So this weekend we shot with five cameras. Two old Canon 7d workhorses, one Sony nex-5n and two Nikon D800 cameras. We were shooting action material so mostly 720p but some 1080p here and there. Sony NEX-5n shot at 1080p50 as we are in PAL-land.
This was the first time I had used a Nikon cam so naturally I was completely bewildered. A couple of weird issues. One is that apparently the Nikons have different settings for video and stills. Meaning that if I set up a scene in the movie mode and decide to take a still, it will use the previous still-mode settings. That was a surprisingly big turn off during a fast paced shoot. I hope it can be switched off?
Another one was that everything was the other way. Mounting lenses, changing focus, everything went differently. Ergonomically there were some weird things. Changing ISO required both hands, left pushing the ISO button and right flicking the roll. Taking stills was a breeze though but I still feel that even the 7d has slightly better ergonomics for video than the d800. How much of this is just getting used to the cams? Don't know yet. Have to get used first! Zooming into the image was also more painful on the Nikon. The zoom button is horribly on the left side (like on the mark III, why?) and it does a small little zoom so you have to constantly push +. And when you are done, you have to push - many times to get out. The Sony nex-5n has a good feature where if you push the shutter halfway, the image zooms out. I wish Canon and Nikon would do that too. Also peaking is great in the 5n.
Image quality is still out, I will go through the material today. The fullframe aesthetic was wonderful on the D800 by just looking at the LCD on the back. Shallow dof haters beware! But it just looks so cinematic! I will post some screencaptures and stuff to this thread later.
http://instagr.am/p/KmXNW5wzxm/
This was the first time I had used a Nikon cam so naturally I was completely bewildered. A couple of weird issues. One is that apparently the Nikons have different settings for video and stills. Meaning that if I set up a scene in the movie mode and decide to take a still, it will use the previous still-mode settings. That was a surprisingly big turn off during a fast paced shoot. I hope it can be switched off?
Another one was that everything was the other way. Mounting lenses, changing focus, everything went differently. Ergonomically there were some weird things. Changing ISO required both hands, left pushing the ISO button and right flicking the roll. Taking stills was a breeze though but I still feel that even the 7d has slightly better ergonomics for video than the d800. How much of this is just getting used to the cams? Don't know yet. Have to get used first! Zooming into the image was also more painful on the Nikon. The zoom button is horribly on the left side (like on the mark III, why?) and it does a small little zoom so you have to constantly push +. And when you are done, you have to push - many times to get out. The Sony nex-5n has a good feature where if you push the shutter halfway, the image zooms out. I wish Canon and Nikon would do that too. Also peaking is great in the 5n.
Image quality is still out, I will go through the material today. The fullframe aesthetic was wonderful on the D800 by just looking at the LCD on the back. Shallow dof haters beware! But it just looks so cinematic! I will post some screencaptures and stuff to this thread later.
http://instagr.am/p/KmXNW5wzxm/
