I wasn’t that interested in video until living down the hall from a friend who is producing his own short film (to very high standards). Then, as a working photojournalist I realized the power of video in online content.

The world is changing and the combination of video, web 2.0 applications and increasing portability of devices has changed content delivery forever. YouTube is the #4 most visited site in the world (and probably uses the most bandwidth overall), compared to Flickr at #32 and Photobucket at #42.

This doesn’t mean stills will go away – they won’t. The power of a single frame, a photograph, is definitely unparalleled. A video doesn’t stick in your mind like a photograph does. It just means that photographs and video will have to share a place in the visual media world.

By the way, I really liked that video by Vincent Munier. The music set a great atmosphere to go with some superb wildlife cinematography. That he used ISO 12,800 for some of the scenes is absolutely amazing – I don’t think there is another video camera available that could have gotten the same shots as this.

Now for $5000 I can now get the film look w/ out all the other crap, and a kick ass camera! I love it!

Anyway, I guess I just want see Nikon do something great. They are so very close. They just need to step up their game just a little.

But there in lies the rub. Would I ever use this for anything other than an occasional hit it and quit it shoot. Those times when I am not looking at obtaining a permit from the local jurisdiction. Though, it is just limiting enough that it makes it difficult for even that.

I just love the idea of a huge sensor, with full 1080p, and interchangeable lenses. If it could provide me an easier option for balanced audio, all the better. It would probably become an important tool if it has just those two things.

I’m rambling. I guess I want to stop using Canon equipment for film and video. I run into the “Canon Sharp” optics issue there as well.

No, I wasn’t making this judgment off of the samples provided. As well, they are still using the same codec in the D3s as they have used in every previous s type camera.

As for the mic issue. I know there are a lot of ways around it. My issue is that it is a pro-level camera, if they ever intend this to be anything more than a gimmick, then they need to step it up. Also, I don’t produce video for broadcast. Most of what I produce is corporate promotional stuff. So, I would like 1080p, It looks good when it is presented to clients and it looks good for their clients.

I’ll post again once I find the links to the full quality again.

hopefully next body they goto 1080p and extend this short time limitation..in fact i would love to see this in the d700s since that price level is more comparable to the 5d mii. oh well i was holding out to sell the 5d..now i add the 7d and go canon for video dslr reasons. but still have 2 d3’s and nikon lenses shooting photography…thanks canon and nikon im broke cuz i have both!…maybe sony will rise out of nowhere and create the ultimate cameras that is a 5d mii and D3 combined..haha

Hopefully Nikon will not pursue H.264. Much more would be gained by developing some kind of RAW video format like RED has done.

RAW video + motion jpeg for video
NEF + jpeg for stills

This make more sense than trying to make H.264 work.

These people complaining about video quality… I don’t understand. Most of the complainers out there do NOT have the processing power to create anything close to those youtube videos. And if you say you can, you are a liar, a beginner, and cannot use a camera, let alone have any knowledge of video editing.

And for those that are interested in video creation like the youtube one, something at least Canopus is good. Anything less than that, and your renderers are noticeable to the eye at 720p.

I would expect a full 1080p video body from Nikon long before that and 4K and 8K bodies for cinema use.

Don’t just judge by the performance today, take a look at the size of Nikon’s bodies compared to ‘pro’ video cams. You can stick a 400mm f/2.8 lens on a D3s and still end up with a lighter package than some pro end video gear. And last time I looked, the ‘pro’ video cams were about four years behind consumer cams on features like using solid state media.

I think it is pretty clear where Nikon plans to go with video. They are going to take that video headset and pair it with a dedicated video body. So instead of having to carry 19lb on your shoulder you can hold a 4-6lb device wherever is appropriate to take the shot.

Thats not something they have fully worked out today, but it is clearly going to come. The main reason they can’t do 1080p at the moment is a shortage of processing power. They can always add more.

There is no camcorder on the market at any price that has an API. Nikon has an API.

I think that alone is going to be huge for the use of the Nikon cameras in special effects and animation work.

As for photojournalism, which is the only pro application I can think of where a D3 body might be necessary for robustness, imagine you are a photojournalist out to snap pictures of some event. You are not sure about getting the perfect shot holding the camera over your head, so you turn on video and hope. Or you are taking pictures of Obama giving his next big speech. You have the prepared remarks, you know where he is going to deliver the punchlines, you take a clip of video at that point rather than only taking stills.

I think that the real long term impact on video in the DSLR form factor is that the job of photojournalist will stretch to encompass stills and video.

Stills can be photoshopped, photoshopping video is much harder. So there is an additional layer of authenticity you get from video.

If you are a police photographer photographing a crime scene, a video mode would be hugely useful. It would be even more useful if Nikon had a genuine image authentication mode rather than a crap one that no professional cyptographer could defend in court as an expert witness as it stands.

I know one of the loactions well and have shot there myself both on film and digital.. next spring I think I´ll bring along my large format there, thats more like 1 frame per hour!

Alex

1. Correlate the posters who are “crying” about 1080p against those that proclaimed Nikon will release 1080 in their next camera.
2. Prove that “many” of those correlated persons suddenly switched sides.

You know what? You can’t. Your post was utterly imbecilic; trying to draw conclusions where there were none. If you can’t back up your ridiculous statements with fact, turn off your computer and go away.

Also, H.264 does not mean ‘a loss of quality’, quite the opposite! At the same file size / bandwidth, H.264 will provide _much_ better video quality than M-JPEG. M-JPEG is an old and very outdated codec, the only reason for using it is not having the know-how and processing power to use a more modern codec. H.264 has been designed with a wide range of applications in mind, including very high quality applications such as digital cinema, it’s capable of delivering top quality video in very high resolution way beyond what M-JPEG is realistically capable of. If you’re a camera manufacturer with JPEG compression hardware in your camera and little to no experience and know-how regarding the newer and more complex video codecs, you may chose to use M-JPEG, but if you’re looking for the best technology available and have the processing power required in your camera, you will most certainly go for a state-of-the-art codec like H.264.