Andrew Reid

Why are so many of you missing the entire point of the topic?   I don't have a problem with the Df being a pure stills camera. Although really, it's a D600 with two extra dials on top. Not exactly warranting of the fuss... Which shows what a looks obsessed world we're becoming.   The point of the topic, and the article, was that the Japanese camera companies regard video as a distracting sideshow to the main event and that is not how it should be.   Be thankful there is a site for DSLR video and people pushing the industry in a favourable direction. When GH4 comes out, you guys will be raving about it. Stuff doesn't happen by sitting on your hands and accepting the status quo.

  Do you even have a sensor of humour?

TheCameraStoreTV on Nikon Df "video"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lM0M-l6eu0&t=9m30s   Start watching from around 9m 30s (click here) to get the joke :)

Crowd funding partly from you guys   http://www.holymanta.com/products/eos-nex-vd   Check it out :)

Stephen, what makes the most difference in your experience - bit depth of colour sampling? Is 8bit unfairly maligned? Because the accepted wisdom in the DSLR community is currently that 8bit is the poster child for poor image quality.   I've seen uncompressed 8bit 4:2:2 from the 5D Mark III's HDMI port and wasn't impressed. It looks like a similar result as you get with the internal compressed codec. But could we be pinning the blame on the wrong thing? The problem is, there's tons of data thrown away BEFORE the compression stage. Removing the compression makes no difference as by then the camera has already thrown away most of the sensor data. With raw it doesn't throw anything away after the feed leaves the sensor. The only loss is from the binning of resolution down from 22MP to 2MP on the sensor itself.   My impression was that the uncompressed 5D Mark III HDMI output in the latest firmware was still debayered very poorly and heavily processed in-camera before it reached the HDMI port. They claim 4:2:2 colour sampling. I don't think it is debayered to 4:2:2 in camera. I think the signal is 4:2:2 but the data is the same old shit.   The difference to the 8bit BBC broadcast stuff is that from sensor to media, the whole imaging pipeline is optimal. A bit more like the JPEG engine on a DSLR rather than video. Much less is thrown away.   So what matters is more the entire pipeline - sensor sampling, A/D conversion, signal processing, debayering, encoding, compression quality and media performance.   The problem with 8bit is with a heavy grade - no matter what the quality of the source - you are going to run out of gradation and tonal precision at some point, which risks introducing banding.   Laptop on set..   I recommend Macbook Air from 2012 onwards. Fast USB 3.0 to transfer the card data quickly. CPU is quick enough to handle the debayer and playback smoothly. The software side is improving on a month to month basis.

In the Amazon US sales charts -   A7R is 6th in compact system cameras. That's not including the other 50% of sales for the kit lens packs and 24MP A7, but it isn't a great position overall. The top selling mirrorless camera in the US on Amazon is the G5 and on the overall camera charts that works out at number 55.   By contrast the DF has debuted at 74. Silver outselling black.   Amazon don't show the DF in the DSLR sub group for some strange reason so we shall work that position out magically...   On the main sales chart at 74 it sits between the Canon 70D and the Canon SL1. Bear in mind the Canons have been on the market some months now, so sales will have dropped off from the initial pre-orders so we're not really comparing apples to apples on that one. Still what this tells us is that the Canon 70D is 15th in the DSLR category and SL1 is 16th, so the DF comes in at 16th displacing the SL1 in terms of current DSLR sales.   The A7R, I am not sure where it debuted when pre-orders started but it currently sits outside the top 100 overall.   The DF did not have as good debut as the D800 according to this - http://nikonrumors.com/2013/11/07/nikon-df-demand-not-as-strong-as-the-d800.aspx/   The Panasonic GH3 is under the DSLR category on Amazon. It currently ranks at 30. Selling about the same as the D800 at 29. Flagship vs flagship. The 5D Mark III is fairing slightly better at 23. Seen as those these cameras have been on the market for ages, that's not a bad performance... steady sales.   So there you have it... Looks like the more future facing video orientated D800 and GH3 will be more successful than the DF.

Blackmagic have come along out of the blue and manufactured a camera with 10bit signal processing using off the shelf components at a Singapore factory for $999 and a company the size of Canon and Nikon would have to turn their priorities upside down to do that?   Hmm.   It's just political... The elderly photographers who run Nikon do not want to add the requisite hardware to their stills camera to do justice to video, because it would eat into their margin and they don't see a return on the investment.   Don't forget DSLRs are still stuck at USB 2.0...   There's far more processing power in phones than in cameras these days and that is just WRONG!   Plus cameras cost a lot more than phones.

10 bit signal processing is in a $999 consumer camera already! Blackmagic Pocket!

  As far as I believe, the AF was canned because it was unpopular. To be honest I can see why.   GH line is the way forward.

More Nikon financial news just out -   "A dramatic fall in demand among photography hobbyists that began last year accelerated faster than expected."   http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/nikon-earnings-idUSL3N0IR39F20131107   Could it be that the video market hasn't gone for the D800? Lost opportunity. Could it be that the photography enthusiasts are temped by mirrorless due to a more flexible lens mount? Could it be that the Fuji X100 has already lapped up the demand for retro ergonomics and styling, and the Df (which took 4 years to develop) is too late? Could it be that the DSLRs from Nikon and Canon are just flat out boring?   I'd say all of the above is beginning to have an affect.   The economy at the moment is better than last year, Nikon have cut costs and become more efficient since last year, and yet their operating profit is down 41%.   When Nikon's core enthusiast photography business halves in size, they will wish they took the opportunity to be more innovative and embrace new demand in the imaging business - such as demand for video.

Obviously in low light an exposure to the right is going to be cleaner.   In good light I fail to see the advantage really. You risk getting a very hard clip to highlights.

  Yes played around with it but for me, the loss of resolution and introduction of moire is not worth the extra dynamic range in most situations.   Cool feature though.

I'm being sarcastic with the stills thing. I still think convergence should happen with certain cameras.   GH4 will be a perfect example of how it should be done.   The 1D C is an example of how NOT to combine cinema and stills. A lazy example, as are most of the consumer DSLRs.

Isn't it time to remove stills from our HDSLRs?!  :P   Stills have plagued our video cameras now for years!   The sacrifices videographers have made for the small niche of photographers is enormous.   The mirror box in our video cameras is completely redundant and the viewfinder doesn't work.   The flash is completely useless as a video light.   Instead of a conveniently placed video record button, we have to put up with a spongy shutter button. Why!?   The LCD is photo-shaped and not 16:9 like the video standard.   And don't tell me to use a proper video camera, I can't afford $20,000!   An undesirable flash sync port replaced our headphone socket :(   All the manual focussing aids are for stills  :wacko:   The tripod thread lacks a pin to keep the camera from shifting on the quick release plate.   Bloody photographers!

Sony gave Nikon their best sensor for video on DSLRs, the 36MP CMOS in the D800.   Hardly a sign that Sony are making Nikon pay for video features.   Meanwhile, Nikon have their own codec and Expeed engine which does a pretty good job of compression, etc. They also had clean HDMI output on the D800.   If Sony are trying to cripple competing cameras via sensor supply when it comes to video, they clearly failed, because the D800 was better than Sony's own A99 for video in terms of image quality!

The €3199 KineRAW MINI is the latest affordable raw cinema camera to be released. Featuring a 4K Super 35mm sensor it is a rival to the Blackmagic Production Camera and an alternative to shooting raw on the 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern. It shoots 2K / 1080p Cinema DNG uncompressed raw internally. Having now spent more time with the camera for the full review (coming soon), I was curious to see how 5D Mark III raw video stacks up against a dedicated cinema camera with a sensor purpose built for video - not stills. With the help of a new EOSHD test scene, we're about to find out - [url=http://www.eoshd.com/content/11462/5d-mark-iii-raw-video-magic-lantern-versus-kineraw-mini-image-quality]Read the full article here[/url]

  If Canon had listened to consumer feedback like that on the 5D Mark II's video mode, there wouldn't have been a 24p update, or a manual controls update, or a Cinema EOS pro business to speak of!

  Hmm not sure about that. Sony just went to a LOT of effort to read out and process all pixels in video mode with the RX10's sensor.   I'm expecting same to be true with their DSLR sensors in future.   What they need to sort out is the codec, get rid of AVCHD.   Actually Panasonic have a big broadcast range of pro video cameras, like Sony.

I too thought C100 and C300 (and C500?) have same sensor.   So if they have enabled it in firmware on the C100, why not C300?

  A more pertinent question is where's Nikon, Canon or Sony's answer to Blackmagic?

  DSLR video isn't shrinking. If it was shrinking, my Google Analytics would tell a very different story. At the height of the DSLR revolution in 2010 - 900,000 visits. So far in 2013 before the year is even out - 6 million.   2 million of them unique!   Yeah tiny market yada yada!

  This is why deep down I really want the Df and I think as a stills camera it will do well.   It's a shame that the mount isn't more flexible for non-Nikon lenses though, a shame about the pricing, shame about the small battery and locking dials, and I think it's going to be hard to justify me buying one on looks and ergonomics alone when the A7R is around.   It's also very bulky compared to something like the X100S which is just as sexy to use.

  Let's examine the logic of your post.   You say the DSLR video market is a tiny tiny niche, but then you say judging from Vimeo that 14 million users represent the maximum size of the market.   Hardly small exactly. I'd love to sell a camera to 14 million people for $3000 and turnover 42 billion!   Nikon's total annual DSLR sales amounted to about $2.6 billion recently.   To make that increase by a massive 20% would only require cornering 3 or 4% of registered Vimeo users.   I assume most Vimeo users need a video camera, right? Unless they're posting stills :)   In the 5 years after Nikon introduced their consumer DSLR line, their sales doubled.   Consumer market - NOT PRO - is the big one.   The consumer market for video is much larger than the professional video market and yet we have NOTHING catering to us in a quality way. If consumer stills quality was as bad as video quality on Nikon cameras they wouldn't sell a single DSLR.   Nikon sold a total of 3.5 million interchangeable lens cameras in 2012, all of them with video modes.   That's just one company. In effect, though not all of these customers will use video, all of them COULD use it given enough education, desire and inspiration... so the maximum potential size of the market is very large. If only Nikon could be arsed with it.

So now we have the truth of the way manufacturers think about DSLR video. It's a distraction! Clearly the purist section of the photography industry wants to take us back to the stone age. Video quality has been very low down the list of priorities at Canon and Nikon over the years. And Olympus, and Fuji. Now, even fashion accessories are prioritised above video capture as the Nikon Df dispenses with it altogether! Read the full article here

If 1080p is 'enough' then 4K makes very good 1080p because of oversampling, so everyone wins regardless of whether they think they need 4K or not. Also a full sensor output will do wonders for dynamic range and colour gamut. My only concerns relate to how they go from 4.5k to 4K on the image processor.   GX7 full output in 16:9 - 4592 x 2584   4K video standard - 3840 x 2160