dahlfors

Beautiful shots!

9 hours ago, Nikkor said:

The autofocus from af-d lenses is useless. I say this because I do have the 135 DC, 85 1.4 D, 60 2.8 D, and 28 1.4 D. And the image quality is better on the ai-s counterparts.

I haven't used those lenses. But the AF has certainly not been useless on the 50mm f/1.4 AF-D nor the 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.

Regarding colors and A6300: I really liked the skin colors in the shots of the kid where he/she is lit by daylight flooding in through the windows:

Yep. The noise level looks excellent up until ISO 50k, and quite usable up until ISO 200k.

Here's a comparison of 4k high iso on A7R II and D5:

@Andrew Reid Gonna be interesting to see what you think about and shoot in the HFR modes.

Just saw this video on vimeo today:

This slow motion looks really good for a camera on A6300's price level! 

1) For Nikon cameras like D750, D800, D810, there's a time-lapse function that creates 1080p H.264. On the Nikon D5, this can be done in UHD (see the manual at http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/320/D5.html, page 74). On my D800, I've found out that these kind of time-lapse movies utilize the full sensor and downsamples the image in high quality, so it's actually better quality than the usual video modes. I expect the same to be true for the D5.

2) If you are after the highest quality, you should use the "interval shooting" features found in these cameras. Then you get the output in Nikon RAW or JPEG (or both formats if you want). Then you'll get a series of still images that you can make into a time-lapse movie yourself. You can then do the exposure editing and coloring in Lightroom - and apply to all of the photos, then export to a format suitable for putting the sequence together in Adobe After Effects or similar software. By doing this, you could downsample and crop the full megapixel count of a D750/D800/D810 into 4096x2160.

If time-lapse is the main reason, I'd also recommend going with D810 instead. If you need UHD footage as well, I guess D5 and D500 will be the only options from Nikon. The older D200/D300 series of cameras had interval shooting options, so I expect D500 to also feature that as a builtin feature.

If you want Canon/Nikon/Fuji-like colors with APS-C sized sensor, you might want to take a look at Nikon D5300/D5500 instead. Good 1080p, good colours out of the box. If you really want to have Prores / RAW for video, you could always go for Blackmagic pocket cinema camera, although the sensor is a lot smaller. These cameras are in same price range as the A6300.

I wouldn't care at all about rolling shutter in 4k, if the 1080p mode didn't seem to be so soft in the tests that are circulating online. Also, according to Brandon Li it seems like the camera has moire/aliasing in 1080p:

"A6300 has really bad rolling shutter and worse lowlight than a7rii and a7sii. A6300 autofocus is better; 1080p has moire and aliasing but good rolling shutter."

Also, on the softness:

"If you're shooting shallow DOF on a gimbal (as I intend to) and outputting to 1080p, then recording in 1080p works because it looks sharp as long as you don't focus to infinity."

— found in comments at https://vimeo.com/158972895.

Still interested in seeing what Andrew finds. Maybe the 1080p isn't that soft compared to other 1080p cameras?

1 hour ago, Cinegain said:

Yeah, but you have to be careful here... you're now comparing DSLRs to compacts.
I have both D5300 and more recent S9900. The compact camera doesn't shoot video anything like the D5300... it's okay, because I just needed something small and light with still some zoom for stills shooting, but I think you're in the wrong, when you think video will come out of these puppies looking like the stuff we're used to from their DSLR range. It will probably look more like their current compacts... overly sharp, poppy, modern, low dynamic range, weird motion. Footage that doesn't hold up well when pushed in post. All of that. And by the looks of that, that's exactly the case. Sure you could make any camera appear somewhat decent, but just be careful with these...

What you are talking about is post-processing, which isn't directly related to the encoding / bitrate, but rather a separate entity.

But yes, it might very well be that there is baked in sharpening that you can't get rid of.

I hope Nikon has been sane enough to add configuration possibilities to disable such post processing, since the cameras are set to compete with LX100, RX100 and other Sony high end compact offerings which provide such features. I also hope they are sane enough to add 24p in the final firmware, since the competition has that. Also, it doesn't make much sense for Nikon to cripple their high end compacts due to product segmentation; I don't really think these products compete with D3xx/D5xx.

31 minutes ago, Mattias Burling said:

Nope, it differs from camera to camera. Depends on how efficient it uses its bitrate. A 50mbit Sony will in my experience break apart before Nikon 25mbit.

Precisely.

I have a D800 with 24 Mbps bitrate as well as the hacked 54 Mbps bitrate. In majority of scenes there isn't any difference. Close-ups of really fast moving water or certain types of night scenes is where I've found the differences. I haven't seen any other camera reaching anywhere as high quality output as Nikon does at 24 Mbps H.264.

With good tweaking of x264 encoding on a desktop computer you can reach same quality levels, but other camera manufacturers 1) haven't either tweaked their encoders as much, or 2) aren't throwing as much encoding power / using dedicated chips for the encoding - hence they aren't anywhere near the same quality levels when you compare bitrate for bitrate.

How you implement an encoder matters, even though you use the same codec. It was the same story with MP3 encoding in the early days. XING, Fraunhofer and the others weren't anywhere near the quality that the open source LAME encoder could output, bitrate for bitrate.

54 minutes ago, froboy88 said:

Still no bitrate info.  Do They really expect people to go buy it without all the info?

The camera is ANNOUNCED, not released. Bitrate is just a value they switch in software, which is pretty easy to do just before release. I'm guessing the firmware for these cameras is far from final with 1 month still until release - and that the fact they haven't announced the bitrates means they are still tweaking image/video quality related features. I'd assume it's a similar story with the DL cameras and their missing video features: perhaps they will still add 24p even though it isn't in specs.

I've been waiting a long time for some good quality portable camera with 1080p at 120 fps. In 2016 it seems like it's going to be tough to decide which one to get...

I've seen people here (Andrew perhaps?) in the forum recommend using the "autumn leaves" picture profile. Might be what you're thinking of.

2 hours ago, mikegt said:

No, the fence is not the point of focus.  It just looks slightly sharper because it's closer to the camera.  If you look at the detail on the fence it is not sharp, so even if it was the point of focus it would not be very impressive.  In any case, focusing was done manually, and carefully set on the trees, not the fence.  The camera was also mounted on a rock steady heavy-duty Bogen professional tripod, so motion blur was not a factor.

In regard to diffraction, the aperture was set to F8 (ISO was at 100), so diffraction was also not a significant factor.  The lens used was Nikon's standard kit model, the 24-120mm F4.

Sorry for the doubt. Haven't ever seen footage from D750 looking so soft. Guess the high detail scene brings out the weaknesses.

11 hours ago, mikegt said:

I think you might be disappointed with the D750.  I owned one for a month but returned it; one of the reasons why is that the video resolution is limited to HD and Nikon is doing some pixel binning or line skipping. I found the level of picture detail & sharpness, while better than most Canon DSLRs, to be disappointing.  I replaced it with a Panasonic G7 (similar to the GH4 you sold).  Shooting in 4K on the G7 and "down-rezzing" it to HD yielded a much sharper image than the D750 was able to produce.  The one advantage the D750 does have is better low light capabilities thanks to it's full frame sensor, but for me at least it was not enough to offset the lack of sharpness and detail in good light.  If your priority is good low light video then an A7SII, which costs only a bit more than a D750, would probably make a better choice.

I uploaded a frame grab from a video I shot on a D750.  As you can see, fine detail on the trees and grass is getting lost due no doubt to line skipping or pixel binning. (you'll need to click on the image and then expand it to full resolution by clicking on the "full size" link on the lower left of the screen to see the lack of detail I'm referring to).

The part of the image that is in focus here is the fence closest to the camera. So, what you are looking at here is lack of detail because of everything except the fence is out of focus, it's not the D750 that is soft. Also looks like you might be diffraction limited, shooting at a very tiny aperture. 

48 minutes ago, mechanicalEYE said:

dahlfors,

Thanks for the info, I'll start looking to see what I can find.

Forgot to mention: Note that you need the Speedbooster that fits Nikon G lenses (G lenses lack aperture ring) if you want to use the 16-35!

1 hour ago, araucaria said:

The secret,exclusive and miraculous Mattias Burling Stores, am I right?

Up here in the Nordic we've always had strong laws protecting consumers - even before the 2 year warranty on all electronics that applies to EU. People often ask why cameras are more expensive in EU. Besides VAT, manufacturers tend to put higher prices on electronics in Europe since there's a longer warranty.

I wouldn't either buy my cameras from Amazon instead of getting them from the local shops. I rather wait a few months for price to drop and get my nice warranty.

5 hours ago, mechanicalEYE said:

Considering what we know now, what would you guys recommend for lens combo's with a nikon to e-mount speedbooster?

For wide shots with speedbooster I'd recommend trying to get a 16-35 f/4 (If you're on a tight budget, have a look for used ones, I've seen used ones for about 500-600 euro in Sweden). Very sharp full-frame lens for 4k. That lens will be pretty wide even at the crop modes.

I love the AI-S 50mm f/1.8 with speed booster on my NEX - a good allround pancake 50mm, makes for a really compact setup. Same goes for the AI-S 28mm f/2.8 and the AI-S 85mm f/2, still fairly compact setups with speedbooster, although they aren't pancake lenses. 

As a successor to A600, this camera has everything I was hoping for. Can't wait to see reviews on how the colours perform with S-LOG3!

Since you wrote about perhaps buying in June, and since you're already using Sony...

There are rumors that the replacement for Sony A6000 is finally coming: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-the-new-a6100-looks-just-like-the-old-a6000/

That camera is likely to feature S-LOG, 4k and possibly IBIS, and will most likely be priced to fit inside your budget.

Whatever it is, there's very harsh compression in the original codec with a lack of detail. Maybe some older Sony camera with AVCHD codec, or perhaps a Canon Rebel - or even a phone with lens adapter for shallow depth of field.

I flew from Hanoi to Europe just 2 weeks ago. With the check-in luggage I had a spare battery for my Nikon D800, and I also had a Sony NEX camera with its battery.

No issues in security control.

So, if you can pass the security checks at the airport with the batteries, I doubt you will have any trouble with the airline itself.

Here's a list of high frame rate capable cameras that you might find useful: http://hispeedcams.com/hsc-camera-guide/

Considering that high frame rate shooting requires a lot of light, I'd certainly think A7S II is a good option considering its lowlight performance.

Talking about cash cow milking: http://i.imgur.com/THMdEqj.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/R2zYkAj.jpg. 

On a side note, I recently rewatched Prometheus. I guess my first expectations from that movie really turned me off since I didn't enjoy it much the first time. The second time I watched it, I found that I enjoyed it. Guess it really helped when I already knew that the film showed the alien universe in a very different way than what I had first expected.

Have a look at the Ikan VK7I, it's quite affordable and seems to have great colors: http://www.learningvideo.com/field-monitor-shootout/