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Nikon D4s


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This probably won't be the choice for many here, but as I'm sitting here at the press conference, there are a few interesting tidbits, like ProRes support, 42Mbps at 50/60 FPS and finally, aperture control during movie live view! There's also a silent still mode that does 24 FPS at HD resolution. Could be useful if there's some form of lossless storage.

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This probably won't be the choice for many here, but as I'm sitting here at the press conference, there are a few interesting tidbits, like ProRes support, 42MBps at 50/60 FPS and finally, aperture control during movie live view! There's also a silent still mode that does 24 FPS at HD resolution. Could be useful if there's some form of lossless storage.

The D4 and D800 already have aperture control in live view. 42MBps, that is mega bits? Ridiculous. 

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Guest Ebrahim Saadawi

My research shows only improvements are 1-60p  2-HDMI out whilst internally recording and some kind of improved timelapse mode (!)  

Anyhow I guess this is still a huge improvement upon the D4 as it was unusabely soft. 

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The D4 and D800 already have aperture control in live view. 42MBps, that is mega bits? Ridiculous. 

I'm an idiot. That's wrong. It's megabits, not bytes! Sorry.

 

I believe you cannot change aperture during video recording though. That was the impression I got.

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My research shows only improvements are 1-60p  2-HDMI out whilst internally recording and some kind of improved timelapse mode (!)  

Anyhow I guess this is still a huge improvement upon the D4 as it was unusabely soft. 

 

The press conference mentioned ProRes in one of the slides. I'm hoping it means an actual implementation of it.

 

But it still seems to me like a joke for a 6500$ camera. They have XQD cards which can write from 125megabyte/s to 400. If they had spent 2 days coding they could have come up with 1080p compressed raw. Let's see if the 24fps continuous raw works longer than 20secs.

 

It still is mostly a stills camera. I got to take it for a spin, it's as fast befits a top level DSLR. Alas that speed doesn't really translate to video, obviously.

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This probably won't be the choice for many here, but as I'm sitting here at the press conference, there are a few interesting tidbits, like ProRes support, 42Mbps at 50/60 FPS and finally, aperture control during movie live view! There's also a silent still mode that does 24 FPS at HD resolution. Could be useful if there's some form of lossless storage.

 

My appetite for putting down $6500 for this is absolutely zero.

 

The video spec is barely any better than their $700 camera and it cannot match the GH4 for video quality, ergonomics or overall features.

 

Pro stills cameras with an afterthought video mode are yesterday's news guys... we have so much more to look forward to in 2014.

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Pro stills cameras with an afterthought video mode are yesterday's news guys... we have so much more to look forward to in 2014.

 

Couldn't agree more.  I was looking at a video last night comparing 4K to 1080p, was very impressive.  

 

 

That video makes the upcoming AX100 very interesting.  Who knows, maybe a resurgence in camcorders will be the ones to threaten DSLR video !   (Though with the BMPCC, for me, DSLR video is already dead)

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A resurgence of camcorders... I think 4K and 1" large-ish sensor are a way to go about it, as is great stabilisation and they're good for run & gun shot grabbing in a documentary form, journalism and interviews... but artistically I will always prefer the look of interchangeable lenses, so I can't see them gaining any real traction with the broader filmmaking community again.

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 I can't see them gaining any real traction with the broader filmmaking community again.

 

Absolutely, they won't sell into that most minuscule of markets ;)  However, most camera companies don't make money, and succeed, by making something technically difficult obtainable, but easy and affordable.  We want to keep an open mind here, right?  Right now, phones are killing all kinds of cameras, still and video.  In parallel, Instagram has made "rough, colorful and contrasty" images desirable, over sharp, saturated and flat imaging.  One could make a case, and I think most of my friends would, that consumer photography and video is dead (from a growth perspective), relegated back to the aficionados.

 

As I mentioned, a while back, I finally got a BMPCC because of the stills you posted.  I'm still wondering if it's better to get the right expression of someone, in lower res, than perfect image and bad timing.   Is is possible (and again, I'm just thinking out loud) that a consumer may choose a 4K camcorder because it provides broadcast looking video AND "photos" at a size they respect as still-quality?  

 

The readers of EOSHD are not the drivers of consumer photography and video, we are in the backseat.  So where the consumer goes, we're taken.  The history strongly suggests that the consumer is not as easy to figure out as one would think ;)

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A large majority of consumers are happy to play and watch poor quality streamed films/movies/TV, and still be thoroughly entertained, regardless. 

Kinda makes me wonder if 4K will make it or not.  I hope it does, but I am not confident.

 

I asked a someone if she was watching the Olympics, and she said, "No.  I don't watch TV.  I just watch Netflix."  I can't even imagine having the majority of my video being low quality streamed, with poor resolution, macro blocking, and buffering messages.  It's a waste of an HDTV.

 

I showed someone else some BMCC footage on Vimeo, and she said it looked "like a movie".  She and her husband only have SD cable service on their HDTV.  They didn't want to spend the extra money for HD channels. :o

 

Also people seem to be quite happy paying for tickets at the theater to watch movies projected in 2K, which is not really any better than what you could see at home.

 

I think we are in a quantity over quality phase right now.

 

Michael

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The D4S has 1.5x and 2.7x crop modes for video. I guess the latter is a 1:1 pixel crop at 1080p?

Probably it's pretty good in low light. But well, this is definitely not for the average video shooter.

 

Quality in 2.7x crop mode was very good on the old D4, I am sure it will be nice on the D4S too. Low light not so great, as it's a 1:1 crop. This is always much noisier than a scaling down of the whole sensor.

 

For me what is important is the full sensor image, and I am sure it is going to be more of the same.

 

We're in a new era now. The old style stuff just won't do.

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90% I watch videos on my TV which I downloaded from Youtube, Vimeo or other web services in HD and I got way better quality that from terestrial broadcasting or cable. My home made program playlist looks way better than offical one. Especialy music videos stations broadcast most od SD in shitty quality so I use it only like a reference what to download because I can stand their mushy pixel blocking shit  :)

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90% I watch videos on my TV which I downloaded from Youtube, Vimeo or other web services in HD and I got way better quality that from terestrial broadcasting or cable. My home made program playlist looks way better than offical one. Especialy music videos stations broadcast most od SD in shitty quality so I use it only like a reference what to download because I can stand their mushy pixel blocking shit  :)

 

So what's the point is it that you're making, that the acquisition format should be as shit as the delivery format? :)

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At the moment, I see 4k very much as a tool for post work or future proofing stock footage. Instead of more resolution, it should be more dynamic range....but the TV manufacturers can only really sell new sets on improved resolution (and gimmicks such as 3D or internet connectivity).

 

I think dynamic range will be adopted at some point as a major selling point for cameras, which they will call..ahem, Movie HDR. "My camera shoots movies in HDR!" Say what? 

 

As for the topic, the Nikon D4s, yawn. Who cares? Better stuff out there. Consumers don't care either way, the makority are happy with SD and pixel-pooping buffering, jolting movies. 

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I think dynamic range will be adopted at some point as a major selling point for cameras, which they will call..ahem, Movie HDR. "My camera shoots movies in HDR!" Say what? 

 

 

I saw that in a recent build of Magic Lantern!  Reads...

 

"Alternate ISO between frames. Flickers while recording"

This feature requires manual ISO

 

Andrew?

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Guest Ebrahim Saadawi

I saw that in a recent build of Magic Lantern! Reads...

"Alternate ISO between frames. Flickers while recording"
This feature requires manual ISO

Andrew?


True and I used it once :D
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