Rolling Shutter Stills?

I totally understand what it should look like, but if I fit the left and right sides in then, the arrows of the top and bottom are visible. what doyou suggest? If I fit it all in then the arrows will NOT be on the frame edges. Over.
 
If the sensor has a slow readout, how does it work when in still mode?

It begins the reading but nothing is captured because the phys. shutter is closed > Then the physical shutter opens for amount of time you determined and when it closes the reading stops.

Is it like this? I'm not familiar with the DSLRs mo.
 
It is a standard DSLR in still mode, like any Nikon or Canon. What I am waiting for are some instructions on how to do the test using a DSLR and have all four sides of the frame at the very edges where the arrows point. As mentioned, right now I must choose either top or bottom or left and right, but not all four. Waiting for instructions.

Thanks,
 
Michael Erlewine said:
I totally understand what it should look like, but if I fit the left and right sides in then, the arrows of the top and bottom are visible. what doyou suggest? If I fit it all in then the arrows will NOT be on the frame edges. Over.
Click to expand...
Does your camera not shoot 16:9?

You should be shooting in video mode, and that should be 16:9. That chart is shaped 16:9...
 
The camera is set to 1280x720, which is 16:9. Let me try it again and get another image. It will be in the morning. Perhaps some of you other D3s users out there may know how to do it. Sorry it is a problem.
 
Sorry if this is a case of the blind leading the blind.

The 1280/720 = 1.7777 = 16:9

The Nikon D3s is 4256/2832 = 1.50282 = camera’s ration of width to height.

There is the problem. The viewfinder is looking at 1.50282 ratio, while the test sheet has a ratio of 1.7777

So, I am seeing to focus at one ratio and the camera is recording at 16:9, without letting me have anything to say about it.

Barry Green: You know what you are looking for in the test. Given the above is there any way we could approximate what you are looking for.

Of course I could take an entire picture of the test sheet and show that, but I see no way to make the arrows line up as you want them.

Thoughts?
 
But isn't the recorded video 16:9? Isn't there a way to frame up in a 16:9 aspect ratio?

If not, frame it vertically, with the arrows touching the top and bottom, and let the sides fall where they may.

Thanks!
 
If its anything like the D90, you have to push record for the cropped letterboxed marks to appear otherwise it shows the whole 4:3 on the LCD. Either way it should be easy to eyeball after a few records and adjustments.
 
Barry Green:

This is probably not good enough, but here is another try. The letterbox markings only appear on the LCD during recording and then only in faint gray, plus Nikon overprints part of the line with another prompt so this is a somewhat hellish exercise.

The arrows still do not exactly line up, but they might be close enough for what you need to see. Let me know if this works. Otherwise, I will try again.

Here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13655164@N00/4168317477/sizes/o/

Let me know if this tells us anything. Sorry to not get it exactly exact.
 
BandanaDan said:
Not in his case. The D3s has amazing stills that can be pulled from the video. The general image quality is so much more aethetically [...]
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if you guys had stopped right there the whole discussion would have been redundant. dslr's simply shoot crappy video that looks amazing. sound contradictory but to me it's always been quite obvious.
 
Michael Erlewine said:
This is probably not good enough, but here is another try.
Click to expand...
It's plenty good enough! You did fine here.

Okay, looking at this frame, I can say that the Nikon in 720p mode simply obliterates the 7D in 720p mode. I shot this same chart on a 7D and there's no question that the Nikon's astoundingly superior to the Canon when in 720p mode (of course, the Canon's 720p mode is known to be a dog, but still, apples to apples, the Nikon's apple is much tastier). Horizontal resolution is actually pretty comparable, but in terms of vertical resolution the Nikon is much, much sharper and doesn't have the color contamination that the Canon has.

The Nikon's 720p mode looks to have about the same resolution as the 7D's 1080p mode, when the 1080p has been downconverted to 720p. Even so, the D3S shows less egregious aliasing artifacts, even though the 7D's footage has been downrezzed. The 7D still shows a lot of color contamination and spurious aliasing throughout, whereas the D3S appears to handle the color and aliasing a little better.

The 7D in 1080, as 1080, does show quite a bit more resolution and definition than the D3S does. There is more detail in the 7D's 1080p image than the D3S can deliver in its best case. The color contamination and aliasing are worse on the 7D, but the D3S isn't exactly perfect either, it has quite a bit.

Then, for grins, I went and shot on the GH1 and HMC40 to see how they compare to the D3S.

GH1, in 1080, shows way more detail than the D3S, with none of the 7D's color contamination, and probably an overall equivalent level of aliasing to the D3S.

GH1, in 720, shows equivalent real sharpness to the D3S, and less spurious aliasing, with no color contamination.

HMC40, in 1080 mode, is just way way way way superior.

HMC40, in 720 mode, is clearer than the D3s, with less aliasing. Slightly better, but not nearly as superior as it was in 1080 mode.

Verdict: the D3s's 720p mode is pretty good. Embarrassingly superior to the 7D's 720p mode. About on par with the GH1 and HMC40 in 720p. Not in the same class as a 1080p DSLR, and nowhere near a 1080p video camera.
 
I'd like to see how the D300s comes out with this test.

Barry_Green said:
It's plenty good enough! You did fine here.

Okay, looking at this frame, I can say that the Nikon in 720p mode simply obliterates the 7D in 720p mode. I shot this same chart on a 7D and there's no question that the Nikon's astoundingly superior to the Canon when in 720p mode (of course, the Canon's 720p mode is known to be a dog, but still, apples to apples, the Nikon's apple is much tastier). Horizontal resolution is actually pretty comparable, but in terms of vertical resolution the Nikon is much, much sharper and doesn't have the color contamination that the Canon has.

The Nikon's 720p mode looks to have about the same resolution as the 7D's 1080p mode, when the 1080p has been downconverted to 720p. Even so, the D3S shows less egregious aliasing artifacts, even though the 7D's footage has been downrezzed. The 7D still shows a lot of color contamination and spurious aliasing throughout, whereas the D3S appears to handle the color and aliasing a little better.

The 7D in 1080, as 1080, does show quite a bit more resolution and definition than the D3S does. There is more detail in the 7D's 1080p image than the D3S can deliver in its best case. The color contamination and aliasing are worse on the 7D, but the D3S isn't exactly perfect either, it has quite a bit.

Then, for grins, I went and shot on the GH1 and HMC40 to see how they compare to the D3S.

GH1, in 1080, shows way more detail than the D3S, with none of the 7D's color contamination, and probably an overall equivalent level of aliasing to the D3S.

GH1, in 720, shows equivalent real sharpness to the D3S, and less spurious aliasing, with no color contamination.

HMC40, in 1080 mode, is just way way way way superior.

HMC40, in 720 mode, is clearer than the D3s, with less aliasing. Slightly better, but not nearly as superior as it was in 1080 mode.

Verdict: the D3s's 720p mode is pretty good. Embarrassingly superior to the 7D's 720p mode. About on par with the GH1 and HMC40 in 720p. Not in the same class as a 1080p DSLR, and nowhere near a 1080p video camera.
Click to expand...
 
Barry Green:

Thanks much for taking the time to sort this out. Appreciated. I just wish the HMC40 took Nikon lenses! I might get one anyway down the road.

If I mixed cameras, like the D3s and the HMC40, what would I have to watch out for in terms of mixing final results?

I was never happy with my HVX200. How does the HMC40 compare ergonomically?

If I bought an HMC40 and used it with the two D3s cameras I have, where would it excel? Would you suggest shooting with the HMC40 as the main camera and the D3s for camera B or special lens shots?

Thanks,
 
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The 720p of the D3s is actually delivering a good 680-720ish lines of resolution? There's less aliasing than the other cameras? Really, we had to test that? :P

Was the settings on the picture of the chart on neutral with sharpening dialed down too? Thanks Michael for taking the time for performing the test for us.

Glad to know there's some measurable proof now :)


Barry_Green said:
Verdict: the D3s's 720p mode is pretty good. Embarrassingly superior to the 7D's 720p mode. About on par with the GH1 and HMC40 in 720p. Not in the same class as a 1080p DSLR, and nowhere near a 1080p video camera.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear to everyone, and I know this should be obvious, but what Barry's referring to is only for resolution.

I mentioned earlier that despite compression and resolution performance, it still looks nicer to me. I'd rather have the quality of an amazing DSLR still image that's been resized to 1/10th its size, than a video camera/compact that records in that size natively.

The HMC, the HVX (which you owned...), and the GH1 (which we owned and sold for a Canon 7d...) all have that strong video "thin ness" no matter how sharp or what you do, and I wouldn't ever want to extract screengrabs from them...
 
I'm getting confused here. Maybe you can set video (with whatever camera) to be optimal for stills. My understanding is, with shutter adjustments, etc, this will compromise your video for video. If you want stills, get someone to take stills even at the same time as you shoot video from approximately the same position viz the object or talent. Get them to fire off 3-6 frames a second if you want (and can't the D3S get close to 16fps with the right supports?). Trying to extract high quality stills from any video camera will likely lead to frustration, and it's certainly not how seriously bankrolled films tend to present film stills, lobby cards, and other still advertising. Better to get a photography student or enthusiast with a good prosumer camera to do the work for you. Maybe I've missed the whole point of this, I dunno.
 
BandanaDan:

On the chart, there was no added sharpening. A little of my personal experience with Nikon sensor might be meaningful here. I have had Nikon systems for years, back from the beginning of their digital cameras. And I gradually added lenses to the system until I have more than 20 of them, and the best ones at that. Here is the story of where I began to wake up:

The early cameras like the Nikon D1x, D100 and D200 I used, but was never all that excited about. They were solid and they got some use. I painstakingly shot some 30,000 photos of rock n’ roll posters on the D1x using a vacuum table I built, so I learned something from all that.

When I upgraded to the Nikon D300, the more sophisticated focusing system and general ISO (low-light) sensitivity began to really be exciting, like: a major step forward. It was a whole new camera and experience.

But it was not until the D700 with the full-frame (FF 35mm) sensor that things broke loose for me. The larger pixel size (8.45 μm) meant that each pixel had a deeper or wider well to hold light, etc. and some magic barrier-threshold was crossed. My interest and work increased exponentially at that point.

When I got the 24.5 MP Nikon D3x, which has the same FF sensor, of course I did not expect any increase in available sensor light and it was true, although the blacks and reds are unbelievable. The D3x is a special camera for special work like landscapes, architecture, and close-up work.

However, the Nikon D3s has yet a new sensor, one with even more ability to pool light in those pixel wells, and you can see it. When I got my first D3s, I just opened the package and pointed it at a dark corner of my poorly lit office and snapped a frame. The result was incredible, a usable photo as if I were in a well-lit office. I knew at that moment that I was in good photographic company and that a future was opening with this new Nikon camera.

All of this drama about the Nikon D3s not being a real video camera only points to a paradigm shift. I remember when I tried to point out the possibilities of word processors to the Compugraphic typesetter folks, who couldn’t be bothered even listening to me. They were all gone in a few years -- an entire industry!

I am not saying that the D3s is the cat’s meow or the last word. It is only the latest word from Nikon. My point here is that there is a paradigm shift taking place if you can see it. The whole world of hi-res still photography printed out on printers that can barely do the photos justice is fading. The truth is that more and more photography, stills and video, is just for the web or that is the only venue open to it. They will never be printed out anywhere.

When Apple comes out with their new tablet device (hopefully next year) that will handle color and be probably just too cool, that will be the defining moment in this shift. The print media will shift from paper to pixels and that will be it. In a few years, all will change and a new age will begin, one with lots of room for photography, but not giant 30x40” prints. We already have more megapixels than we need for this coming technology. It will be the age of expression rather than the age of developing technology, like actually using the technology we have accumulated over the last 20 years to express ourselves.

Not just the Steven Spielbergs among us, but the rest of us will get our chance. I have seen this all before. Next to Microsoft, I run the oldest software company on the Internet. My first printer was a 80-lb Teletype machine and I had to write my own word-processor routines to justify the type of my first book! I had to load programming languages from cassette tape into my first Apple, etc. I was trying to do hi-res graphics before they were possible, and so on. You get the idea. That is called the bleeding edge.

Over the last 20-30 years we have accumulated technology and gradually improved it. I have been on that bleeding edge, just as many of us are today with these new V-DSLRs. Yes, a year from now they will be much better, but the moment we are living is always now, so we bleed money a bit.

We finally have enough technology and it is cheap enough that anyone can own it. Sorry this is so long, but my point is that the merging of still and motion photography into a single low-cost device is not just a novelty, but the sign of a major shift. I think of my Nikon D3s as a camera than takes about 30 frames a second! If I need a single photo and I can’t get it by stills, I will take a burst of video and pull the frame I need out and use it. 1280x720 is not bad for web work. It could (and it will be) a little larger. But all in all, I feel we are moving forward and the V-DSLRs are not a side-show, but a big part of the main tent.
 
Good post Michael. Nikon has been taking a lot of heat over the "manual controls" but maybe they see a bigger market down the road.

I was in Roberts Camera and the salesman took the D300s and took it over to some dark corner and took and picture without the flash. It was amazing what the camera can do.
 
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