Curious about the quality of the video coming off the new Nikon D90?
During my short tests the video quality was exceptional, no matter which resolution I picked. The size of the movie highly depend on the subject of the video. More detailed videos take 2.5, while homogenous areas produce 1.5 MB/sec in file size, when the highest resolution is set. The only disadvantage of the movie mode is that the AF is not available. Focus has to be set manually.
-Pixinfo.com
Thus far most of the previews I’ve read to have been anxious to point out the D90’s excellet image quality, but it’s important to point out the video will also have a distinctly unique look, completely different than that found in most camcorders, stemming from the vastly superior capabilities found in the modern day DSLR. Interchangeable lenses and a sensor capable of shooting great picures at ISO 1600 (and more) will give photographers (now filmmakers) the ability to push in and out with the zoom, throw backgrounds into absolute abstraction, and take video in darker conditions just not possible on a video camera for anything near the D90’s price point. Shooting video on the D90 will be significantly more cinematic, not only will you be shooting in widescreen high definition and manually focusing ( AF can be set before shooting, but once you start recording, you’ll have to take over any needed/desired focus changes), but due to the 24 FPS the D90 will be recording, your video will have a distinctly “film” look, Ken Rockwell explains…
24 FPS means movies will look like movies, presuming you shoot at 1/50 shutter speed. In bright light, shorter exposures will make things look a bit jumpy, and movies at 24 PFS are never as smooth as real video, which is shot at 60 fields per second. The video of the D90 can look like movies, but will never have the smooth fluid motion of regular camcorders.
-Ken Rockwell
My advice? Think about getting yourself some of these real fast. With the Nikon D90, you’ll be sure to need them.
Read the full preview at Pixinfo.com…
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
ecards guy
09.01.08 at 11:08 am
This is nice that the quality will be a unique upgrade, however it will still be an extra pain that the video is not encoded directly in h.264.
This means extra steps for not all, but many scenarios.
And yes h.264 can be tuned to be as high quality as anything else they could use. H.264 even allows for lossless (perfect) compression, which is not practical but the point is the format can take quality as high as you need to.
Patrick
09.01.08 at 2:46 pm
It’s safe to assume, that different encoding formats are bound to be offered by future DSLRs that are all but certain to be tacking on video features as we speak