Video Capabilities with the Nikon D90
I have been goofing around with the Nikon D90 for some time now. I wanted to iron out all the kinks before offering this photo/video fusion to my clients so here is a sample video my wife and I shot just today. As you can see, it is of my little guy, Cameron, and his first time eating solid foods. This is just a quick run of how quick video can be taken and edited down to a decent home movie or more…
I shot this video using a Nikon D90 and a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. A monopod was used to stabilize the camera some and everything else was pretty much pretty basic. The video was shot in the highest high def quality that the D90 offers (720i) and then converted from AVI to MOV format on my Macbook Pro. iMovie ’08 was used to edit the video and throw in the titles, transitions and music.
All in all, it took about 1 hour to edit around 40 minutes of video down to the 6.5 minute movie that you see here:
Nikon D90 Home Movie Sample from Michael Bielat on Vimeo
Here are my initial thoughts about the D90…
D90 Pros:
- I love how easy it is to shoot the video and it is all on the SD card for quick transferring over to my computer. My High Def camcorder uses miniDV tapes which is a REAL pain to get the video to my computer. This isn’t an issue with video being on an SD card.
- 720p High Def quality is still awesome! Don’t tell me “Joe Six Pack” (yeah I’m bringing it back) can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p…
- A couple button clicks and you are recording high def video easily. It took my wife 2 minutes to get her groove on with recording video and applying her artistic eye on things. Don’t let her know but it only took me 1 minute ;p
- Quiet: The shutter isn’t loud when taking still captures.
D90 Cons:
- Camera shake when shooting video. The camera body is so light that it is easy to wiggle around.VR lenses will help but there aren’t too many in Nikon’s lens arsenal that are fast enough and worthy for all around use. My only VR lens is the 70-200mm and good luck keeping the camera steady hand holding that bad boy. I am using a monopod to steady the camera but a stabilizer will definitely be my next purchase. I may purchase the battery grip down the road to help weigh this camera down.
- Blur: The only fast and responsive way to focus is manually. The 3″ LCD screen helps to judge your focus but it isn’t always perfect. I like to use the shallow DOF that my lenses have so I really need to be dead on. I also like to do unique camera angles that have me looking at the LCD screen on quite the extreme angle. I look forward to how they will handle this is future camera models.
- Jello Video: The software design of things makes it so that the video appears to jiggle like jello when panning fast or shaking the camera. This isn’t found on camcorders. Hopefully a firmware update can fix this…
- External Mic: No way to add one so we’re stuck with the built in one which isn’t anything to write home about.
- Bumpy: Video tends to flicker or jump at times. If you don’t have some sort of stabilization in place then good luck! Even with stabilization, there still are some skips it seems.
- I miss the D700 feel. The buttons on the D90 are all over the place and it is missing a lot of great features that the D700 has. It is just a pain when switching between the two but hey, it’s a $2000 price difference so what do you expect? This is something that I can totally live without to save that much money.
So all in all, if you have no interest in using the video capabilities of your DSLR, whether it be the Nikon D90 or Canon 5D Mark II, at least give it a go and shoot some home movies. Nothing beats capturing video to help tell a story. I played this video back after editing it and got choked up. Would I get that if I had only images? Maybe… maybe not. I do believe that there is a place for both mediums but this really gave me a nice new view of things. My little background in videography helped as well.
Otherwise, you could utilize these capabilities to the max and begin offering video options as a service. Will these videos put videographers and cinematographers out of business? Not yet.
The photos coming out of this camera are really impressive. Nikon didn’t take the D300 sensor for use in this camera but they did model the D90′s sensor off the D300. So it is similar but different. Can we tell the difference? Probably not. The IQ (image quality) coming out of this camera is very impressive. I shot with it all around California and really got a lot of use out of it when needing that extra zoom. With this camera being in the 1.5x crop factor, I managed to get an effective 600mm zoom when pairing up the camera with a 2x teleconverter and my 70-200mm. As a matter of fact, I took these photos with that setup:
Nice and sharp, even with the teleconverter mounted. I was worried about that since I need some AF fine tuning on my D700 when using the teleconverter.
The files turned out quite nicely at ISO’s up to 1600. The D90 doesn’t have the extreme ISOs like the D3/D700 cameras but that is something that kept the camera’s cost down I am guessing…
So I am extremely happy with this camera. It replaced my camcorder and allows me to get more creative in ways that I couldn’t before. I do miss doing my video so this is a breath of fresh air and has me real excited. I find myself taking this camera with me when going out and especially when hanging out with the family for shots of Cameron. It is very small and portable so I can put it into my Lowepro Slingshot 200 bag along with my SB-900, extra batteries and a couple lenses (24-70mm f/2.8 and the 85mm f/1.8) with lots of room to spare!
If you are toying around with getting a point and shoot like a Nikon P6000 then I would recommend to just go the little extra and pick yourself up the D90. It is portable enough in my opinion without getting in the way and your photos will really shine. More than what a point and shoot can do that is for sure!
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3 Responses to “Video Capabilities with the Nikon D90”
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Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.
Thanks for the feedback, I didn’t know that I hit the publish button on that article so it wasn’t complete. I was waiting until I got back from my Palm Springs trip to finish it up. Anyways, your feedback was appreciated and I modified my article to explain my thoughts on things. I think I wasn’t clear on the photo/video thing so much of my comments that you referred to dealt with video and not the photos.
Camera shake and photos is one thing, I was talking about that shake that occurs when shooting video. Every little motion is captured. My comment on the quiet shutter was when shooting photos.
Thanks again!
Hi. FYI, I believe the D90 shoots video at 720p. Also, there would not be any shutter noise as the shutter isn’t used for video. The mirror is up and the shutter is open the entire time you are filming. Finally, I don’t think the camera shake comment is fair. It is very difficult to hand-hold a 70-200mm lens with VR on any camera, so this is not a D90 con. Glad you are enjoying this fine Nikon equipment. P.