The end of 35mm adapers and hv20s....

Hunter Hampton

Hunter Hampton

Carbonite Member
Here it is, The nikon D90, a new 12MPix dslr that shoots 720/24P using the full frame APS-C sized CMOS Sensor (15mmx24mm):

MSRP: $999 body only or $1299 with 18-105mm VR kit

Kit to be released in the US on SEPT. 7th! (UPDATED: IT IS ALLREADY OUT!)


2805494474_1d207afb84.jpg


The new camera features "D-MOVIE MODE" which allows 1280x720/ 24p recordings in the MJPEG format to SDHC card (by scanning the whole sensor size).

What does this mean? Well, it means you get 24p HD recorded onto cheap flash memory with 35mm Depth of field! With interchangeable lenses!

The footage looks promising, with great detail and apparent dynamic range- but whats even more exciting is what this means for future DSLR cameras and the video/motion picture industries.



What we know about using the D90 for movies (for your consideration): (UPDATED!) Sept 6th, 2008

-Setting the exposure in the movie mode is a hack (come on NIKON! Let us set exposure just like stills!) You have to do some sort of dinking around to get the right shutter speed and f-stop- I hope this gets fixed.

-There is low-quality mono audio recorded, solution is to sound sync.

-A rolling shutter is used, which may cause skew in fast pans or jerky movement. Solution would be to limit fast camera movement

-A limit of 5 minute recordings per clip is used, this is because of import/export tax reasons with nikon (if recording goes over 5min, it is considered a "camcorder" and the tax goes up.

-The exposure fluctuates in D-Movie mode, the solution is to lock the exposure using the AE-L button

-This is the start of a new era in film/video


NEW! D90 FIRMWARE UPDATE FOR NIKON'S CONSIDERATION (based on video testing from users):


I would suggest these seemingly simple firmware fixes for the video mode on the d90 to make a better product (and gain support from video/cinematography users):


-Full manual control just like if we were taking stills in M mode, we can set exposure manually for stills, let us do it for video also.

-Higher-bit rate (25Mbit/s minimum 50Mbit/s recommended- possibly selectable by user?)

-A fix for the aliasing and the color banding on high frequency details in the image, there are a lot of nasty artifacts in the video footage, even for a consumer camcorder this would be unacceptable.


Here are some footage links:

Nikon's Website (demo of d-movie mode):

http://chsvimg.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/d90/en/d-movie/


DPReview samples:

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikond90/page14.asp

Vimeo (HD) links:

Biker footage raw: http://www.vimeo.com/1624029

Color-graded biker footage: http://www.vimeo.com/1630706

Train footage Raw: http://www.vimeo.com/1668437

Edited train footage: http://www.vimeo.com/1663578

Rolling shutter exposure lock test:http://www.vimeo.com/1641816

Night footage and random stuff: http://www.vimeo.com/1627718


Still extracted from original 720p AVI file (color-balance adjustment made):

1220649762.jpg





UPDATED: A FEW USERS HAVE THE D90 now and are testing it!


Here are some informational links about the D90:
Ken Rockwell link:http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d90.htm
DPreview link (tons of info on the d90! 11 pages of information):http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikond90/
 
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format is: Motion JPEG AVI at an undisclosed bit-rate

EDIT: it appears to be somewhere between 16mb/s and 13mb/s
 
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wow...now the bar has been raised

but i wonder if shutter speeds are out and i'm assuming no overcranking/undercranking
 
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The shutter speed is set before the take and cannot be changed during recording.

There is unlimited under cranking capability though (for timelapse), this is a dslr!
 
heck, i think it could be more than just a home video camera
depending on how long it can record video, i'd sell my dvx for it
cut out the whole 35mm adapter, get a separate audio recorder
and it'd be like i was filming with an old school film camera. seems like
it has better dynamic range than most prosumer cameras
 
I'm glad I stayed up late tonight. Im going to order one of these as soon as it comes out, I dont care how crappy the video quality is.
 
alas, it seems exposure is automatic.... :(

"The D90 offers motion JPEG (.AVI format) movie capture at three different quality settings (24 fps in all cases):

1280 x 720 pixels (16:9, 720p)
640 x 424 pixels (3:2, VGA)
320 x 216 pixels (3:2, QVGA)
Although you can't autofocus whilst recording movie clips, before you actually start the clip you can pre-set any of the Picture Controls, white balance, exposure compensation and so on (giving a lot of creative control over the 'look' of the movie) and the image stabilization works with VR lenses. Exposure is fully automatic in movie mode (though exposure compensation settings are honored).

There are several limitations to be aware of, however; as mentioned there's no autofocus whilst recording clips, and there is a time limit to a single clip (5 minutes for a 1280 x 720 movie, 20 minutes for others).

We've had a play with this function on our pre-production camera though we're not able to publish any output yet we can report that the quality of the 720p movie clips seems very good - we'll cover this in-depth when we publish our full review."

http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikond90/page10.asp
 
About time! I told canon years ago to do this. Good for Nikon.

So awesome, full frame too!

Canon will push it even further. With this you get all the DOF, perfect bokeh, no crappy hotspots or vignetting and the use of super wide angle and long lenses with no compromise like the 35mm adapters.....
 
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I am hopeful that the "automatic exposure" is referring to the DX series stops on the lens and not the shutter. (In the videos it doesnt look like the shutter changes but the lens stops down and opens up- so you could just use an ai or ais nikon lens instead)
 
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