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Dear Nikon...


Andrew Reid
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the main reason pompus Nikon users ask for no video mode is because they simply don't understand how to get good things from video.

 

Is this what people tell themselves to get to sleep at night?  You can't be serious.  People that I know that have DSLRs with a video mode frankly even forget the mode is there.  And judging by how many iphone video clips I get from them they seem to know how to hold a camera kind of steady.

 

 

 

 wedding photographers who can diversify and offer (good) movies of a wedding are stealing jobs from the guys who can't deal with pulling focus, working with limited DR, editing, sound etc.

 

 

Every wedding photography situation that I have seen that involved photo and video had at least two operators.  I don't see how someone can photograph a wedding (stress) and be fiddling with pulling focus.  That seems like a nice way to miss a critical moment.

 

 

A more pertinent question is where's Nikon, Canon or Sony's answer to Blackmagic?

 

There isn't one and there won't be one.  Blackmagic puts out beta devices for people that have the luxury and desire to fiddle with beta products.  Nikon, Canon and Sony put out solid tested production models ON TIME.  And another nifty feature of Sony, Nikon and Canon products is they do what it says on the tin.  BMPCC raw anyone?

 

The problem is a lot of people don't know how to run a business.  A big thing in business as well as life in general is the 80/20 rule.  Getting a CMOS and tossing it in a metal box with some basic features and a crapload of stuff missing gets you 80% of the camera.  The last 20% is a fully working, nonglitchy, polished, ergonomic camera that is delivered in quantity... ON TIME.  That last 20% though is probably 80% of your R&D time, trouble, and expense.

 

Nikon, Canon, and Sony can't turn out Blackmagic sensor in a box, because they have impeccable global brands.  Blackmagic has nothing to lose.  It's taken Nikon, Canon, and Sony decades to build their reputations and brands.  They are not about to through it all away for either a noncore business or to undercut their pro line of cameras.  Frankly they aren't going to throw it away for anything.  Canon cameras may not have most exotic features but when a feature is advertised it works 100% of the time.  The worst feature on a Canon camera is the autofocus on the rebel line.  But even that abysmal feature is light years ahead of the BMPCC.  People cherry pick all the things they like about the BMPCC and just skip over all the other stuff that Canon has been doing for YEARS that Black Magic won't or can't do.

 

When Blackmagic starts churning out FINISHED products in quantity ON TIME.  We'll talk.  You can't turn out a finished BMPCC that works, that does what it says on the tin (raw), ON TIME and sell it for less than $1,000.  Canon, Nikon, and Sony are not in the beta device business.  Never will be.

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I'm being sarcastic with the stills thing. I still think convergence should happen with certain cameras.

 

GH4 will be a perfect example of how it should be done.

 

The 1D C is an example of how NOT to combine cinema and stills. A lazy example, as are most of the consumer DSLRs.

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Sorry EOSHD, I think you are too immersed in this DSLR Video thing. First and foremost there is nothing wrong about diversifying and specializing in a market that's saturated. A product that trying to reach out to different sector. That sector just happen not to be Videographers. Beside, you really have to take a look at the real public response. Though there is much debate over its styling. there is no doubt that there is a large market for this back to retro approach of a DSLR.

 

Besides, we have to admit, the market right now simply do not favor ..

 

PRO have their Large sensor Video cam like the RED or Sony F55, Semi-PRO and dedicated amateur are looking at specialties like the BMCC, 5D-III, or Panasonic GH. To be fair , and fdair to Nikon. Without a breakthrough performance and feature, putting Video as a forefront to a new model in their DSLR lineup wouldn;t help. This is not the sector like D3200 or D5300. The mid range DSLR is a very large market sector catering to the more demanding amateur and enthusiast but sorry that sector is also mostly photography, not Video. Video centric product is already there and they at best only carve a niche. Its not like when 5D-II first come out when no one had an answer until Canon just plant the BOMB.

 

No I am not with Nikon on the styling. Its more like cheesy 80's again , rather than the lean back to basic and simple straight forward the FM series deliver. But I do think the comment that any new DSLR ( or mirrorless ) body need to serve the Video sector is pretty much wishful thinking. There is already the Panasonic GH, the Canon 5D family, all the amateur and consumer end product. There is really little room for maneuver.

 

And speaking of Magic Lantern, I guess the future must lie with the way how most already did with their system, that is , to opwn it for developer to directly access, control and deliver functionality in form of opening up API or even making the firmware open source ( Samsung ) on their platform. You know why the iPhone and Android become what they are, they are today. They offer that stepping stone, that foundation to be.

 

Nikon had almost always been an engineering based company, ( hardware read ), and less of a solution based one. They offer the platform and the ware to do the contents. They still do, Might be they should think about opening up API or even making their camera firmware open for others to improve and add onto. Its tempting for a company to try to control everything and get into the act ( thinking of the profit it might gather ), but in the end, the effort simply might not profit the investment. Nikon simply choose a way that they can do well. Instead of trying to find what others are good at 

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I'm being sarcastic with the stills thing. I still think convergence should happen with certain cameras.

 

GH4 will be a perfect example of how it should be done.

 

The 1D C is an example of how NOT to combine cinema and stills. A lazy example, as are most of the consumer DSLRs.

 

Like you've stated, certain camera, and the Df is not that certain camera, so why bother worrying about it. The brand answer a call from the much wider, much more potential ( think volume of business ), and much demanded ones. let's face it, Nikon is no where near capable in term of Video as that of Canon,Panasonic and Sony. So why bother fighting on somebody else's turf.

 

And while upon that, Nikon could probably re-introduce Cine-Nikkor ( they used to have this product line way way way way back , I mean really way back when I am shooting 8mm and 16mm ). Something for BMCC on M4/3 mount perhaps. No don't worry about that. I am sure Nikon are well aware of the need for a true hybrid, but again they are well aware that that market sector is but niche and small compare to the totality of it. And when and if they do it, they have to do it right. That likely is not going to just come by without some effort.  

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People are just as dumb here as the people in photo forum that despise video on dslr. It is the same lack of knowledge and sense of self entitlement that Nikon is not giving them what they need. In the case of the photo shooters what can they complain about? Nikon has the best Line-up since 2007/2008 at the launch of the D300/D3 since suffering for about 7 years complete dominance by Canon. Is there anything comparable to D800 in the Canon Line-up. Medium format back resolution, highest DR ever (nearly 3 stop above Canon 5d3), Low light very near to the Sport/low light camera 1dx/D4. Even the $ 1000 D7100 has better resolution and DR than the 5d3. . In case of the D800 it is currently the best Dslr and by extention the best photo camera ever to exist. So if they are complaining about a button that they are not forced to use, then they should change job/hobby/passion.

 

Now for our friends here, who are complaining about Nikon not putting video in the DF… why should they do it? If anyone took 5 minutes to investigate, they would see that Nikon already have a solid line-up of video dslr, that are continuously updated. They just launch the $ 800 D5300 which included 1080p at 60 fps. A feature that even the Canon C line does not have!!!

 

If it uses the same Toshiba sensor tech than the D5200/d7100, it will have no moire/aliasing problem like the gh2. The day Nikon change sensor manufacturer from Sony… Hey, gone are the moire/aliasing. Gh3 gets a sony dslr sensor and back is moire/aliasing. Guess who is holding back sensor tech for moire/aliasing in its sensors. That joke of a Company called Sony is now telling us that they are sampling all pixel form there small sensor compact camera and people are falling for that!!! This is already gone from the Apsc/S35 sensor Nikon dslr for a year.

 

The low light is very good, it rivals the 5dmark 3 http://www.eoshd.com/content/9713 test from eoshd and the resolution of the d7100 comes very close to the gh2. A Blind test by me, where many got it wrong and others did not commit http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...-gh2-sharpness. You do get even better sharpness using an external recorder. The DR is superb in the 11.5 to 12 stop depending on different testers. Not the best test but again confirming the more scientific test done by people like Samuel  H who did the Flaaat  profile for Nikon camera http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...mic-range-test. With an external recorder, I would say that you could get 1/3 to 1/2 stop more Dr. So we would be in good 12 stop DR camera. The only caveat is the Fix patter noise, but neat video does a stunning job with the high bitrate Ninja footage which is also a bit sharper than the internal codec.

 

The aps Nikon are nowadays for me the best DSLR in terms of image quality below the Raw 5dmark3 and even then... until some knowledgeable people test them we will never know by how much. I have always been critical about Nikon but at least they are trying. They were the one that released the first dslr with uncompressed hdmi which is already a big step in the right direction and you even have it in its $ 800 camera. Everybody would have been all over it if there was not the RAW revolution of the Blackmagic camera for $ 1000. Unfortunately they were not bold enough as nobody could guess that you would have raw and 10 bit prores for 1k. The latest step is 60fps in 1080p, something you don't have even in the $ 12 000 Canon C300.

 

Again every new Nikon dslr generation is progressing, but where are the reviews, where are the bloggers/reviewers etc … who are supposed to guide us. So because it is not raw it is not good!!!  I chose the D7100 over the Nikon D600 as a back-up to my D800 (I am a professional photographer), because of the video quality. I chose to buy an Atomos Ninja rather than the BM pocket camera, because I wanted the S35 camera look and lack of moire/aliasing. I sold my beloved gh2 because with my test, the D7100 was exactly what I wanted during the frenzy of hacked gh2, a better DR gh2. What I would really want in terms of image quality is at least 10 bit, the rest would be just bonuses for now.  

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More Nikon financial news just out -

 

"A dramatic fall in demand among photography hobbyists that began last year accelerated faster than expected."

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/nikon-earnings-idUSL3N0IR39F20131107

 

Could it be that the video market hasn't gone for the D800? Lost opportunity.

Could it be that the photography enthusiasts are temped by mirrorless due to a more flexible lens mount?

Could it be that the Fuji X100 has already lapped up the demand for retro ergonomics and styling, and the Df (which took 4 years to develop) is too late?

Could it be that the DSLRs from Nikon and Canon are just flat out boring?

 

I'd say all of the above is beginning to have an affect.

 

The economy at the moment is better than last year, Nikon have cut costs and become more efficient since last year, and yet their operating profit is down 41%.

 

When Nikon's core enthusiast photography business halves in size, they will wish they took the opportunity to be more innovative and embrace new demand in the imaging business - such as demand for video.

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Speaking of. I really thought Panasonic would've announced an AF101 update based on GH3 guts by now. What gives?

 

As far as I believe, the AF was canned because it was unpopular. To be honest I can see why.

 

GH line is the way forward.

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Could it be that the video market hasn't gone for the D800? Lost opportunity.

Could it be that the photography enthusiasts are temped by mirrorless due to a more flexible lens mount?

Could it be that the Fuji X100 has already lapped up the demand for retro ergonomics and styling, and the Df (which took 4 years to develop) is too late?

Could it be that the DSLRs from Nikon and Canon are just flat out boring?

 

When Nikon's core enthusiast photography business halves in size, they will wish they took the opportunity to be more innovative and embrace new demand in the imaging business - such as demand for video.

 

D800 and D800E seem to have sold nicely, probably around expected sales. The major drop in sales have been in the compact and entry-level DSLR segment (according to nikonrumors earlier research on the subject) - the two areas which have been Nikon's bread & butter. Partly due to better camera phones. Another reason is probably that the common entry-level camera buyer is still satisfied with the image quality they get in a DSLR that is a few years old.

 

I can't help but wonder what the D5200/D5300 sensors could do if they managed to get 10-bit 4:2:2 Prores out of those cameras. That and no crippling of live view in a video-centric D5xxx series camera would be something I'd be interesting in getting as a secondary camera. I'm afraid I don't have much expectations that Nikon would make a fully videocentric camera in the coming 1-3 years, neither mirror-less nor DSLR.

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I can't help but wonder what the D5200/D5300 sensors could do if they managed to get 10-bit 4:2:2 Prores out of those cameras.

 

This will neither happen fast or easily because all current camera chips process debayered image data (including JPEG) only in 8 bit. It would require a complete overhaul of the internal signal processing. Therefore, I don't expect 10 bit signal processing to arrive in consumer cameras any time soon.

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10 bit signal processing is in a $999 consumer camera already! Blackmagic Pocket!

 

Not a consumer camera. (Those buyers who mistook it for a consumer camera are the people angrily ranting about it on the Blackmagic forum.) Not a camera where the video signal processing is a by-product of the JPEG engine.

 

Mainstream manufacturers would have to turn priorities upside down and reengineer their cameras' debayered signal processing so that they produce 8-bit JPEG as a downsampled by-product of 10-bit video processing. I don't expect this to happen with any standard photo camera. Heck, not even amateur-level video editing programs (like iMovie, Pinnacle, the budget editions of Vegas) support more than 8-bit color depth, so this would be purely a feature for people editing on pro NLEs. 

 

Maybe it will come in a future GH camera, probably it will be brought to Canon's C line sooner or later. Maybe we'll see a 10-bit Canon C camera and a 10-bit Sony F camera for $1000-$2000 if both manufacturers think that Blackmagic seriously cuts into their semipro/pro video market. But for cameras primarily targeted at the stills market, the R&D and engineering costs of 10-bit signal processing won't make much business sense - unless future camera controller chips do 10-bit out of the box anyway so that it can be provided as a by-product. (Don't forget that DSLR video started a by-product of the CMOS live view signal. Live view signals will not be debayered to 10-bit for the foreseeable future because LCD viewfinders can't reproduce more than true color/3*8 bits anyway.)

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Blackmagic have come along out of the blue and manufactured a camera with 10bit signal processing using off the shelf components at a Singapore factory for $999 and a company the size of Canon and Nikon would have to turn their priorities upside down to do that?

 

Hmm.

 

It's just political... The elderly photographers who run Nikon do not want to add the requisite hardware to their stills camera to do justice to video, because it would eat into their margin and they don't see a return on the investment.

 

Don't forget DSLRs are still stuck at USB 2.0...

 

There's far more processing power in phones than in cameras these days and that is just WRONG!

 

Plus cameras cost a lot more than phones.

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Well... beside all the talks I am really waiting to buy the Blackmagic Pocket + Speed Booster MFT for Canon lenses. So this will be the end of the story for me for sometime.

 

In my bag soon or later:
Canon Mark 3 body for stills

Blackmagic Pocket body for video (ProRes + Raw)

Set of primes

 

Is this really far away to the almost perfect solution everybody is talking about?

 

I think not... and we should be around the corner as Speed Booster MFT for Canon lenses should be ready soon.

 

Cheers

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You may want to play around with one first. Im sure it will still work if you were shooting with crop lenses already. I returned my pocket camera because like you I had a set of lenses I loved already. Unfortunately they were Nikon full frame or old Russian and German lenses. So putting say a 58mm lens with speedbooster still only brought it back down to a 119mm lens....just wasnt useful enough for me. Took the money I would have spent on lenses and invested it into another camera body like the kineraw mini.. You have a 5d3 put Magic lantern on it, unless you are looking for compact and a camera thats not obvious for shooting in lets say airports and the like

 

Well... beside all the talks I am really waiting to buy the Blackmagic Pocket + Speed Booster MFT for Canon lenses. So this will be the end of the story for me for sometime.

 

In my bag soon or later:
Canon Mark 3 body for stills

Blackmagic Pocket body for video (ProRes + Raw)

Set of primes

 

Is this really far away to the almost perfect solution everybody is talking about?

 

I think not... and we should be around the corner as Speed Booster MFT for Canon lenses should be ready soon.

 

Cheers

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D800 and D800E seem to have sold nicely, probably around expected sales. The major drop in sales have been in the compact and entry-level DSLR segment (according to nikonrumors earlier research on the subject) - the two areas which have been Nikon's bread & butter. Partly due to better camera phones. Another reason is probably that the common entry-level camera buyer is still satisfied with the image quality they get in a DSLR that is a few years old.

 

I can't help but wonder what the D5200/D5300 sensors could do if they managed to get 10-bit 4:2:2 Prores out of those cameras. That and no crippling of live view in a video-centric D5xxx series camera would be something I'd be interesting in getting as a secondary camera. I'm afraid I don't have much expectations that Nikon would make a fully videocentric camera in the coming 1-3 years, neither mirror-less nor DSLR.

Exactly what I think is happening, it is more the lower end that is partly suffering because of smartphone, but the main reason is that the cameras are just good enough. Until I bought my D800 last year my workhorse camera as a pro photographer was the D300. In terms of image quality alone the D3200 would put it to shame in resolution and DR. I also printed gorgeous A3 print with my 6 megapixel D70 in 2005, I bet no consumer needs more than 6 megapixel for there A5 maximum size prints.

 

The 10 bit is my main concern because I think that it is tied to the jpeg processing engine. In case of Nikon it is the expeed processor and they have two functionality which are 8bit jpeg/tiff and raw. I think that we might see raw even before any 10 bit codec. I am not against raw for video, but the size is too prohibitive now. An internal log base 10 bit codec at about 100 mbit would be perfect with the uncompressed hdmi in 10 bit. The worst case for me is the 4k marketing that is gathering pace. They could go 4k 8bit before 10 bit or raw, just for the sake of being competitive against the new wave of smartphone tablet that will be coming out.

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Another thing I wanted to add about this thread is about the suppose non flexibility of the Nikon mount. In the photo world it would be considered a joke. Nikon with Canon are the two most matured lens system in the world. You can have all type of lens from super wide to super telephoto, macro, micro, tilt-shift etc. and all these lens will work as they should with autofocus, metering, stabilisation etc. They also have all sorts of third party manufactures to choose from Tamron, tokina, sigma to the high-end zeiss. In the case of Nikon you can also buy hald a century old lens that will work on the camera. When you invest in the Nikon lens you are sure that it will be a guaranteed investment because you will have a body to attach it to in 50 years. This is why, those lens tend to not depreciate a lot with time.

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