nikon d90 slr records HD video.

[aaamotion]

One advantage any camera from Nikon, Canon etc would have over Red would be local servicing as all these guys have an established network. We had a lens fixed by Canon last week in 24Hrs!

As stated this is the first step but Canon in particular will not be far behind and Sony & Panasonic are bound to follow thereafter. The exciting thing about it is no one company will capture the market exclusively.

You were lucky, or you live in Japan lol or you lied :tongue:
because I m living in Paris and if you have any problem, you have to wait at least a week to get fixed your lense or Camera!

 

[Karl H]

This could be bigger news than we realise.

Ok so a nikon SLR isnt designed for video shooting - but the technology is there and imagine what it would do if complimented by a well designed video body, as opposed to a last minute software add-on which this appears to be.

The main thing for me is you have a sensor clocking at 24fps at 4K and it doesn't need to be fan cooled! It doesnt weigh a ton either. The fact that it can only produce 720p right now is a recording limitation which hopefully is due to the DSLR designed internals. Redesigned as a video cam Im sure that would go to 1080p easily.

I bought the Red One, but i have to say this tech points to something that potentially could be a lot lighter and cheaper than a Red One within a couple years.

Personally I had alwasy hoped the Red would be lighter and more prosumer friendly than it is. I remember Jim saying there was no need for the Red to be the size an weight of a varicam and it would be more like a Z1. Unfort that never turned out to be the case. Scarlet I might buy, but I really would have liked to have put my canon lenses on it.

exciting times.

I think when people were asking for a 'scaled' mode in their Red, this is what they were refering to. All the benifits of 4K DOF, but super small 720p/1080p file size for extended recording times on CF. Ok, it isnt RAW, but im sure there are situations where people would compromise and use this (I would for some corporate video), and I assume you'd get a better editing experience than we do right now with R3D.

 

[kidrobot]

The main thing for me is you have a sensor clocking at 24fps at 4K and it doesn't need to be fan cooled!

It doesn't have to be, but given the 5min limit at 720p, it could probably benefit from some cool air.

 

[Tom Lowe]

So is this using a standard DSLR shutter?

Kevlar?

 

[Leo Ticheli]

So is this using a standard DSLR shutter?

Kevlar?

Surely not, Tom. I don't think any current shutter would last very long.

I would expect the exposures to be made as in the Red, with Live View.

Good shooting and best regards,

Leo

 

[Jamesmanilow]

Jim recently mentioned that RED is planning a camera for the DSLR market. It makes sense and I think RED is already two steps ahead of the competition, or at least as far as far as capturing high-res moving images goes.

Jim is a brave man and a risk-taker and he has deeper pockets than many of us.
But, his pockets are not deep enough to compete in the DSLR market.
That market is riddled with corpses of also-rans. Even venerable Kodak is lying in the dust there.
I hope Jim will soon wake up from his delusional dreams and forget about his plans to compete in the DSLR field and avoid a personal bankruptcy.

As far as RED is concerned, Jim has stirred up the tiny mavie-camera niche market.
Here also, once Japanese and Korean competitors bring out their 4K, 35mm, PL mount, under $10K camera, it will be a whole new ball gme.

 

[Graeme Nattress]

To compete and win in any market, you must not only innovate, but listen. RED is innovating, that's for sure, but we're also listening.

Graeme

 

[Tom Lowe]

I hope Jim will soon wake up from his delusional dreams and forget about his plans to compete in the DSLR field and avoid a personal bankruptcy.

Hah! Hah! Hah! Apparently, you don't know much about Jim.

 

[Castle]

Hey Castle, that's very interesting info you have... post more please!

Thanks. I'll try to extrapolate on my previous post.

This convergence, and the release of the D90, in many ways shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Sony's new CMOS sensors have been designed from the ground-up as both a still and video sensor, and we've seen variants of these Exmor sensors that center around column-parallel A/D method in everything from the D90, A700, Casio EX-F1, PMW-EX1, and soon the 24.8MP full-frame Alpha-900 DSLR (and rumored Nikon D3x).

In fact, this 'convergence' was openly published by themselves in Sony Semiconductor and LCD News publication about a year and a half ago, they were discussing the IMX017CQE (which would later be seen in the Casio EX-F1):

"The column-parallel A/D conversion technique introduced in this article achieves radical improvements in the speed and picture quality of CMOS sensors. Sony is now developing CMOS sensors that adopt this technique and take maximum advantage of CMOS sensor high-speed characteristics for application such as seamless imaging that can capture still images at the same time as capturing moving images to hard disk video recorders and other devices. This technology also has the possibility of implementing new ultrahigh-speed cameras that can capture video at the ultrahigh speed of several hundred frame/s."

The IMX017CQE Exmor sensor was designed to do 6.4MP at 60fps or 2.8MP at 180fps. This was achieved since the processing is performed in parallel for each column, the A/D conversion frequency is extremely low, and the high-frequency band noise components can be separated from the signal components.

Theoretically speaking, the IMX021-variant CMOS sensor in the D90 could do 1080p and 30+fps or more, however there are other issues involved. Since the internal machinations of the D90 aren't published, we can only do guess work based off of already published data from Sony. Looking, at the IMX017CQE runs at a 75mhz for the master clock and the internal PLL generates 300mhz to implement the high-speed operation of A/D converters, slope generating DA converter, digital output LVDS interface, etc. But running a higher clockspeed on a sensor the size of IMX021 in the D90 body may lead to other issues such as heating. Beyond that, the image processor its mated to wasn't designed to handle video to the best of our knowledge, and there are downstream considerations as well. Possibly with a different form factor, dedicated cooling and DSP- it may be possible.

As far as directly dealing with rolling-shutter issues its much more difficult. There are methods such as APS(active pixel sensor) very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) CMOS that NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory designed that dramatically reduces rolling shutter, and I've also heard of rolling-shutter prediction algorithms where the DSP can compensate for skew. But none of this helps Nikon or Sony at the moment. Rolling-shutter will be something that these convergent devices will have for the near future (but hopefully dramatically less).

Moving forward, I would surprised if Sony's Alpha-700 successor doesn't have HD video capabilities as well (since it uses the same sensor as the D90). Olympus with their micro-4/3 mount and Samsung/Pentax have announced a new line of "bridge"/'rangefinder' cameras that have interchangeable lenses. These cameras will lose the reflex-mirror element and use EVFs and Live-View to operate the camera and would be a perfect candidate for HD-video. I guess RED has also announced something, Finally, there's Canon, its hard to imagine they would sitting on their thumbs; its only a matter of time.

We've also yet to see back-lit CMOS sensors commercialized and Canon has just put in gap-less microlenses in their CMOS; sensor technology is moving forward incredibly rapidly. For me at least, the D90 isn't interesting so much as what it preludes to.

 

[Jamesmanilow]

Hah! Hah! Hah! Apparently, you don't know much about Jim.

Dear Friend,
Jim got 1.3 billion from his sale of Oakley.
That is a lot more money than both of us put together.
But, compared to Sony, that is drop in a bucket.
Sony eat 1.3 billion for breakfast everyday.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Dear Friend,
Jim got 1.3 billion from his sale of Oakley.
That is a lot more money than both of us put together.
But, compared to Sony, that is drop in a bucket.
Sony eat 1.3 billion for breakfast everyday.

And Jim eats doubters for breakfast.

 

[Craig Ryan]

Dear Friend,
Jim got 1.3 billion from his sale of Oakley.
That is a lot more money than both of us put together.
But, compared to Sony, that is drop in a bucket.
Sony eat 1.3 billion for breakfast everyday.

And they give how much of that back to their customers? Apparently there must be some secret Sony society where they get free firmware upgrades, sensor upgrades, a new standard for customer feedback/interaction, and even have their whole team of developers/programmers, AND Chief of operations on a message board to answer all of their questions, even if they are sometimes ridiculous.
:whistling::sarcasm:

 

[Kenn Michael]

So Kholi and Drew Ott over at dvxuser got their hands on the D90 and Kholi has been shooting quick tests and posting the results...

What's interesting is that it makes you appreciate what Red has done with the SLR-type sensor technology and made it an extremely viable motion picture solution.

What are the problems with the D90?

- Ridiculous amount of skew. Like cellphone skew.

- Whatever process Nikon is using to do the realtime scale down to 720 from the full frame sensor is pretty nasty. Taking the 720 files and downconverting them to 480 looks acceptable. Graeme probably knows what method their using, but it makes me think about how doing realtime scaling of full Red sensor to 2K or 1080 was scrapped from the feature list.

- Color and basic look are nice, but there is a lot of hacking and little workarounds to get manual operation while shooting video.

Anyway, we all realize that this is just the beginning of Nikon and Canon starting to do their convergence thing... But it's also a testament to the amazing work that the Red team has done over the last years to make Red One what it is today.

 

[JanneJansson]

Dear Friend,
Jim got 1.3 billion from his sale of Oakley.
That is a lot more money than both of us put together.
But, compared to Sony, that is drop in a bucket.
Sony eat 1.3 billion for breakfast everyday.

Sony can't make a 4k camera over night, because then they have made ALL other cameras they are making old technology. Sooner or later they are making a 4K camera that lands in the $200k zone, and have the "SONY" stamp on it.

 

[Steve Sanacore]

I guess the company to really watch out for is Cannon, since they have a long tradition with both and are sort of behind right now. It's just a matter if they'll do it in time to matter. If not Nikon may be the one who unexpectedly steals the thunder in the upcoming digital cinematic revolution (besides Red, of course, who is helping getting it started).

I would guess Canon, Sony and Panasonic are all well equipped to make full frame 35mm digital movie cameras as soon as they see a market for it large enough to justify the investment. It will be interesting to see what happens. It could turn into internal disputes between the video vs. still capture divisions of the companies. Sort of like what happened at IBM in the 80's when the PC started to outperform their mini computers. Lot's of heads rolling and funny stories there.

How difficult could it be for Sony to take their best 10MP 35mm sensor and stick it in a Cinealta body with an SLR or PL lens mount?

These are exciting times....

 

[ThydNostrum]

I would guess Canon, Sony and Panasonic are all well equipped to make full frame 35mm digital movie cameras as soon as they see a market for it large enough to justify the investment. It will be interesting to see what happens. It could turn into internal disputes between the video vs. still capture divisions of the companies. Sort of like what happened at IBM in the 80's when the PC started to outperform their mini computers. Lot's of heads rolling and funny stories there.

How difficult could it be for Sony to take their best 10MP 35mm sensor and stick it in a Cinealta body with an SLR or PL lens mount?.

Sony already markets a 4K projector. They have the Vegas editor that does 4K post workflow. Sony has already manufactured a 28MP sensor in their Facory.
As soon as their non-compete agreement with Panavision expires, they will introduce a 4K, 35mm Camera along with Software for 4K editing, 4K projector and 4K monitor.
There is a rumor that Sony is readying a 2/3" 4K camera for under $10K for NAB 2009. Probably a PMW-EX5.

These are exciting times.

 

[Sarah C.]

As soon as their non-compete agreement with Panavision expires, they will introduce a 4K, 35mm Camera along with Software for 4K editing, 4K projector and 4K monitor.

And I just heard today that Panavision is buying or has bought some Red cameras!

~S

 

[Andrew Walker]

I heard the same thing last weekend at a party.

 

[Manfred Lopez]

As soon as their non-compete agreement with Panavision expires, they will introduce a 4K, 35mm Camera along with Software for 4K editing, 4K projector and 4K monitor.
There is a rumor that Sony is readying a 2/3" 4K camera for under $10K for NAB 2009. Probably a PMW-EX5.

And I just heard today that Panavision is buying or has bought some Red cameras!

~S

What?! I leave the forum for 24 hours and this happens? Wow, I guess NAB 2009 will be a game-changer for these companies... 'THE DAY THEY'LL SAY "ME TOO"'

 

[Kaku Ito]

D90 and Casio Exlim Pro cameras are not movie cameras, they are digital SLR that can shoot movie clips. It is not much more than any digital camera with movie function, they won't be for shooting movies unless some kind of special approach is planned.

Shooting video with D90, it was so much better than Casio since you can change the focus during the shoot. Also vast choices of interchangeable lenses adds a lot for more creative shooting methods. It meant to shoot static shots, as soon as you pan or do handy shooting, or even shooting fast moving object in static shooting, it suffers serious rolling shutter issues.

D90 seems to be a great DSLR, but nothing to get serious for shooting movies. Its movie function is just extra feature.