D750: Anyone Using It? Loving It? Hating It?

[Mark Romero]

Anyone using a D750 frequently (for video) and either loving or hating it?

Along with my D750 and a couple of lenses, I also have a Sony a6000 and an a6300 which I use, and which I have a love / hate relationship with.

Logic tells me I should sell my D750 and get a used a7 S (original version) for shooting 1080p so there will be some compatibility with my a6000 / a6300

But sometimes my emotions tell me I should get rid of my sony gear, stick with the soft-ish 1080p of the D750, and just enjoy the dynamic range and easy-to-grade footage and simple UI of the Nikon (and enjoy the fact that it doesn't overheat).

I shoot primarily real estate videos. I try to make them look somewhat cinematic. I will also be trying to shoot more real estate agent promotion videos (where they talk about why they are such a great real estate agent and why you should hire them).

Anyway, just wanted to hear everyones / anyones thoughts before I come to a decision on it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[scotchtape]

For real estate, the last thing you want is soft 1080p from yesteryear.

(I still have my d750 but I only use it for still now, for real estate I use 4k downscaled.)

On the other hand, around here the market for anything other than luxury is flooded with cheap services because it seems like most realtors really don't care about quality, it's about price and speed for them, so the soft 1080 probably won't hurt you there.

For profile videos with shallow dof of course anything works.

[Mark Romero]

Thank you, scotchtape.

May I ask what you are using for your 4K footage?

The a6300 had good footage but... it's really kind of a pain to get the best out of it (dim screen, overheating, lots of color work needed).

And the 1080p out of the a6300 is bad (I know that 4K is preferred, but for slo mo stuff, need 1080p at 60fps)

So the only alternative is GH5 which does 4K 60fps.

[TwoScoops]

It's soft but worth keeping just for the profile videos I'd say. 

[Geoff CB]

Keep the D750 if you like to use it. I loved mine and while it is lacking detail, it's similar to the C100 in that the image just has something special to it. Unless your clients are ASKING for 4K, I see no reason to switch (or just use the A6300 on those jobs). I would not upgrade to the A7s, it's a minuscule upgrade (and still 1080p) wait until the next round of sony cam's to buy the A7s II /A7r II or a better camera than that when you can afford it.

[Mark Romero]

7 hours ago, TwoScoops said:

It's soft but worth keeping just for the profile videos I'd say. 

Yeah, that is something I considered. I do like how it looks for photographing people, and I am not sure how much more flattering 4K would be for peoples faces.

[Mark Romero]

5 hours ago, Geoff CB said:

I would not upgrade to the A7s, it's a minuscule upgrade (and still 1080p) wait until the next round of sony cam's to buy the A7s II /A7r II or a better camera than that when you can afford it.

Thanks for your input.

Yeah, I wouldn't think of the a7s (original version) as an UPGRADE over the D750, but more of the fact that I can then use similar lenses and use the same stabilizer (Zhiyun Crane) for both the a7s and the a6300. The D750 is a bit too heavy for the Zhiyun Crane from what I have heard (it works, but someone has reported damaging their stabilizer with long term usage of it).

The appeal of the D750 is the usability and the fact that I can use it well for BOTH real estate still and video. And that I HATE using the a6300... (love the size, hate the UI).

[mercer]

13 hours ago, Mark Romero said:

Thanks for your input.

Yeah, I wouldn't think of the a7s (original version) as an UPGRADE over the D750, but more of the fact that I can then use similar lenses and use the same stabilizer (Zhiyun Crane) for both the a7s and the a6300. The D750 is a bit too heavy for the Zhiyun Crane from what I have heard (it works, but someone has reported damaging their stabilizer with long term usage of it).

The appeal of the D750 is the usability and the fact that I can use it well for BOTH real estate still and video. And that I HATE using the a6300... (love the size, hate the UI).

If you hate using the a6300, what makes you think you'll enjoy the a7s? The D7500 will be released this week, may be the smaller, lighter body with a little cropped 4K will be a better fit for you until the D760 gets released. 

[gethin]

i dont know about the sony's but the nikons dynamic range wins over the panasonics.  I also dont know why you'd be worried about the "soft" 1080 image. Most people will be watching these vids on their phone.  You could probably shoot VGA res and it would look alright.

[Mattias Burling]

3 hours ago, mercer said:

The D7500 will be released this week.

Did not know that, very interesting since Im upgrading the equipment for my emplyers in house production (mostly stills).

[Django]

I used a D750 before switching to Canon. It's a great camera, especially on the stills side. The 1080p is definitely soft but it didn't stop me from making great videos.

I did pick up a second hand A7S (original) few weeks ago, mostly for it's low light abilities but also to use all my Nikon glass I kept.

1080p on that is definitely sharper then D750 and grading S-Log is pretty easy I find. Ergonomics are poor but having an EVF is a bonus. 

I'll be getting a BM Video Assist soon so 4K will be available on it too.

I feel no particular attachment to the Sony like I have with my Fuji or DSLRs though FWIW.

[mercer]

6 hours ago, Mattias Burling said:

Did not know that, very interesting since Im upgrading the equipment for my emplyers in house production (mostly stills).

Yeah BH has it shipping on the 2nd. 

[Mark Romero]

On 5/29/2017 at 11:35 PM, mercer said:

If you hate using the a6300, what makes you think you'll enjoy the a7s? The D7500 will be released this week, may be the smaller, lighter body with a little cropped 4K will be a better fit for you until the D760 gets released. 

Well, I wouldn't say that I would ENJOY the a7s, I would just hate it less than the a6300

In all seriousness, I appreciate your input. What I think I would PROBABLY enjoy of the a7s is a brighter screen (the screen of the a6300 dims during 4K shooting) and better 1080p than the a6000 / a6300 / D750). And the lack of overheating (I've had a couple or gigs where I had to let the camera rest for 20 minutes or so - doesn't look great in front of clients).

Of course, this means I would give up 4K and have to go with 1080p. The 4K of the a6300 CAN BE nice, just kind of hard to get it right.

Yeah, the D7500 looks like it could be good. A lot of it depends on how well it will handle low light / high contrast situations. I don't have the time to set up lighting and doing real estate videos, I often have dark interiors and very bright windows. If it handles high iso / high contrast as well as the a6300, then it might be ok.

On 5/30/2017 at 2:55 AM, gethin said:

i dont know about the sony's but the nikons dynamic range wins over the panasonics.  I also dont know why you'd be worried about the "soft" 1080 image. Most people will be watching these vids on their phone.  You could probably shoot VGA res and it would look alright.

Thank you for your input.

When you say that the Nikon's dynamic range would be greater than the panasonic's DR, just to confirm, you are talking about video and not stills, right? And you are saying that the DR of the D750 in 1080p would be greater than that of the Panasonic in 4K, correct?

And yes, I understand what you are saying that many people will be seeing these videos on a phone or tablet. I would like to be future-proof though.

On 5/30/2017 at 7:12 AM, Django said:

I used a D750 before switching to Canon. It's a great camera, especially on the stills side. The 1080p is definitely soft but it didn't stop me from making great videos.

I did pick up a second hand A7S (original) few weeks ago, mostly for it's low light abilities but also to use all my Nikon glass I kept.

1080p on that is definitely sharper then D750 and grading S-Log is pretty easy I find. Ergonomics are poor but having an EVF is a bonus. 

I'll be getting a BM Video Assist soon so 4K will be available on it too.

I feel no particular attachment to the Sony like I have with my Fuji or DSLRs though FWIW.

Thanks for the input. Still don't know which way to go now... D7500 sounds most interesting because it COULD serve a s a good dual-purpose stills and video camera.

[dbp]

Haven't shot with it personally, but one of my second shooters uses one, so I've edited footage from it. I quite like the colors/skintones that it produces.

[scotchtape]

I'm using the GH5 right now, but also used the G7 because it was super cheap for 4k.  

A6300 4k for real estate shots is no joke, shouldn't really overheat if you are doing short clips.  I also have the a6500 and the image is fantastic but I don't use it on shoots because of ergonomics.  I would use it more if I was doing more residential exteriors / interiors.  

Good luck on your next move!

[gethin]

yes I'm talking video!  (DR in stills is Huuuuge compared to panasonic, but just a bit better in video). D810 better than d750.   What I notice is that you can still lift the shadows a bit in nikon's 8bit, which is surprising seeing as the codec isn't much chops either. Whereas my gx85 is too noisy to lift them much at all. 

[Mark Romero]

21 hours ago, dbp said:

Haven't shot with it personally, but one of my second shooters uses one, so I've edited footage from it. I quite like the colors/skintones that it produces.

Yes, I like the ease of getting good colors out of it (compared to either the 4K or the 1080p of the a6300 / a6000 when shooting flatis / desaturated).

20 hours ago, scotchtape said:

I'm using the GH5 right now, but also used the G7 because it was super cheap for 4k.  

A6300 4k for real estate shots is no joke, shouldn't really overheat if you are doing short clips.  I also have the a6500 and the image is fantastic but I don't use it on shoots because of ergonomics.  I would use it more if I was doing more residential exteriors / interiors.  

Good luck on your next move!

Yeah, the ergonomics / ui are killing me, but even with short clips, it still overheats. Heck, even the a6000 overheated on me shooting 1080p. Both cmaeras are using the latest firmware.

12 hours ago, gethin said:

yes I'm talking video!  (DR in stills is Huuuuge compared to panasonic, but just a bit better in video). D810 better than d750.   What I notice is that you can still lift the shadows a bit in nikon's 8bit, which is surprising seeing as the codec isn't much chops either. Whereas my gx85 is too noisy to lift them much at all. 

Thanks for the clarification. Aside from the shadows, i noticed that you can recover highlights an awful lot on the D750 as well.

 

[Mark Romero]

Since I deliver in 1080p, I guess I just have to test out:

a6300 4K downsampled to 1080p versus D750 shot flat than sharpened significantly in post

If the soon-to-be-released D7500 didn't have the silly 2.2 crop factor for 4k then this would be a no-brainer for me.

[mercer]

44 minutes ago, Mark Romero said:

Since I deliver in 1080p, I guess I just have to test out:

a6300 4K downsampled to 1080p versus D750 shot flat than sharpened significantly in post

If the soon-to-be-released D7500 didn't have the silly 2.2 crop factor for 4k then this would be a no-brainer for me.

Yeah the crop is dumb and I suppose for interiors you would need that wide end. But it is a really nice 4K image. And the 1080p is gorgeous as well. The Tokina 11-16mm would cure that or for low light their 14-20mm f2 could work.

Here's a 4K video shot with the D500 which has identical video as the D7500. This looks like it was shot in the Flat Profile and it doesn't look like he did any, or much adjustments in post, but it still looks great. Of course, this type of video doesn't really help you make a decision for what you need in a real estate video camera. But it's still a nice video...

In all honesty, if you need 4K for your work, you may be better off with an RX10ii or an XC10. The FZ2500 does really nice video as well. The high bitrate, all-i 1080p in CineLikeD is really good and at no time did I feel like I should have shot in 4K. 

[TwoScoops]

The D750/D810 replacements should have 4k, coupled with the great color science etc; could be pretty interesting.