Testing the video on the Nikon D90

Transitions from Chris Beaumont on Vimeo.

I’ve been walking around with a Nikon D90 in my bag for the last few weeks instead of my usual Canon DSLR.  Like most people with more than a passing interest in photography and video I was pretty excited to see that the D90 and the Canon 5D MkII both have HD video recording capabilities, so having the opportunity to have a thorough play with the D90 has been quite exciting.

The intial response to the video from the team of video producers I work with was one of bemused indifference.  From a video producers point of view, there are a number of deal breaking problems …

1. The output is compressed using the Apple OpenDML JPEG codec into AVI containers that aren’t native to Final Cut Pro, which means you have to transcode all the clips before you can use them properly in Final Cut.  You can edit them in Premier Pro without transcoding, but it does it with the red bars above the timeline, and After Effects kept crashing when using them.
2. That would be fine as long as the quality was up to scratch; if you’re getting something great looking then it’s worth going through the hassle of a transcode workflow, but the quality just isn’t that great, especially with the stock lens that comes with the D90.  The compression frequently does strange things to people’s faces, and there’s generally a lack of sharpness and definition.  The quality is certainly below HDV, for my money, which is a problem.
3. The “Rolling Shutter” defect is apparent in full effect.  An explanation of rolling shutter can be found here, but it basically means that if you’re not shooting on a tripod and using fairly slow pans and tilts, what you’re shooting will warp and bend in a very noticeable and undesirable way.
4. You can auto-focus before you start recording, but once it’s going, you’re on your own, which is pretty hard core, and it’s difficult to manual focus using the screen on the back of the camera.  It allows you to do some very cool things with focus, but it’d be so much better if you could auto-focus too.
5. The audio is dreadful.  On camera mic only, recorded at 11.025khz, mono.  Enough said.

Having said all that, there are a few things about it that I love …

1. The quality isn’t that bad.  It’s not going to convince any pro video guys to ditch their video cameras and start using DSLR bodies, but as a first crack of the whip from Nikon, in their consumer DSLR, it’s a good place to start from.  The picture has enough latitude that you can happily push and pull the picture about in After Effects at least as much as you can with HDV footage.
2. You can use Nikon’s entire range of DSLR lenses with it.  This means you can get some seriously good looking pictures, in low light conditions with 1.4f lenses, with lots of shallow depth of field, and cool rack focus effects.  I haven’t had a go with any of Nikon’s high end lenses myself, but have a look at some of the stuff on vimeo to see what I mean:
   
   The happy Reaper from justin jerome chance on Vimeo.
   
   Färsbiffarna from lickitup on Vimeo.

   
   

3. The convenience of having just one camera to shoot good looking stills and video is pretty unbeatable.  Instead of just thinking about stills when I’m out now, I’m starting to think about getting stock video footage aswell, which means that before long I’ll have a massive library of good looking stock footage, without the hassle of having to take a bulkier HDV camera around with me.  The other thing about using a stills camera to capture footage is that it makes it easier to get stock footage of random people without them noticing you.  You can hold the camera down in front of your chest in a way that makes it look like you’re just checking out some images on the screen, when in fact you’re reeling off video.  You can’t really do anything inconspicuous with a Sony Z1 or similar sized camera, but I found myself able to get very natural, intimate shots of people with the D90, simply because the people weren’t aware that they were being filmed.
4. Even though there’s a workflow transcode, it’s still really convenient to have the whole process be digital.

To conclude, it’s not there yet, for me anyway.  It was great fun recording and editing with the footage, but it’s not a viable proposition for someone who’s primarily interested in video.  I doubt that Nikon were aiming at video people with this camera, of course, and it helps if you try to view it as a bonus feature on a good stills camera rather than an out-and-out video camera, which it obviously isn’t.