@sqeakytoy of the apocalypse: Yes I think you're right. My guess is that the high ISO settings introduced lots of noise, so instead they took the easy way out and just lit the scene well and stopped down. Sort of bait and switch, but I don't doubt the validity of their claims of better exposure in dim lighting.

jibbly

looking at the side by side, I think they used a different aperture on the brighter one. If you look at the depth of field on the buildings in the background, the darker buildings are much sharper, and it doesnt quite look like highlight bloom. Anyone else think so?

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

I just shat myself into a blissful pro-video stupor.

OOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooOOOh baby, come to papa.

jibbly

Sound sucks? What sound?

nXt

@tdeckard2000: It's not Youtube, at least I don't think it is

Jon B.

I might be commenting in a historic moment for the future of the dSLR industry.

robotaks

Uhm.. the second youtube videos sorta kool (The shape).

tdeckard2000

Sweet! Perfect for those "Satans Alley" lighting moments.

thetickler

awesome! c'mon Canon, answer back! I'd really love to use my nice L lenses for some cool shallow DOF video.

nubbinator

also, how do you include an image in a post?

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@pantsonfireliarliar: of course, having sound might have answered my question before I posted... cough cough edit button cough

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

I think the must have shot the first at f8, then opened up to like f4 and jumped up the iso to shoot the brighter one. Yeah, bait and switch...

sqeakytoy of the apocalypse

@jibbly: The second video is supposed to be high ISO D90 vs a typical camcorder. So it makes sense that the DOF is more shallow in the D90 video since most camcorders typically have a pretty large DOF.

pantsonfireliarliar

Looks pretty fabulous for a DSLR with video support.

djspyhunter

The second video is from 2 different cameras side-by-side. The movement of the girl is the same, but the cameras are in different positions... look at the zoom and position of the background.

The video on the right is from the D90, notice the blurry background. I'm sure the video on the left is a traditional camcorder, since the background is in focus with the foreground.

I doubt they used 2 D90s side by side and just changed the aperture.

MichaelScrip

After owning my first dslr for a year.. I bought a film camera.

Ethan Halko!

Wow, color me impressed! I paid a pretty penny for my N90S over ten years ago and it was worth every bit of it. I think it's time to add a this to my collection...

archetype94306

@dotyoureyes:

You can record up to 20 minutes in the lower resolution modes... which is pretty close to MiniDV at 640x424.

Nikon isn't trying to replace a camcorder, it just added some video recording to an already capable DSLR.

Camcorders can shoot hours of video, but take crappy stills. The D90 takes excellent stills, and great HD clips. I prefer the latter. :)

MichaelScrip

The killer feature would be an audio add-on -- a vertical grip-style attachment that includes a shotgun mic, 1/8" (or XLR?) inputs, and maybe even a wireless receiver.

Bonus points if it extends the recording time past 5 minutes, which is the other limit keeping the D90 from being a real camcorder replacement.

dotyoureyes

Im blown away by the video quality, for a device that only has it just because they finally were able to put it in their DSLR. And for only 999? Consider me a first time owner of a DSLR, and this is where ill start. Two birds with one stone.

diabolusunknownTheSecond

Wow. I really hope Canon busts through with this feature on the new 5d - I really don't want to start selling lenses to go back over to Nikon. Again.

Tommasta

@dotyoureyes:

I guess you could easily use a good/cheap external mic like a Zoom H4 and 'clap' sync it in post if you want good quality sound.

But an external mic attachment would be nice. I would think it would be best to have it mounted on the hot-shoe like the GPS unit.

Scaramanga

@MichaelScrip: Note to self: Insert foot in mouth.

Thanks for clearing that up, homies.

jibbly

@sqeakytoy of the apocalypse:

Or you just dont get it. Go to the website. One is a digcam and the other is the Nikon. Its pretty simple to understand. One has a small A for deep DOF and a tiny sensor and the other has a MASSIVE CMOS sensor and you can open up the lense.

Or have you never used an SLR?

archercc

Well this may make me sell my current dslr k100d 6mp and my canon hv30 camcorder.
Sell them both and pick up this, although the audio won't be as good as the external mic I have on the hv30, it would be nice to see an external mic solution for the d90.
Also I won't make a choice until I have a chance to work with the format, is it 4:2:2 color space? if it is I may be sold.

Then again I may just wait for scarlet.

thedarkhorse

@archercc:

I doubt its an issue with the flash drives, the D90 supports SDHC and class6 standard is as fast as the CF drives used in the Red One for video. The real reason it doesn't do RAW is that the Expeed image processor and buffer wasn't designed for handling video (which is the reason why the D90 can only do mjpeg). The D90 is just the first step, and a darn good deal for under a grand, hopefully future iterations will have a dedicated DSP that can do 1080p and raw.

Scaramanga

I thought the point of focus couldn't be changed while it was recording. not sure where i heard this though. so i may be wrong

MrBlahBlah

@Scaramanga:

Its an interesting thought but I dont see it happening in part because of the bus and memory speed needed. Im betting the 24fps is the quickest nikon could garuntee it could perform at with the compressed files. For a full RAW file it would be dumping amazing amounts of data onto those poor flash drives.

It would have to jump to an HD or NAND flash storage.

archercc

@archercc:

Comparatively speaking the D90 sensor is huge. It's roughly the size of super35mm film, and also the size of the Red One sensor. The real future of this camera would be if they can reduce rolling shutter artifacts that are inherit to CMOS sensors for video, and be able to shoot in RAW (Nikon needs to make a RAW video format based on their already existant NEF RAW).

Here is an image that compares sensor sizes with the D90, Red One, Red Scarlet, taken from the Red user boards:
[img169.imageshack.us]

Scaramanga

Actually, the way Goo Tube works, the quality we actually see from this camera is probably going to be shaky out of focus talking black blobs in front of dorm room windows.

heroineworshipper

Too bad they're only giving out tiny flash videos.

heroineworshipper

The Canon HF10 can crush this jabrone camera's HD video res.

jpitsch

@jpitsch: As can many off the shelf camcorders these days. Except they have absolutely no flexibility in lens selection, depth of field control or availability of large aperture lenses. Those options alone give you quite a bit of creative control over the image that's produced. D-Video mode has none of what a consumer would expect in a camcorder, namely autofocus, easy zoom, even stereo sound or recording over 5 minutes (for HD quality).

I may be wrong in the potential for this, but I picture kitting out a small indie film or even student film project with 3-4 of these with a good selection of lenses and an external audio system all for the price of 1 HD camera with a few lenses.

pantsonfireliarliar

proper glass will kill extra resolution any day.
I have an hv30 that shoots 1440x1080 rectangular pixels, full 1080 if I capture through hdmi. However I would take proper glass, great depth of field, wide tonal range, and a large high sensitivity sensor, even if it gives a hit to 720p res.

thedarkhorse

well you have to hold it like you would an slr anyway because it's manual focus only.

dpreview has posted the sample videos in the native avi format, downloading them right now.
[www.dpreview.com]

thedarkhorse

@efenili: How about a Video Camera that you can use different Lenses ?

xCruciaLx

who the hell wants to carry a DSLR like a video camera though?
Am I crazy here? The body simply does not work for any series kind of video shooting im sorry. I mean its great that it does decent video and all....but its more of a bonus than a feature if you ask me

efenili

My camera club had two photojournalists from the local paper come down and give a little presentation, and one of the things they mentioned was increasingly they're being told to take cheapie video cams with them to get video for the website. It doesn't have to be super duper because it's never going to be broadcast, just stuck on the web. And they're a Nikon shop. I'd bet above and beyond all the filmmaking aspirations this becomes a de facto feature for news and event photogs.

junyo

@efenili: "who the hell wants to carry a DSLR like a video camera though? The body simply does not work for any series kind of video shooting im sorry... its more of a bonus than a feature if you ask me"

Point-n-shoot camera are no easier for shooting video either. But you wouldn't shoot a school play with a Canon Elph... you'd use a real camcorder on a tripod.

You're right, it's a bonus feature. It's a DSLR that also shoots HD video clips. They didn't take a camcorder and turn it into a DSLR. They added video to a DSLR.

MichaelScrip

after downloading the avi's from dpreview I'm fairly impressed, I would like to see some tripod shots though.
I played with the shots in final cut and pushed the levels high with color correction, stupidly high, and I saw no noise at all. The worst was blocky compression artifacts showing up in the blacks when I really pumped them. HDV never stands up this well, pushing levels will usually produce noise, so this shows that footage should have a lot of flexibility for color grading and manipulation without loss of quality.
However, there is a bit of compression block artifacts that show up in the footage in areas of high detail(rocks on duck shot and feathers on penguins head), I will have to see more clips from various situations before I'm sold.

The stills are pretty spectacular too.

thedarkhorse

.... DX format?.. damnn....

pipichua

The HD video samples look like decent quality, but I prefer the ability to zoom in an out.

jpitsch

@MichaelScrip:

That is the whole point, to compare the traditional camcorder and DSLR video capability.

sim4nee

The video of the duck on [www.dpreview.com] shows the camera zooming in.

zakharm

This definitely not the feature that would make me switch from Canon to Nikon. For doing movies I prefer either having a correct vid-cam or a crappy entry level camera. When I am using my DSLR I just want to do still photography. The only thing I see nice here is the really low noise level on high ISO (which was already available on the D700)

Frel

i saw some raw footage from a reviewer, and though the sensor size is a huge plus for video, the rolling shutter issues looked pretty noticable for non-tripoded shots.. could be a dealbreaker

jaredvxd

Okay, so step one in my budget is get a D90.

Step two is a steady-cam setup. Movie quality on that duck video on DPReview was very good..until he starting zooming in. Video got a bit choppy during that movement. I blame any autofocus that's running and possibly the VR.

D0rk

Just think of the homemade porn possibilities!

Srsly, though. That's pretty neat.

Nayrlladnar

It might be interesting to see what this merging of DSLR and video camera looks like next from the other end. I imagine something like Sony's HVR-Z7U only with the media
swapped around so the CF recording is built-in and the tape recording is external - and having an Alpha sensor variant from which HD video or DSLR resolution stills can be read.

JBanister

@Frel: Yeah. Already on the D700, whose body only retails for $3k.

Tony C

@sim4nee: "That is the whole point, to compare the traditional camcorder and DSLR video capability."

But you really can't compare the two. A camcorder is a device that can record long form video, with a mic input, but takes dreadful low-resolution stills.

The D90 is a DSLR that takes excellent stills, and has the ability to record casual HD clips.

One will not replace the other... so you can't really compare them either.

MichaelScrip

Oh yeah... finally, the DSLR that is the right balance of cost and features.

Important to me: Live View. No, I expect I will only RARELY use it - but there are times I can see it being critical. Same with video clips, but I wish you could have selected 24 or 30 fps, and external microphone.

Being able to use my 28-200 lens from my Nikon N60 film SLR = bonus.

Pre-ordered on Amazon, with kit lens (18-105, VR - better than my 28-200 in all except I can super-duper-zoom).

I was all set to get the Sony a350, but due to not knowing what lens, and working so much overtime that I did not have time to research it, that when I jumped back in the research this summer, I started seeing D90 guess-specs, and realized I had to wait.

Glad I did!!!!!

goglen

What about Image Stabilization? Will my 70-200 f/2.8's VR work with this? Were these videos done hand held or with tripods/mounts? Love the DOF here and I have all of the lenses used in these videos. Very intriguing. Of course, I get the D300 this past July and am now trying to get a D700 (and use the D300 as a second body). Now? Perhaps a D9o too? Oh my. It is getting very expensive!

TorrenceCopreus