Nikon D800 chosen over C300 for "Dexter"

S

Simon Shasha

Well-known member
"We used the Alexa as a baseline and had the D800 recording to an outboard recorder uncompressed and to an internal memory card at H.264 compressed," says Fletcher. "We also tested a Canon C300 with a Cooke lens on it—a $40,000 setup—running alongside the $4,000 Nikon D800 setup. The Canon footage had what you might call an over-smooth look to it. But the D800 uncompressed footage blew us away."

LINK: http://www.studiodaily.com/2013/01/nikons-d800-gets-down-and-dirty-for-dexter/
 
Hey, sometimes aliasing gives you the look you need! Nice impression of sharpness, and with the D800 there's a lot of real detail to back it up too...

Great article. I love it how the real world guys decided that uncompressed wasn't worth the hassle either.

Meanwhile the "indie guys" are wasting all their time trying to "edit in Premiere in 4K" on their 1080p screens :)

It's a crazy world!

Bruce Allen
www.boacienma.com
 
I think they got the nikon stuff for free. Also if you read more of the interview, they talk about how they used to borrow the DIT 5dmk2 and use it for the occasional shot. They didn't buy a 5d, they just borrowed it from DIT any time they needed a dslr. The pro world is pretty gritty sometimes.
 
Can't remember who it was, Samuel Hurtado maybe? But someone around here got 12 stops of dynamic-range out of their D800 in video mode.
 
The D800 was used for Wilfred too. First season, and first half of second season, shot with 5D2 and 7D. Second half of second season, they switched to D800: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthrea...D800-in-a-quot-real-quot-production-yet/page7

And yes, it probably was me: 11.7 stops with Flaat_12 (with my very-optimistic measure of absolute DR: if there's detail, it counts; whether it's too noisy to be used is a subjective matter so I leave that up to each user).
flaat_12p.jpg
 
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Ahh, Wilfred, another fine Australian export haha ;)

Sam, will I be able to load your Flaat picture styles into a D600? Also, would you/could you create them for the GH3?
 
Interesting stuff, there's a certain wilful abandon with which the DPs on Dexter let highlights blow out nastily. But I hear they shoot at a crazy-fast pace, so perhaps it's just one of those things they don't have time for.
 
Simon Shasha said:
Ahh, Wilfred, another fine Australian export haha ;)

Sam, will I be able to load your Flaat picture styles into a D600? Also, would you/could you create them for the GH3?
Click to expand...

With the help of a D600 user that contacted me, I checked that Flaat for the D800 works just as well in the D600.
I haven't "certified" Flaat for the D600, though, since I'd have to run some tests myself to be sure no funny stuff is going on in any aspect of the image. But I'm nearly sure it will be OK (unlike the D7000, which seems to have completely different in-camera image processing).
And I doubt I'll ever get to test it myself: I'm pretty busy right now, and not really interested in that particular camera...
 
Thanks Samuel, good to know :)

I'm about to buy a D600 strictly for photography, and a GH3 to compliment my BMCC and take care of 60P. I would absolutely love if you could release Flaat for the GH3 :)

Good luck with your camera building - I look forward to your results!
 
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