First video (made with D90)

[sprocket87]

So I'm a total video noob, but I thought I'd share my first effort with the group. The following video was a joint project between my brother-in-law and myself. I did most of the shooting myself, and he did most of the editing. The camera is his Nikon D90 and a 50mm f/1.8 lens. We were just messing around downtown to get used to the camera - this was the first time I'd ever used it for video.

We picked a short song since we figured our footage wouldn't be that great, but we ended up having to leave a lot of cool shots out. We had a lot more footage than we anticipated.

It's definitely nothing special, but feel free to comment - thanks!

City on Vimeo

A couple notes: The guy in the shots is my bro-in-law and it was SUPER cold outside. We realized halfway through that it would look better if he wasn't wearing ear muffs, but it would be dumb to shoot half the footage with them on and half without, so we just left them on to be consistent. I learned a LOT from just this one day of shooting that hopefully I can apply in future projects...

Note that now I have an HV30 so will hopefully be doing a lot more shooting!!

[spideralex90]

You can see the rolling shutter problem in some shots (obviously not your fault.) Does the MKII have rolling shutter issues?

Anyhow good video, i liked the first shot and some of the DOF shots. Keep it up, you got a nice cam to work with.

[sprocket87]

You can see the rolling shutter problem in some shots (obviously not your fault.) Does the MKII have rolling shutter issues?

Anyhow good video, i liked the first shot and some of the DOF shots. Keep it up, you got a nice cam to work with.

Thanks. Yup, rolling shutter is a BIG issue with this cam. Virtually all of the driving shots we took were ruined because of it. You have to work around it.

I don't know much about the MKII - I would assume it suffers from rolling shutter effect as well but perhaps not so pronounced. From what I've seen, the MKII's video function blows the D90's out of the water - but it's a couple grand more, and it had longer to bake than the D90. I expect we'll see Nikon's response soon enough.

One thing is for sure, I would hate to do a lot of shooting on the D90 simply because the handling is so awkward - which is one of the reasons I sprung for a HV30. I figure the HV30 + DOF adapter will still handle better and have more consistent quality. We'll see how that goes ;)

[spideralex90]

Thanks. Yup, rolling shutter is a BIG issue with this cam. Virtually all of the driving shots we took were ruined because of it. You have to work around it.

I don't know much about the MKII - I would assume it suffers from rolling shutter effect as well but perhaps not so pronounced. From what I've seen, the MKII's video function blows the D90's out of the water - but it's a couple grand more, and it had longer to bake than the D90. I expect we'll see Nikon's response soon enough.

One thing is for sure, I would hate to do a lot of shooting on the D90 simply because the handling is so awkward - which is one of the reasons I sprung for a HV30. I figure the HV30 + DOF adapter will still handle better and have more consistent quality. We'll see how that goes ;)


I was aying the handling of the D90 is awkward a long time ago, i'm glad to see someone else agrees. I was saying it wouldn't really replace video cameras just because it's form factor to point and shoot, not video. And the awkward handling would be annoying. Anyhow, the HV30 and DOF adapter will do you good. Can't really go wrong there.

[Braceface]

I haven't had a problem with rolling shutter with my D90. A stabilizer, or trip0d will be a big help for you, and some careful planning on vehicular shots.

[sprocket87]

I haven't had a problem with rolling shutter with my D90. A stabilizer, or trip0d will be a big help for you, and some careful planning on vehicular shots.

Seriously?

Go out and try a test like this and let's see how it looks:

D90 : rolling shutter issues on Vimeo

If yours doesn't act like that, you've got a special edition D90 that nobody's heard of :hv20-smilie31:

The fact of the matter is, if the camera is moving at any significant speed whatsoever (be it handheld panning, panning on a tripod head, or mounted statically in a moving vehicle), there will evidence of the rolling shutter - in the form of all vertically-oriented objects/lines being slanted significantly. It's simply a technical limitation of the camera.

Now, if you're simply saying "pan slower", well, yes, obviously there's that. But no matter what, there's some shots that just can't be done, period. City skyline shots in a moving vehicle, for one. You should've seen the shot taken from the window of the car while going across a bridge with vertical handrails. They were all at a 45-degree angle :hv20-smilie81:

[Braceface]

Absolutely. It would wobble like hell if I did that. You can get shots from a car without the evidence of wobble. But you have to plan it carefully. I don't think I need to explain how. Just think about it for a while and you'll figure it out. There are MANY ways to accomplish it.
On another related note, it's always the camera man's fault if there is wobble in the final video..... It could be cut out or prevented. ;0)

[Braceface]

A car with a D90 whizzes past a tall city going 280 miles an hour. The camera shows no sign of rolling shutter, or jello, wobble, etc.... How is this?