Rolling Shutter Stills?

Zim:

If the 300s could do that for you (unless that was a typo and you meant ‘D3s’), then the D3s ought to blow your mind. This new full-frame sensor at a relatively lower pixel rate like 12 MP goes beyond what I need for my ordinary work as far as providing me MORE light. It is a mark or threshold cameras have tried to reach and now we have reached it. This is a landmark event in ISO history and as far as I can tell the hype in this case is real. Putting aside my interest in the video aspects of the D3s, as a still camera it breaks the light barrier.

I have the larger-MP D3x and love it, but it is more pixels than I need except for some specialty work (landscapes, macro, etc.), and I have to admit it. The myth of more megapixels as a solution for anything but special problems is for me at least just that: a myth or an excuse to expect technology to do what only I must do for myself.

I did not understand this at the time and had to buy a D3x to find out, and I have shot some 8,000 photos on the D3x and it is (deep reds, blacks, cropping) amazing, ‘but’, if I look truth in the eye, I don’t need it and I will not use it as much as I will the D3s. The earlier Nikon D3 and the D700 (I just sold my D700) showed me what full frame sensors can do with light and I love it a lot, but it still missed some mark that I had set in my mind, some idea of light that I feel I need to have for me to be fully creative, crazy as that sounds.

IMO, while the talk about the D3s being for photojournalists and sports fans is true, the point is being missed here. The D3s is also for the rest of us and here is why: The D3s and its ability to shoot in lower light is the first camera I have seen that crosses the threshold of giving me ENOUGH light in low-light situations so that the ball is finally back in my court. I have no one to blame but myself if I can’t take good photos with the D3s. The technology is FINALLY there, and the D3s will handle not just the best lighting, but also the ordinary kind of low light situations we run into.

At any rate, the D3s has put an end to my struggle to get enough light. The light is now there. I can stop feeling robbed by what I perceived as the lack of light and get on with the business of creative photography. With the D3s, Nikon has done its job; let’s see if I can do mine or did I allow the lack of adequate technology to be an excuse for my own shortcomings?
 
I was talking about the D300s. Compared to my D200 and D70s it is like a D3s LOL. Even the D300s has improved ISO nothing like the D3s but it is a big improvement. With my 17-55 it would be a lot of fun. I wish I could afford what you have but I don't right now.

A lot has changed since my Nikon N2000
 
Barry Green:

You have me interested in what other tests I might run the D3s through that would help us pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses. One thing I tried was to put the D3s in LiveMode, under Manual, and then set the shutter to different speeds from 30 to 1000. I then had a few things hanging that I let swing in front of the camera, like a metal ruler and a couple other things.

What I go out of this test is that I don’t know what variables I should be holding fixed and which should be variables. For example, I vary the shutter speed, but should I hold the F-stop the same or bring it to an appropriate level for the shutter.

Looking at the various things I let swing, I should have swung them way slower. I can see that. There must be a standard approach to this.

If you could suggest how to go about seeing if the aperture and shutter speed make a lot of difference in video mode, that would help.
 
There are certain things that I view as pretty much inviolatable laws. When you're coloring a picture, you should stay within the lines, for example. Anyone who strays out of the lines had better have an AWFULLY good reason for doing so.

Shutter speed is one of those. In DSLR video, you should stick your shutter speed on 1/60 and then forget that it even exists. Don't change it. Don't mess with it. Don't vary it. And most importantly, DON'T try to use it to control exposure!

If you're in PAL territory, stick it on 1/50. If you're in NTSC territory, use 1/60. And that's it. Finished. Done. Stop fiddling with it. Don't change it. Seriously, don't. I mean it.

Okay, with that said, there are two reasons: 1) changing the shutter speed changes the way motion is rendered and will result in unnatural motion imaging, and 2) the rolling shutter of the CMOS camera can interact unpleasantly with fluorescent or HMI lighting. Sticking with 1/50 PAL or 1/60 NTSC avoids those complications.

Now, if you want to go for certain special effects (such as stuttery staccato zombie movement for action sequences, or smeary blurry effects for dream sequences) those are times when you can vary the shutter speed. But for normal filming, please don't change the shutter -- it's just something that a motion video shooter shouldn't be doing.

Use the iris, and ND filters, and the ISO, to control exposure -- but not the shutter.
 
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