nikonbrain Loc: Crystal River Florida

http://www.eoshd.com/ I am a nikon guy , but I believe nikon probably did the same to suppress technology , I never wanted video I thought nikon speqnt to much time on it .I understand some of what they are talking about ,Some of you like to expand on things please comment I am not dissing Canon. But I would like to start doing some video. I have a d810....p.s Is there anyone here at the hedgehog in any section doing Q and A on video....

BebuLamar

I would like to start doing some video. I have an Iphone......

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

There is a video section. Check it out

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Forget using Canons and Nikons and ANY dSLR for video in general. If you're serious, look at Sony and Panasonic. The Sony A7sII, a6500, and the Lumix GH5 mirrorless cameras are MADE to be hybrid cameras, meaning they are about equally good at stills and video.

dSLRs are GREAT for stills. But as advanced as they are, video is still an afterthought. Canon wants to push their cinematic video cameras. Nikon just has video because everyone else has it. The dSLR design is not optimal for video for too many reasons to list here. Using most of them is like fighting the tool instead of thinking about what you are recording.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Obviously the people that shot the movie Ironman and the ones that shot the series "......" (damn, forgot the name,- that strange doctor), didn't share the same opinon!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That was before the GH4 and GH5 were available.

j45 Loc: North Central CT

You may be referring to the final season of "House"

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

He's taking too long to say too little. However, it's no secret that companies do not give us the best products they possibly can. Look at the artificial limit of twenty-nine minutes for video on a DSLR, for example. Some goodies are saved for the next product release, and some are put in only the most expensive models.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

With a camera like the D810 wouldn't it be best to use a true dedicated video camera to do videos? Even dual cameras are still a compromise of features.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

I'm not sure what the question is. I've shot a lot of video with my D7100 and D7200. The results were good. Sometimes video is the only answer. I got my granddaughter's first steps because of the D7100 video. The results of my Sony a6300 video are even better. 99% of the time I'm shooting stills, but a 30ft sailboat in Livorno chasing our cruise ship was a better subject for video. The action told a good story that a still shot would have missed.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Yes I am sure you like a grand daughter's first steps. But to the rest of the world it is irrelevant and boring.
It is a question regarding someone wanting to get into video.
For personal memories most any camera will do.
But for real video others would want to see and not die of boredom you need real video equipment, talent, training and in reality a team.
So for the home movies that have been around since Edison most anything will do.
For presentable video most of us really are not equipped either with talent or equipment to do that. Is is a real difficult art form to pull off well. And as we know even Hollywood has many failures doing films with millions in budgets, big time actors and great support staff.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

I love my Sony a6000, but it is not a great video camera. 15-20 minutes max. Overheating is a major issue. I do not know if it has been resolved either in the 6300 or 6500. That said, it runs circles around my DSLR's for stills.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

The newer Sony cameras do overheat less. However, there is still that annoying 29m59s time limit... due to a tariff. Sony's full frame A7s II is the low light video champ. No doubt, they will make more and more capable hybrid cameras.

The Panasonic Lumix GH4 and GH5 do not overheat, and do not have the half hour recording time limit in the USA. The GH5 has no time limit, anywhere. They are engineered from the ground up to be *both* stills and video cameras. There is an excellent balance of the two capabilities. The menus are incredibly well laid out. The controls are in the right places. You can customize the buttons and dials on the cameras in a wide range of ways to suit your habits. The feature lists go on and on.

The GH4 was ground-breaking. It was the first stills camera that many serious filmmakers and video pros respected as worthy of at least B-roll work. The GH5 extends that by an order of magnitude. I've had a GH4 for a while, now, and I'm still finding cool features I hadn't noticed before. I use it for stills and video, and sometimes I extract stills from the video.

Panasonic has been smart about updating their cameras, too. The GH4 went through two major firmware upgrades and many minor ones. Most of the upgrades added features, in addition to fixing bugs. Mine is fully updated to version 2.6. When Panasonic announced the GH5, they also pre-announced several firmware updates. They were waiting for media manufacturers to make faster SD cards to support some of those features! So the camera you buy gets better and better. All the updates are free. There is a firmware upGRADE to add V-Log-L video capability, and that costs $100. It's for very advanced users who need maximum dynamic range for filmmaking. There's another update or upgrade coming which will add anamorphic capability.

The inherent problems with most dSLR cameras that record video include overheating during video recording, poor AF performance for video, lack of a real viewfinder for video, cheap, noisy microphone pre-amps with automatic gain control that cannot be turned off, lack of a headphone jack for audio monitoring, high crop factors when recording video, inability to control picture parameters in ways video professionals are used to, lack of overexposure zebras and focus peaking, and more. Panasonic has eliminated or at least addressed all those concerns and limitations. They are listening to the professional "hybridographer," cinematographer, and pro videographer communities in a way only Sony can (or will) compete with.

Canon and Nikon have so much invested in dSLR "market inertia," they have to protect it. They are afraid to kill the cash cows that keep them alive. Those cash cows are dSLRs and lenses. About 80% of stills photographers use their dSLR systems, so there are tons of Canon and Nikon lenses in circulation. Canikon want to keep it that way, so they have paid lip service to mirrorless camera technologies. Canon, of course, makes pro video gear. They want to protect that market, as well. On the other hand, Sony and Panasonic have chosen a different path...

Canikon will probably not release seriously better mirrorless/hybrid camera designs any time soon. They don't have to, yet. But I hope for their sake, they don't wait too late. We need them in the market.

I used Canons and Nikons from 1968 to 2012, and have enormous respect for what they have achieved. However, my needs took me in a different direction. I got tired of traveling with several cases of gear, just so I could record stills and video of the same things, separately. I needed to streamline my workflow, too. The GH4 has done that for me.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

DSLRs are popular for video work (which I don't do personally) because of their relatively small size that lets them be used in small spaces... For example, the 2015 movie "Mad Max: Fury Road used a bunch of 5D Mark II "hero" cameras, for this reason. There are many other examples of DSLRs being used by Hollywood.

Also, there's a greater selection of lenses for DSLRs, including specialty types that aren't commonly made for cine cameras (tilt-shift?). Plus high quality lenses for DSLRs are often considerably cheaper than cinema lenses. For example, compare a Canon 24mm T1.5L ($5000) with a Canon 24mm f/1.4L II ($1550)... Or a Canon 70-200mm T4.4L ($5800) with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM ($600). Or, a 30-105mm T2.8L for $23,275 versus a 24-105mm f/4L II ($1100). Or how about a 30-300mm T2.95-3.7L ($44,650) versus an EF 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6L ($2450).

I think the reason DSLRs are limited to 29 minute, 59 second recording time is because in many countries a camera that records longer than that falls into a different, higher import duty category that would significantly increase the cost of the camera at retail. Since really long, continuous shots are pretty rarely needed, DSLR manufacturers opted to limit the shot duration in order to keep their cameras priced competitively.