difficult subjects. Jello is not bad at all for a DSLR and the colours are great. Not sure about the recording time limit on the D750, it normally is about 20 minutes here in the EU.
 
Andrea, does D7100 keep recording though and just writes a new file as the 5D MKIII does or does it just stop recording as the 5D MKII does?
 
puredrifting said:
Andrea, does D7100 keep recording though and just writes a new file as the 5D MKIII does or does it just stop recording as the 5D MKII does?
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To be honest I don't know, I normally use it with an external recorder so I don't have the clip limit problem, if I have time tomorrow I will try to record to the sd card and I'll let you know.
 
I'm in the market for a new camera currently and I have my eye set on the d7100 with a rokinon kit 35 24 and 85mm lens. Coming from a t2i they all seem much better. I want the best value for my budget. I do wish I could learn a little more about external recorders though. I would like to see how this 750 puts out I hope somebody shoots a music video with it. I had dreams for a 7d but d7100 seems like the move as of now
 
Everything... I mean, EVERYthing I've researched regarding external recorders and Nikon and Canon DSLRs... says they're only worth it for long recording times. Some people see some minor imporvements in shadow noise.

You may not be recording "compressed" footage, but you're getting 8-bit footage with on-the-fly downscaling. Nobody's done a test showing you actually GET 422 from these things. Plenty of tests show it's essentially 4-2-0.

If you don't get what I mean: I can record music and output it as 8 bits 16k (like a crappy Am radio), and then record it into pro tools as 24bit 96k - and it will still sound like ass. Just because the Ninja can capture 422 doesn't mean it's getting all that data.

My latest music vid was outdoors, get-it-in-a-day and have a picnic kind of outing with the D7100/5300. Beautiful footage, but trying to beef the skies back up just broke 'em into chunks of JPEGness. I'd love to get my hands on a Ninja and find it really worked, but spending $1k after all I've read? Nah.

Not knocking them for long shoots and no transcoding - just don't get your hopes up for amazing grade-ability! If someone finds the D750 has stellar HDMI out, I'll be the first in line though.
 
Andrea189 said:
To be honest I don't know, I normally use it with an external recorder so I don't have the clip limit problem, if I have time tomorrow I will try to record to the sd card and I'll let you know.
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sry for this offtopic, I'm curious which external recorder are you using and is horizontal noise visible? I was thinking about blackmagic Shuttle 2 but it's hard to find on the net how's working with d7100 .
 
Michael Carter said:
Everything... I mean, EVERYthing I've researched regarding external recorders and Nikon and Canon DSLRs... says they're only worth it for long recording times. Some people see some minor imporvements in shadow noise.
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A friend of mine who works as a colorist in a post production facility here in Italy - she uses Flame and Inferno, I think - checked a couple of clips shot on prores HQ with the Nikon D7100 and a PIX 220 she told me the files were pretty robust and could take grading without problems. Anyhow, an advantage of recording to an external recorder with XLR imputs is that the quality of the sound is great and there is no syncing up to be done, on the 26 hours of material I shot for a documentary this was in itself a good investment.
 
psychoanima said:
sry for this offtopic, I'm curious which external recorder are you using and is horizontal noise visible? I was thinking about blackmagic Shuttle 2 but it's hard to find on the net how's working with d7100 .
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I am recording to a Sound Devices PIX 220 and the horizontal noise is less evident but it does show up from time to time in underexposed areas.
 
Michael Carter said:
Nobody's done a test showing you actually GET 422 from these things. Plenty of tests show it's essentially 4-2-0.
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I've asked Nikon West Coast HQ press contacts this question and will post when they reply back. NoFilmSchool lists the HDMI output of the D750 as "Uncompressed HDMI 8-bit 4:2:2" http://nofilmschool.com/2014/09/nikon-d750-dslr-1080p-60fps-tilting-screen but of course, that is not coming from Nikon's mouth. But generally NoFilmSchool gets the details right. I am very interested in this too as I shoot a lot of green screen. I can live with 8-bit but recording 4:2:0 to an external device does our editors no favors when they go to composite. As far as your skepticism about external recorders, yes, longer record times are a big reason, also not having to convert H264 to an editable format is a big one for our workflow, being able to just hook up a drive with ProRes or DnXHD on it and start editing is another huge time saver. I am convinced that recording an 8-bit output to a 10-bit recording device does yield subtle benefits, mainly when keying, it's not much differet than years ago when we would bump DVCAM up to DigiBeta for post. Sure, it was never going to improve the look of the DVCAM but it definitely held together much better for codec compression/recompression cycles and worked better for keying. Converting the 8-bit to a higher bit format won't make it look any better but it should hold together better for keying and compositing.
 
Hey pure - not knocking the recorders or the stats - it's just that again and again, we've been told "422 via HDMI" but the actual footage shows little or no improvement. Particularly stuff like red highlights blocking out in a decidedly 420 way.

That said, I do a lot of keying myself, and the 7200 does a pretty remarkable job for a DSLR (if you've ever tried to key Canon footage... ouch...) It even beats my AVCHD camera.

One of these days I'll try to rent a recorder and do some real hard core tests. Worse thing I see with 7100 footage is that hard-border-line thing that seems like H264 stuff and there's few greenscreen comparisons worth seeing. Plenty of the Vimeo and YouTube keying tests, regardless of system, are just crappy, lazy keys with bad lighting.

Seriously, I expect a 4k camera will pull better keys anyway (shot 4k and scaled post-key)... detail is a huge issue as well and there's a few Gh4 tests out there that look very nice - look up the shootout between GH4, BMD 2.5k raw and BMD prores. The GH4 held up very well.
 
The GH4 is good but the problem I have ran into is the grain. As you know, a clean signal is huge when keying and even at ISO 200, the GH4 is still fairly grainy. It can pull a key but it's not always a perfect one. Acceptable but not clean.
 
I'm an editor but not a super talented compositor. The assesment of the GH4 comes from the compositor at one of my clients who is super talented, knows AE, Keylight inside out and also has five different keyers, he uses in combination and for different purposes. I just did a shoot with the AG-HPX170 and the GH4 and he told me that the 170 footage was ten times easier to get a clean key than the GH4. Same lighting, same camera setup. But that was using the internal codec on the GH4, I am sure that the Atomos recorder would have helped. I had a conversation with this client and they do not want me to use the GH4 anymore, they are not thrilled with the output and frankly, neither am I. That's why I am buying the D750 and the Atomos I think. Better skin tones, FF sensor instead of M43 will mitigate noise and teaming it with the Atomos Ninja Blade will mitigate data rate and record time issues. Seems like a step up, even though no 4K. At this point, I don't care about 4k. In a year or two when it becomes a factor, there will be a whole new crop of affordable 4K cameras and I will buy one then. Selling the GH4 this week.
 
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I think 4K will be hype for some time, other than the possibilities for effects work.

And that said... next time I have a mega keying project, I'll likely use a BM 4k. Not a killer low-light camera, but I bring a ton of lights for green screen days. (I've been running 400 watt HID moguls in photoflex starlite fixtures - that's a lot of daylight!) Prores or raw at 4k for keys, sounds like happy times to me!
 
Right now, for interviews and a folding 4' x 6' green screen, I use two homemmade Kino Flo Diva 200s and it works okay. I just spied this though http://www.flolight.com/led-lighting/cyclight.html and I am very intrigued. If it was half the price, I would buy one because hauling one small fixture over hauling two medium sized, heavy fixtures would help me a lot, especially when I fly. No light stands needed either and the mechanism, the way it feathers and diffuses the green light is very clever. Just too expensive I think. I would love to rent one though to see if it does what they claim it does.
 
I remember when that thing came out - never have seen a test or review, might be some out there?

If you could rent one you could probably figure out how to make one DIY.
 
Michael Carter said:
I remember when that thing came out - never have seen a test or review, might be some out there?

If you could rent one you could probably figure out how to make one DIY.
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I just proposed a story on it and some other green screen stuff to my editor, I write for HD Video Pro, so we'll see what happens. If I get the go ahead, I will get a hold of a review copy and will put it through it's paces.
 
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