Where is the D90 stronger than the 550D?

[mattsand]

well, the difference seems to be that you're talking about yourself and i'm arguing from a more conceptual point of view. just because you like to add plenty of lights to your scenes, which is of course fine and something i often do myself, it doesn't mean others always do. and no it has very little to do with skill, as i said there are plenty of reasons to light to lower levels or even not at all that are used in professional settings all the time. do you honestly think john alcott didn't know how to light when he shot barry lyndon? or cameron and beebe on collateral? or robby muller on breaking the waves? or linus eklund on fuerteventura for that matter? my film wasn't shot by a highschool friend who had a dvx, but one of the top swedish/danish dp's. and yes, he knows where to put that 18k if that's what the project requires too.

 

[PerroneFord]

Oh my God do you really want me to explain the sexual status reading of the conversation? Fine but you'll resent me for it...

Why would I resent you for telling the truth and speaking your mind? That's silly.

I'd say more about creative intent than budget. Sky rises, motorway traffic, vast landscapes, outer space, wildlife, war, documentaries etc.

Sky rises have been lit for years, motorway traffic has been lit, landscapes have been lit to a degree, outer space? (You mean like Moonraker?), wildlife has been lit, even with infrared, documentaries (you think there was no lighting on The Cove, or Taxi to the Darkside?)

Each of these scenarios presents different and difficult challenges. And in some cases presents the filmmaker with a lighting challenge that cannot be overcome. Everyone has a budget, whether its $500 or $50 million.

The subtext of your argument, and choice of words is that you think everyone else is a lazy cheapskate so they're using a high ISOs as an excuse, no? If that's how you only think then fair enough. No need to act catty about it haha.

I don't think that at all. There are certainly a great many filmmakers who take exceptional care in lighting and crafting the images they put on the screen. There are also filmmakers who for various reasons cannot use the lighting they would care to. And this gets down to budget or other issues. What my list points out is those who DO use high ISO as an excuse to not light and call it "creative" when in fact, it's just crap.

As an example, I was reading about the Will Smith movie, "I am Legend" in ASC a while back. In a particular scene, Smith heads into an abandoned building in search of his dog. At one point, the only light on the actor was from the flashlight he was carrying. The DP asked him to cup his hand so as to send some light back on his face. This certainly could have been handled another way, and the scene could have been lit in any number of ways. There was a scene from The Spiderwick Chrronicles done in much the same way. These were creative choices and that's fine. But it's not like the DPs made a commitment to produce a film from day 1 of pre-production and said, "We will shoot with no lights, and the film 3 stops!" That's a very different mindset, and one which I cannot embrace or endorse.

The bullet-pointing the obvious and veiled insult... and justifying with "I, [am better than you] prefer to light my movies." is abit condescending and insecure no? It's like a relationship a wife would say to a husband after a funny spat.

That's where the sexualness comes from rogar-Smoke(DBG):

I'm sorry it was seen in this way. I have consistenly pointed out that there are a TON of people here more talented than me. The way I choose to go about how I make movies might be different from the next person. And that's just fine. What I feel is not fine, is putting crappy images on the screen. And with the current state of technology, ISO 1600 on ANY of the DSLRs looks pretty crappy. Sorry. Some would argue they look pretty crappy regardless of the ISO, but I can't agree with that.

 

[PerroneFord]

well, the difference seems to be that you're talking about yourself and i'm arguing from a more conceptual point of view.

just because you like to add plenty of lights to your scenes, which is of course fine and something i often do myself, it doesn't mean others always do.

This is a misnomer. I just finished a short where the only instruments I used were the practicals on set, and I brought a single softbox for 6 days of shooting. I never used anything more than that. Had I felt more was needed to get a pleasing image or the desired image, I had it available.

and no it has very little to do with skill, as i said there are plenty of reasons to light to lower levels or even not at all that are used in professional settings all the time.

Other than for reasons of personal safety, or obvious impracticality, I cannot think of a reason to not have light on a set. Lighting to lower levers is of course very subjective.

do you honestly think john alcott didn't know how to light when he shot barry lyndon? or cameron and beebe on collateral? or robby muller on breaking the waves? or linus eklund on fuerteventura for that matter? my film wasn't shot by a highschool friend who had a dvx, but one of the top swedish/danish dp's. and yes, he knows where to put that 18k if that's what the project requires too.

I think any experienced DP goes through much the same process. What is required to put a quality image on-screen, and met the directors intent. And then instruments are selected to meet that goal. I would easily bet that these DPs, made a conscious choice about what was required to get the shot, and used what was necessary to do so. I feel quite comfortable in saying I doubt any of them came to their decision by saying they would shoot at the highest ISO possible because they preferred not to light.

 

[mattsand]

this is getting ridiculous. do you read my posts (and lammy's (thanks)) at all? please explain what you think i'm saying again because i thought i had been very obvious about the importance of lighting and that i don't see low light performance as an excuse but a great tool for when you for whatever reason can't or won't light so much or at all. basically what i hear you saying, even though you deny it, is that you agree about those reasons but people who have them are really mislead and should be doing things the way you're doing them? if this is not what you think then i still don't understand what's wrong with low light. you're the one who came here with preconceived ideas about lazy indie filmmakers and ignorant producers but i'm neither so please start talking to me instead of your own ghosts.

 

[mattsand]

btw how would you light traffic? stop all cars and ask them to put in stronger lights? i guess you mean by replacing all cars with your own, but you're starting to get academic. of course most things can be fixed with money but i don't think most people who can't replace traffic in a city think that's because they can't afford it, they just can't, that's certainly how i always felt in such situations. to have a budget problem it has to be small enough so that it's even worth considering, like "can we rent a bunch of hmi's?" or "is it possible to replace all the bulbs in this castle?"

 

[PerroneFord]

this is getting ridiculous. do you read my posts (and lammy's (thanks)) at all?

Yes. I read your posts. And Lammys. In fact, I went back to the beginning of the thread and read them all again.

please explain what you think i'm saying again because i thought i had been very obvious about the importance of lighting and that i don't see low light performance as an excuse but a great tool for when you for whatever reason can't or won't light so much or at all.

You seem to be operating under the idea that my comments are directed at you. Personally. They are not.

basically what i hear you saying, even though you deny it, is that you agree about those reasons but people who have them are really mislead and should be doing things the way you're doing them?
if this is not what you think then i still don't understand what's wrong with low light.

Nothing wrong with low light. I broke one of my cardinal rules in this thread and for that I am sorry. Everyone is free to make their own movies in any way they feel like doing them.

 

[bwwd]

d90 is much older camera ,why you would want it to be better than camera from this year is beyond me.

 

[Snapper123]

Concerning lighting in films, I've noticed way too much lately that lighting is now being used very badly in major films to the point it looks like the actors were green screened into the whole thing. Highlights on the back of actors heads are becoming way, way too extreme, it is something that should be done very minimally most of the time, IMO.

Where my issues on the T2i come from, is not that it doesn't pick up light (it mathematically picks up possibly even more light than natural), but that the ISO looks horrendous at 100, combine that with extreme color gain noise, and you have yourself a bad picture unless there are absolutely no black colors nor shadows throughout the entire image. That is not the way a camera is supposed to work, I don't care if some T2i users are using the lighting to fill in every black and shadow possible, it's because the T2i is a pile of fraud in my opinion, and for $800, should have the different ISO and Tempeture settings that make video cameras at least USEABLE. Even then, I don't know how much those things truly help, as I'm not going to claim for a second that the compression looks useable, either, especially on anything that is even minimally blurred. Even the arguement that the T2i is even half worth the price for the photography is irrelevant because there's almost nothing, photography wise, that this camera does that Canon's cameras haven't done for the past 5 years. Photography wise, Nikon cameras are 10000X more worth it to a photography beginner, they're cheaper too. The new Canon DSLR coming out is probably the only Canon Photography camera that may finally hold against Nikon for the price range. In my opinion. And yet the new Nikon will be the only Nikon that may topple Canon for video. We are finally seeing direct, back-to-back competition that may indeed prove just which company hands down creates better footage.

Concerning noise, I do want to say that I feel the new Nikon may indeed be a market shifter, I believe that it's possible that digital noise, one of the main problems we all face, could be relieved to an extent. Plus, I want to be honest and say that Nikon cameras tend to create footage that I associate with a film look, although this could be more related to the lenses's native glass (doubt it) or better/different camera settings. In a world where many newbie filmmakers just want the best settings and camera, but more in a native, regular state (filmmakers who aren't trying for green screens or explosions or whatever), I want to say again that the Nikon may be a market shifter...or may not be. We'll see.

 

[PerroneFord]

Snapper,

I've come to the conclusion, after trying to be fair, read your posts and help you, that you are either:

1. A Nikon shill
2. The owner of a defective camera
3. Absolutely clueless about how to make images

I don't know which, but I really do wish you'd stop polluting the board with your diatribes against the T2i. If yours doesn't work well for you, get rid of it and buy something that does. Hundreds of owners are completely satisfied with theirs and frankly, I've made better images at ISO 800 that the stuff you posted and said was at ISO 100.

Sorry dude, but it's getting very old.

By the way, I moved from Canon to Nikon professionally years ago, but Canon is killing Nikon in the current video DSLR market. Who knows what the future holds, but that is the current reality of the world.

 

[t.p.]

the T2I Is a great camera ,
and lighting is for sure very important issue when shooting video of any kind , either than documentry ,
as for features go there is no question that canon's have far beyond features than the old d90 , it has 1080p allot of frame rate to choose from , it can even do 50i and 60i and the rolling shutter issues are much less apperant , so i dont think people should diss this camera

BUT the only honest thing that nikon has over canon dslr's concerning video ,and cannot be taking away from is its LOOK at least until now (dont know about the new cameras that are coming out now d3100 ,d7000? etc...), it has a much closer film look/cinematic look/softer look than the canons ( not arguing with allot of problems on the way )
this is only my opnion and can be argued , but i stand by it

i really hope that nikon would fix those problems in the expected d90 replacement and still maintain their look and feel , if they dont , theyve got noting to offer in the hdslr market
and be shreded to peices by canon , panasonic ,and even the new sony cameras
they will still remain again IMO great in still photography , but in video they would lose the battle

 

[Snapper123]

Snapper,

I've come to the conclusion....

I've come to the conclusion that no one here really knows much about lighting and how camera's are supposed to record things. I'd like to throw Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely (cinematography by Marcel Zyskind) into the argument as an example of a film that was, in an age of very badly and artificially lit films, every bit of an example of how cameras are supposed to film scenes to fit no matter what vision the director or cameraman has. It was an incredibly beautiful film that, in almost every scene, stretched the boarders of using both overexposure and many, many shadows to such an artistic, perfectly excecuted effect. There's not one scene in the entire film that I would bet uses any sort of lighting set up like the amateurs here do, especially since most of the scenes were filmed outside, or right in front of windows, with wide angles that show the entire room. It was filmed on real film, I'm assuming, but it does not matter, there's no reason that digital technology shouldn't have everything figured out right now to make sure a video is noise free, even in the most low quality of cameras.

And you know why everyone here doesn't get that? It's because 1. Everyone here is obsessed with film school techniques, and 2. The Canon camera's suck, people have been tricked into thinking that camera's aren't supposed to record black colors, so they have 14 lights outshining any sort of artistic element in the scene, and it has resulted in an extreme, mass change in videography style that is very limited by the camera's abilities. Canon even could simply have the option of a 50 ISO and it'd possibly cut all the crap out, it's a mix of bad technology and extremely limited camera settings that make that bad technology even worse. For $800, a camera should have every setting in the book, there's no excuse for it not to other than a company that has no idea what professionals, and even consumers, need.

Yet for 500$, the Olympus Pen surprisingly packs almost every feature needed in a professional digital video camera, sucky thing is, it doesn't have 1080P. Last time I played with it, if I remember correctly, it had ISO settings like 25 and 50, which if I estimate correctly, would be an absolute blessing to the types of filming I do. It also has built in IS for non-IS lenses, it has all the color tempeture settings for white balance, it has all sorts of built in video effects that look stunning, and it has very good color reproduction. It's also a tiny camera. So I mean, when that sort of camera is 10X more professional than a $1,000 one (what the T2i cost once everything's done), Canon's products are a little close to fraud in my opinion, and the T2i is simply a limited camera in many areas concerning video, even photography. Canon packed a few outdated things, like that stupid color shift graph and "picture styles", and said "hey, we have features too." It's annoying.

The only thing left to even throw back and forth is that the Canon's may or may not have better bit rates and codecs than the other cameras, but from what I've seen, this is nothing to write home about; seems everything from these cameras have tons of blockage and tiny banding lines. From what I've seen of the new Nikon footage, there's a better ratio between shadow sensitivity and sunlight sensitivity, sort of cutting the crap between how the Canon series is pretty awful about that (and I know this indeed is fixable, as Canon's shadow-to-light ratio is even alot better than say, an Iphone. They just need to continue to make it closer together, no one in the world needs sensitivity to sunlight for any reason whatso ever, but everyone needs a bit better reproduction of darker areas...plus less highlights in the sun blaring everything out.) I mean, the Canon series indeed is probably 10X better than any camera from say, 7 years ago but I mean...there's cameras coming out that are starting to beat it, feature and aesthetic wise, and Canon needs to hop on the board again.

 

[Lammy]

I've come to the conclusion that no one here really knows much about lighting and how camera's are supposed to record things. I'd like to throw Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely (cinematography by Marcel Zyskind) into the argument as an example of a film that was, in an age of very badly and artificially lit films, every bit of an example of how cameras are supposed to film scenes to fit no matter what vision the director or cameraman has. There's not one scene in the entire film that I would bet uses any sort of lighting set up like the amateurs here do

Whoa whoa whoa, instead of finger pointing who knows what and veering off topic let's be productive yeah.

Perrone does know what he's talking about - when he's talking about it. You do need to expose correctly in the scene, see his post here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showpost.php?p=2089777&postcount=13
It's not magic to simply light a scene comfortably and set the monitor to a darker level for reference, you know. Ever notice on DVD extras, like on The Dark Knight, the sets look quite bright on the behind the scenes documentary footage but when you actually see the film it's very moody?

It was filmed on real film, I'm assuming, but it does not matter, there's no reason that digital technology shouldn't have everything figured out right now to make sure a video is noise free, even in the most low quality of cameras.

First of all, Mister Lonely looks quite conventionally shot. It's not like The Godfather or Road To Perdition style dark bizareness. And this looks like 16mm to me. It has a very similar gritty look to upcoming films like Black Swan actually. Here, watch the Black Swan trailer in 1080p http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jaI1XOB-bs

I love this look. If you've ever worked on film, you'll be so happy to know how much you can recover under exposed and over exposed stuff. I loved the grainy 16mm at film school.

Digital technology has figured it out, but you're going to want to pay for a good RED/F35/Alexa/Si rental. Not so much with these DSLRs though.

That's one thing I like about the DVX/HVX and GH13 and prosumer camcorders, their grain structure looks tidy and neat. Here, abit mushy and swimmy and dancey even at ISO 100. You just have to expect that with Canon and to a lesser extent Nikon SLRs. No way around it, it will just look mushy.

If you want that Mister Lonely/ Black Swan look, ish, then try Neatvideoing the footage and then adding in lots of film grain. It wont look as sharp but it's a start.

And you know why everyone here doesn't get that? It's because 1. Everyone here is obsessed with film school techniques, and 2. The Canon camera's suck

... it's because everyone here (with common sense) isn't expecting these DSLRs to destroy film or professional cameras man

It is, what it is. An inexpensive and quality piece of kit. We're spoiled, frankly...

 

[Ben_B]

Stills stills stills. That's where. In terms of quality and features.

 

[Granjow]

I really overlooked the fact that the 550D is about 2 years younger.
I also wasn’t sure what you meant with stills (here in a forum about video): Videos with content that does not move much, or really simple photographs?

Thanks for your answers.
Hope the D7000 will have some kind of 60p as well

 

[Ben_B]

I was saying that the D90 is a much stronger camera for photography.

 

[bwwd]

We are finally seeing direct, back-to-back competition that may indeed prove just which company hands down creates better footage.

Why anyone would want to know that ? User creates image,there are tests to check the specs andthats all,you choose your eequipment.
I dont give a *** about company name,if LEGO would release camera like t2i for half the price ,id buy it today.
If you can find cheaper tool that make identical to t2i image then we could argue about all that but for now t2i is the best deal for filmmakers IMO.

 

[Ben_B]

Well duh, cause Lego is AWESOME!

 

[AlexD]

I still have my d5000 and will probably keep it. I look at Nikon's video as something much more organic than the canons. If properly graded t2i/7d/5d2 footage looks equivalent to nice 35mm film, Nikon's looks like very nice 16mm right out of the camera. You can't really do too much with the codec and it not great for greenscreen, but it looks beautiful.
I often joke/proclaim with my friends that Taxi Driver could be shot on a nikon and look almost the same.

 

[Ben_B]

The problem isn't the look coming from the Nikons its the lack of good controls and good formats. When you can get good footage out of the thing it looks good, but it's a real pain. Also, the fact that they don't allow stop-down metering in their lower end cameras is ridiculous.