Shooting videos with Nikon D700: My daughter is a young filmmaker who has won awards for her screenplays and has begun making short films. Camera rentals can become expensive and she...

danger911

My daughter is a young filmmaker who has won awards for her screenplays and has begun making short films. Camera rentals can become expensive and she noticed I had a Nikon D800e in my hands and wants to borrow it to make films. I have read that a Nikon D700 shoots video but just how good is this camera for film making. I assume the D800 might be better but prefer to start her with the D700, which is a legendary workhorse.

Any thoughts.

Many thanks.

Frank Shaun

GoofyNewfie Loc: Kansas City

danger911 wrote:

My daughter is a young filmmaker who has won awards for her screenplays and has begun making short films. Camera rentals can become expensive and she noticed I had a Nikon D800e in my hands and wants to borrow it to make films. I have read that a Nikon D700 shoots video but just how good is this camera for film making. I assume the D800 might be better but prefer to start her with the D700, which is a legendary workhorse.

Any thoughts.

Many thanks.

Frank Shaun

There is no official video option with the D-700.
There are some who have hacked it, but I'd stay away from that.
Your D800e would be a better choice, given your options.
I've done several videos with the D-800/810.
Forget about using auto-focus while shooting the video.
Make sure to use a good external mic, as the sound from the camera is not that good.
Sound is way more important than most people think.

For the future, there are much better cameras to shoot videos with than what you have. A lot of the mirrorless options do it better.

Welcome to the 'hog!

danger911

Many thanks.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I believe there is a way to do video with a D700. However, just because you can doesn't imply that you should. It's a bit kludgy.

The D800 would be a very good choice, the D800e a bit better. Since both are older cameras the price might be affordable. Just make sure when buying a used camera to purchase it from a reputable seller and that it is a camera manufactured for distribution in your country.
--Bob

danger911 wrote:

My daughter is a young filmmaker who has won awards for her screenplays and has begun making short films. Camera rentals can become expensive and she noticed I had a Nikon D800e in my hands and wants to borrow it to make films. I have read that a Nikon D700 shoots video but just how good is this camera for film making. I assume the D800 might be better but prefer to start her with the D700, which is a legendary workhorse.

Any thoughts.

Many thanks.

Frank Shaun

craggycrossers Loc: Robin Hood Country, UK

danger911 wrote:

My daughter is a young filmmaker who has won awards for her screenplays and has begun making short films. Camera rentals can become expensive and she noticed I had a Nikon D800e in my hands and wants to borrow it to make films. I have read that a Nikon D700 shoots video but just how good is this camera for film making. I assume the D800 might be better but prefer to start her with the D700, which is a legendary workhorse.

Any thoughts.

Many thanks.

Frank Shaun

Hi Frank, and many congrats to your daughter for her achievements with film so far.

May I, perhaps, ask you and your daughter to "slow down" a little and indulge in research which will undoubtedly result in more favourable equipment acquisition.

There's a member here (Burke photo) who I would recommend you approach for a chat and assistance.

Being outside the USA I'd like to give you both some YouTubers to take a look at who all maintain excellent and well-supported channels that might act as good research material.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfhW84xfA6gEc4hDK90rR1Q/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/Gregorsnell/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvkiZKobeYV4qO-KSvrL_9w/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZb8uqR_73t8DlfpVfVbiEw/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVC1YGHdu7tIWN71V7KMLlQ/videos

As the slogan for one of our major supermarkets here says "Every Little helps"

Have fun.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Nikon DSLR's are not known for producing great video. The D800 only can shoot 1080P video. With 4K video a person can zoom into the frame in the editor without loss of resolution. I think a better choice for a beginning filmmaker is the Lumix FZ80 20mm to 1200mm bridge camera which shoots up to 8 minute segments in 4K, has quiet continuous autofocus, and can shoot in auto (which automatically adjusts to changing light conditions) or manual modes. New it is $300. Used about $250 on ebay. Here's a sample of wide angle using manual adjustment of aperture, shutter speed and iso.
https://vimeo.com/347845438
You can compare video samples taken with the 800e to samples of video taken with the LumixFZ80 in 4K on Youtube.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

danger911 wrote:

My daughter is a young filmmaker who has won awards for her screenplays and has begun making short films. Camera rentals can become expensive and she noticed I had a Nikon D800e in my hands and wants to borrow it to make films. I have read that a Nikon D700 shoots video but just how good is this camera for film making. I assume the D800 might be better but prefer to start her with the D700, which is a legendary workhorse.

Any thoughts.

Many thanks.

Frank Shaun

The D800 will do video.
But she needs to know the AF is not good at all and MF will be the method to focus.
So moving subjects that change distance will not be easily video shot.
As long as she understands this it will take video.

RLSprouse Loc: Encinitas CA (near Sandy Eggo)

I've heard the Z 6 is a good choice for video. I have a Z 7, but I don't shoot video (yet).

jdub82 Loc: Northern California

Bobspez wrote:

Nikon DSLR's are not known for producing great vid... (show quote)

I couldn't disagree more with the statement "Nikon DSLR's are not known for producing great video." This statement is blatantly incorrect. I have a family member who produces outstanding professional video work exclusively with Nikon DSLR's. He has done extensive work for my company and always receives rave reviews for his excellent work. Please refrain from making such uninformed statements! I am not very familiar with the 800E, but suspect that it wouldn't be the first choice of Nikon DSLR for Video. The 7000 series in the crop sensor line produces outstanding video. However, the low end Panasonic bridge camera you mentioned can't even begin to come close to producing the quality of video obtained with the Nikon DSLR's. Are you kidding me???!!!???

Abo

jdub82 wrote:

I couldn't disagree more with the statement "... (show quote)

A D700 does (very very good) stills only.

No video Danger911.

I was wondering if your username is a reference to the
the motoring journalists that threw so many Porsche 930s
off the (often mountain) roads when the were released in the 70s.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

Sorry to ruffle your feathers but I have a D3100, a D7000, and a J1, and I stand by my statement. All you have to do is compare the quality of video samples on youtube to see for yourself. The FZ80 4K clips look better than the Nikon 2K clips. Plus Nikons have noisy autofocusing in video, the FZ80 autofocus is quick and silent. And 4K gives the ability to crop the video frame without loss of resolution where 2K video does not. Here is a sample of that. My friend and I make music videos for fun. The left side of this video is shot with a Nikon D5000. The right side is shot with a Coolpix B700 in 4k, a camera very similar to my FZ80, same sensor, same abilities, similar lenses. I had to crop both videos to make our heads similar sizes. Set the video to 4K in youtube before watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLeM7LeVst4

Are their better video cameras than the FZ80? Yes. I presently use a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera which only shoots 2K (1080P) but shoots in raw, so the dynamic range is exceptional. Here's a video just shot with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGwOa6Agbrs

The Nikon D5000 footage is on the left and the BMPCC footage using a cheap adapter and a Nikon mount Sigma 15mm-30mm lens at 15mm is on the right. The only downside to this camera is to shoot raw, I need to convert the DNG files to 16bit tifs in Adobe Bridge, then convert the tifs to a 10bit 422 .avi file (using makeavi free software) which I can use in the video editor. That can take several hours but I am retired so have plenty of time. The plus side is that adjusting the raw file in Adobe Camera Raw makes it unnecessary to grade the video in the editor.

I've been shooting video for about 10 years now with all the cameras listed above and posting them on youtube. So while not a professional, I am speaking from my own experience. Bear in mind that video and still images are totally different. A 1080P image from any dslr is just a 2MP image, each frame about 100K in size. A 4K image is an 8MP image, each frame about 400K in size. A 2kCinemaDNG raw frame is 2MB or 2000K in size. The more data in each frame, given similar lenses and settings, the better the image.

jdub82 wrote:

I couldn't disagree more with the statement "... (show quote)

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Bobspez wrote:

Sorry to ruffle your feathers but I have a D3100, a D7000, and a J1, and I stand by my statement. All you have to do is compare the quality of video samples on youtube to see for yourself. The FZ80 4K clips look better than the Nikon 2K clips. Plus Nikons have noisy autofocusing in video, the FZ80 autofocus is quick and silent. And 4K gives the ability to crop the video frame without loss of resolution where 2K video does not. Here is a sample of that. My friend and I make music videos for fun. The left side of this video is shot with a Nikon D5000. The right side is shot with a Coolpix B700 in 4k, a camera very similar to my FZ80, same sensor, same abilities, similar lenses. I had to crop both videos to make our heads similar sizes. Set the video to 4K in youtube before watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLeM7LeVst4

Are their better video cameras than the FZ80? Yes. I presently use a Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera which only shoots 2K (1080P) but shoots in raw, so the dynamic range is exceptional. Here's a video just shot with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGwOa6Agbrs

The Nikon D5000 footage is on the left and the BMPCC footage using a cheap adapter and a Nikon mount Sigma 15mm-30mm lens at 15mm is on the right. The only downside to this camera is to shoot raw, I need to convert the DNG files to 16bit tifs in Adobe Bridge, then convert the tifs to a 10bit 422 .avi file (using makeavi free software) which I can use in the video editor. That can take several hours but I am retired so have plenty of time. The plus side is that adjusting the raw file in Adobe Camera Raw makes it unnecessary to grade the video in the editor.

I've been shooting video for about 10 years now with all the cameras listed above and posting them on youtube. So while not a professional, I am speaking from my own experience. Bear in mind that video and still images are totally different. A 1080P image from any dslr is just a 2MP image, each frame about 100K in size. A 4K image is an 8MP image, each frame about 400K in size. A 2kCinemaDNG raw frame is 2MB or 2000K in size. The more data in each frame, given similar lenses and settings, the better the image.

Sorry to ruffle your feathers but I have a D3100, ... (show quote)

As you say, Nikon struggles in video AF and still does as does Sony. It is not clean and smooth as a real pull would be but somewhat jerky and searching. At least in some examples I saw.

kb6kgx Loc: Simi Valley, CA

I 've learned, from several comments, here, that my main problem with doing video on my D7100 might be that I should be using MF and not AF. Good suggestion.

However, I've also found that it's just easier, for those rare times when I need to do video, that it's just easier to take out the iPhone and use THAT. It does a great job and produces good quality 4k video.

jdub82 Loc: Northern California

Abo wrote:

A D700 does (very very good) stills only.

No video Danger911.

I was wondering if your username is a reference to the
the motoring journalists that threw so many Porsche 930s
off the (often mountain) roads when the were released in the 70s.

It looks like you were trying to reply to Danger911, but addressed your reply to my comment instead. I did not make any reference to the D700 in my comments. My comment was simply a response to the misguided blanket statement by bobsprez about "Nikon DSLRs" not being well suited for video.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

jdub82 wrote:

It looks like you were trying to reply to Danger911, but addressed your reply to my comment instead. I did not make any reference to the D700 in my comments. My comment was simply a response to the misguided blanket statement by bobsprez about "Nikon DSLRs" not being well suited for video.

Wow, I wrote several paragraphs and gave my own video samples of the reason Nikon DSLRs are not that good for video, and all you come away with is my statement was misguided. Talk about a closed mind. Or maybe just total lack of experience with video, since your only defense of Nikon DSLRs for video was videos created by your relative. Of course that's a comparison of one.