Nikon D5300 Review and why DSLRs are dead for video

[noa]

 

The footage is all hand-held and a Nikon 18-200DX f3.5-5.6 VR lens was used for most of it.

 

To me that looked great, considering you did all that handheld and used a slower zoomlens. I particularly liked the colors.  

 

I think there is no need in continue to prove that this is a capable camera and I also don't see the need to continue whining about functionality of these camera's, there doesn't exist any camera in the lower 1000 dollar range that is perfect. they all are crippled in one or another way, some maybe intentional and others due to technical restrictions and some due to the stupidity of technical engineers, marketing people or whoever has their say in what a camera will be like. Probably these sub 1000 dollar camera's are just a very very small part of their total sales so why would they bother.

 

Nikon doesn't make these camera's for aspiring filmmakers, they, like any other major camera manufacturer make cameras with functionality that will guarantee the most sales, in the sub 1000 dollar category you can be sure that these are soccermams, so if they can sell a lot more by adding that babymode button, they will.

 

I also shoot danceperformances with small sony cx7xx series, as much as they are really considered to be in a handbag during a holiday to be taken out when the kids jump in the pool, I am making decent money from them shooting these plays and they perform wonderful, they give me a smooth zoom, low noise, good low light performance, sharp and colorful footage, 50p and even for such a tiny camera a decent dynamic range. They allow me to buy a Nikon d5300 with lens with every play I shoot if I wish. They are not my only camera's in my gearbag but used specifically for these type of events. So I could go on and whine about it not having xlr, nd filter, "only" 1080p, a crappy avchd codec and only one manual function at a time to be controlled etc yet I am maximizing it's strengths and I use workarounds for what the camera cannot handle, the fact that I got them real cheap and seeing how they perform for that one task I choose them for has made this my best investment ever.

 

This is how you should look at a Nikon d5300 as well and start maximizing it's strength instead of whining what it cannot do. There are enough examples here what capable hands can achieve, even at a holiday with a lens that is not f0.95 :)

[Danyyyel]

I think that I can understand where your point of view comes. It is from a blogger reviewer who can have multiple cameras that he can use depending his particular needs. Unfortunately most of us cannot afford or are inclined to do so. Since 2005 I have bought 7 cameras mainly for my photography (D70, D80, D300, D800, D7100) and for video Canon 7D and panasonic gh2. If there was no turn in video quality with the D5200 and later D7100, I would surely have bought the BMC. But I saw the D7100 as a ........... good enough camera that I bought a Ninja. My only gripe and that is why I am looking at the D5300 is the lack of Fix pattern noise and 60p. I will be more inclined selling my D7100 to buy a D7200 in the near future.

 

So lets see how my perspective of a normal user that cannot just buy every camera in the sun thinks of your perspective.

 

 

 

Danyyyel, it's no joke. Name one Nikon innovation for video since the D90's shoddy 720p heralded others to do better....

 

As for the things you listed, they're not so unique on their own, but yes somehow the D5300 has accidentally ended up with quite a lot of them.

 

No moire / aliasing - see 5D Mark III, which came out before the moire & aliasing Nikons. Nikons were a veritable moire and aliasing PARTY before just around 9 months ago when they finally got wise. Shame D800 did not come out this year instead, maybe they could have done a better job.

 

By your judgement, so I should invest 4 times more to get no moire/aliasing in the Canon cameras. Lets compare it to the all the other cameras

 

D5300   Win

Gh3        Loss

Bmpcc    Loss

Canon Apsc   Loss

OLympus   Loss

 

Frame rates 24p to 60p... numerous other cameras had this a long time before Nikon (2-3 years). Sony were first to 1080/60p. Panasonic I believe offered 1080/24p first with the GH1 before the Canon 5D Mark II firmware update.

 

But you don't knock on olympus who has only 30p (For a cinema site it is very strange, remember when everybody was begging cannon for 24p) or all the Canon andBmc don't go above 30p in 1080.

 

D5300   Win

Gh3        Win

Bmpcc    Loss

Canon Apsc   Loss

OLympus   Loss

 

 

Very good DR... I'm not seeing it myself. Way more on others, such as Blackmagic cameras and even the tiny Panasonic GM1 does better in the highlights.

 

You yourself said in the previous Nikon D5300 that the Nikon D5300 was on par with the Bmpcc prores about 12 stop. The BBC test and Samuel hurtado who does the Flaat profiles measures the Nikons at 12 stop. There is an example that Matt posted where the D5300 kills the 5d3 from oleg kylan.

 

D5300   Win

Gh3        ?

Bmpcc    Win

Canon Apsc   Loss

OLympus   ?

 

 

Very good low light... It's not hugely different to others. 5D Mark III is better and GM1 is near enough identical but with more fine detail.

 

I don't know if this is considered small, but for me this is not http://www.eoshd.com/content/9653/nikon-d5200-review and this would can be considered on par http://www.eoshd.com/content/9713/nikon-d5200-vs-canon-5d-mark-iii . Remember the cannon tend to be 2/3 stop darker than the nikons.

 

D5300   Win

Gh3        loss

Bmpcc    loss

Canon Apsc   loss

OLympus   loss

 

 

Proper S35 sensor... yeah, but crappy lens mount which I can't use 80% of my glass on! 1.4x crop with Speed Booster on GH3 = larger than S35.

 

I would say that the Cinema 35 mm standard for good reason. The second you put an adapter like the speed booster you loose the autofocus and have to get a set of lens for the M43 camera and will loose things like stabilisation. It might be crap for you but there are a ton of Nikon/third party lens to choose from the last 50 years and most third party will do nikon versions. Nikon lens also tend to keep there market value for a long time.

 

D5300   Win

Gh3        loss

Bmpcc    loss

Canon Apsc   Loss

OLympus   Loss

 

Clean HDMI out... been around since GH2 times. For external recorder this output on the D5200 and D5300 like on other cameras brings little-to-no real image quality increase but for a lot of hassle. Wait until it is 10bit 4:2:2 or 4K then it will actually be useful.

 

Have you done some test, I have a Ninja with my D7100 and I would say that it gives the same feeling as the gh2 hack. The first thing is that their is better resolution and details. It is like you lift a veil on the image. The noise is tighter and grading is much more solid. Put the camera in front of some static image and it won't be that much different at first view (It is but in a subtle way) but add some moving images with lots of details and grading and the higher bitrate makes a much bigger difference.  For those who have experience with the gh2 and hacked one it is about the same. If you see the amount of effort and dedication on higher bitrate for hacked gh2, I think their was some good reason for it.

 

So perhaps you have a plethora of camera at your disposal that can cater for different needs better than the D5300, but non offer a better all rounder complete camera for now. And not a jack of all trades master of non soccermon camera, but nearly everytime at the top of the class. As can be seen by the work Wild Ranger here, it is a very capable camera for the low budget cinema film-maker in the right hand.

[skiphunt]

To me that looked great, considering you did all that handheld and used a slower zoomlens. I particularly liked the colors.  

 

I think there is no need in continue to prove that this is a capable camera and I also don't see the need to continue whining about functionality of these camera's, there doesn't exist any camera in the lower 1000 dollar range that is perfect. they all are crippled in one or another way, some maybe intentional and others due to technical restrictions and some due to the stupidity of technical engineers, marketing people or whoever has their say in what a camera will be like. Probably these sub 1000 dollar camera's are just a very very small part of their total sales so why would they bother.

 

Nikon doesn't make these camera's for aspiring filmmakers, they, like any other major camera manufacturer make cameras with functionality that will guarantee the most sales, in the sub 1000 dollar category you can be sure that these are soccermams, so if they can sell a lot more by adding that babymode button, they will.

 

I also shoot danceperformances with small sony cx7xx series, as much as they are really considered to be in a handbag during a holiday to be taken out when the kids jump in the pool, I am making decent money from them shooting these plays and they perform wonderful, they give me a smooth zoom, low noise, good low light performance, sharp and colorful footage, 50p and even for such a tiny camera a decent dynamic range. They allow me to buy a Nikon d5300 with lens with every play I shoot if I wish. They are not my only camera's in my gearbag but used specifically for these type of events. So I could go on and whine about it not having xlr, nd filter, "only" 1080p, a crappy avchd codec and only one manual function at a time to be controlled etc yet I am maximizing it's strengths and I use workarounds for what the camera cannot handle, the fact that I got them real cheap and seeing how they perform for that one task I choose them for has made this my best investment ever.

 

This is how you should look at a Nikon d5300 as well and start maximizing it's strength instead of whining what it cannot do. There are enough examples here what capable hands can achieve, even at a holiday with a lens that is not f0.95 :)

 

Thanks! It's not really a finished thing. None of the clips are adjusted/graded at all, and it's just sort of a quick collection using some random audio recordings.  Not sure what I'll do with the footage, but it was mostly just to test the camera to see if I could get decent/cinematic video images from a hand-held consumer-level camera. I decided, for the money and all around usefulness for stills as well, it's definitely a keeper for me.

 

I don't get what appears to be pure hatred of this camera by Andrew. I'd said "with due respect to Andrew" before, but after a couple of his posts regarding this camera being only for "soccer moms" etc. I'm wondering why I offered any respect at all. Clearly this camera isn't his personal choice, but his absolute disdain for it has me scratching my head a bit. Is this a completely unbiased site? Does Andrew pay for all the gear out of his own pocket? I have no idea what the motivations are on this site. Perhaps there's an ethics statement somewhere like on Philip Bloom's site? I noticed the EOSHD in the url. Did this start out as a Canon EOS site? Sorry for my ignorance, but I only started visiting this site a couple months or so ago, so I don't really know what the purpose of the site is, Andrews motivations, how the site is paid for, how the gear is paid for, if certain manufacturers give some bloggers more favor that others, etc

 

As for me, I haven't been in the motion game for a long time. Mostly just stills. Haven't even shot anything motion since the Panasonic HVX was en vogue. 

 

Only just got FinalCutPro X  in December and had only started to play with grading right before I left for Mexico. So, I because I'm not comfortable grading yet, I figured I'd just put some random clips together for those curious what the camera does in a variety of field shooting situations. Initially, I started shooting with a flat profile, but got tired of switching back and forth when I wanted to shoot stills. Eventually, just left it on the Standard setting with the contrast all the way down and sharpness up a bit. Haven't even tried to grade anything yet, but I can tell from my ungraded clips, that the camera is capable of delivering what I want from it, for less money and less hassle that many of the other options. If I was only interested in video, I might have got with something like the G6 for focus peaking, but if I continue to use this camera for video work, I'd likely just get a Ninja as soon as it can handle the 60p footage. 

 

In short, for the money and range this camera has... I think it's an excellent option as an all-arounder without the need for a bunch of extra peripherals, extra storage, time-consuming raw workflow, needing a faster computer, etc. If I continue to focus on indie filmmaking, and my specific needs change, I'll revisit the options then. For now, this one delivers what I need from it. 

[Guest 89e2bdf5797fbbdc17c2cc6da1413fa0]

 

Slow motion test shot with D5300 this weekend.

[skiphunt]

Hey Andrew, awesome! You're making that baby-mode work quite well for yourself. ;)

[maxotics]

The Nikon exec interview on DPreview is very interesting.  On the baby-mode.  I didn't read it as a slight against the D5300, but against Nikon and all DSLR's that short-shrift video.  The interview is here.  

 

http://***URL removed***/articles/3890662077/cp-2014-nikon-interview-our-cameras-need-to-evolve

[skiphunt]

The Nikon exec interview on DPreview is very interesting.  On the baby-mode.  I didn't read it as a slight against the D5300, but against Nikon and all DSLR's that short-shrift video.  The interview is here.  

 

http://***URL removed***/articles/3890662077/cp-2014-nikon-interview-our-cameras-need-to-evolve

 

Yeah, I didn't either... until he offered that "revised review" that seemed rather petty. 

 

At the end of the day though... doesn't really matter to me. Everyone's got an opinion. Some of his I agree with, others... I don't at all. 

 

Still, I'm curious if Andrew is just buying all of this gear on his own to test for fun, or if he has some arrangement with a shop or some of the manufacturers? Maybe that's explained somewhere on the site? It's nice to know the perspective someone is coming from and their motivations. Originally, I just thought Andrew was someone into indie filmmaking and had a bog to share opinions of his gear purchases. Is that the case? Or, does this site also provide some sort of revenue stream as well?

 

For me, I mostly value other user's experience who're either investing in the gear to use for their work, or who share my same indie filmmaking goals like several user's on this site.

[Guest 89e2bdf5797fbbdc17c2cc6da1413fa0]

 

Yucatan Mexico Nikon D5300 Video Samples

 

Only have a free vimeo account and this is 12mins... so too big to post on vimeo.

 

 

This was shot in Jan-Feb 2014 in the Yucatan/Campeche regions of Mexico. The purpose of this footage was to see if this consumer-grade Nikon D5300 could produce acceptable video images for possible use on future film projects. 

 

All of the footage was shot flat, and the footage is not graded. Only auto-color balance and auto-stabilization with a little sharpening in FinalCutPro were used. The footage is all hand-held and a Nikon 18-200DX f3.5-5.6 VR lens was used for most of it. 

 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but wanted to share with others who might be curious about the Nikon D5300 and/or those who dig Mexico and want to see some of the things I saw. :)

 

Hey Skip! This is great. I really like the casual narration. It's a format I really like (I've done a few similar things in the past) and I think it has a lot of potential. Good to see some shots from your Mexico trip. Some shots seemed really sharp given YT compression (the lizard in particular) - good to see it's possible.

[skiphunt]

Hey Skip! This is great. I really like the casual narration. It's a format I really like (I've done a few similar things in the past) and I think it has a lot of potential. Good to see some shots from your Mexico trip. Some shots seemed really sharp given YT compression (the lizard in particular) - good to see it's possible.

 

Thanks Andrew. I didn't have any audio to drop on it, and since I'm using YouTube... couldn't just add some good music. I recorded some ambient plaza music, but that didn't work out so well. So, that narrative is all I had handy and wanted to put something up to show what the nearly untouched stuff looked like. 

 

I really didn't like using one camera for video and stills. It might just be that I've been a still photographer too long and it's too difficult to switch back and forth. I have shot plenty of motion in the past, but for some reason... it's difficult to jump back and forth. 

 

At the same time, I didn't want to carry two different kits while backpacking. But, at home... I'll likely migrate to having two camera kits, one for stills and one for motion. Or, just practice more. ;) I'm only just now getting back into this stuff, so it's likely just learning curve pains. 

 

I do think that based on my tests in some very low light shooting situations, some very difficult spaces (i.e. underground cenotes with almost no light or having to pass through a vertical wet/muddy tunnel to get down into one, with high humidity, etc. that the camera performed well. Mostly just grabbed a bunch of shots at random and put them in some ordered grouping, but if you knew the very low amount of light there was in many of those clips... it'd be more impressive. 

 

Once I get my head around grading stuff, will edit something down with a proper soundtrack, etc. 

[Guest 89e2bdf5797fbbdc17c2cc6da1413fa0]

Thanks Andrew. 

Have you forgotten my name already! Surely you're not getting me mixed up with Andrew Reid?!?!!!  ;)

 

I find I'm hardly shooting stills at all with the D5300 - which is a real shame because the stills I have shot are of incredible quality. But live view is too slow for 'decisive moment' stuff and neither AF nor metering works with any of my glass. A bit more practice and I might get a bit better, but it's far from ideal. 

[skiphunt]

Have you forgotten my name already! Surely you're not getting me mixed up with Andrew Reid?!?!!!  ;)

 

I find I'm hardly shooting stills at all with the D5300 - which is a real shame because the stills I have shot are of incredible quality. But live view is too slow for 'decisive moment' stuff and neither AF nor metering works with any of my glass. A bit more practice and I might get a bit better, but it's far from ideal. 

LOL! Sorry!!! No, haven't forgotten your name Matt, was just replying about Andrew's opinion piece on the D5300 and slipped. 

 

When in stills mode, I didn't use live view. I'm used to framing from the viewfinder, so I only used the live view when I needed to hold the camera at a very low level, or raising up above a fence to get a shot. Most of the time I used the optical viewfinder. Mostly just used the LCD to make sure I got the shot or for video obviously. Auto focus for stills was really fast and accurate. Several still images I got were grabbed so quickly, I know there's no way I could have got the shot with a compact... at least none of the compacts I've used. Still love compacts for stills work, but I can't deny the benefit of dSLR speed and low-light performance of a larger sensor.

[Michael1]

Hi, I'm not really going to defend Nikon on the way they design the D5300, yes controls are real shit.

 

But over all I'm going to point out that image quality is really nice and you can shot a feature with it if you want to. SHIT I'M SHOOTING MY LAST FILM ON  A D7100 AND D5200!!!

 

Here I share a TEASER of it (IM SORRY IT STILL DON'T HAVE ENGLISH SUBS), its still private, the password is: teaser.

 

Enjoy  ;)

Wow!  Nice job.  This was all done on a D7100 and a D5200?

 

Michael

[Inazuma]

 

 

So perhaps you have a plethora of camera at your disposal that can cater for different needs better than the D5300, but non offer a better all rounder complete camera for now. And not a jack of all trades master of non soccermon camera, but nearly everytime at the top of the class. As can be seen by the work Wild Ranger here, it is a very capable camera for the low budget cinema film-maker in the right hand.

 

 

If you are doing video with the Nikon you are gonna have to shoot with manual focus regardless because the live view autofocus is so terrible. And there are no focus aids to help you during shooting unless you bring a long an Atomos.or other EVF/monitor. The d5200's low light performance is better than the GH3's however it has not been tested against more recent m43 cameras (which I think Andrew has occasionally stated have usable image at iso 3200). And in any case, you have more options with m43 for fast lenses due to the f0.95 lenses and speed booster. The DOF of super 35 is shallower yes, but m43 isnt THAT far off. And again, if you really want to achieve this look you can use those 0.95 lenses or speed booster.

[tpr]

 

Slow motion test shot with D5300 this weekend.

Very nice stuff!

[Danyyyel]

Very nice footage Matt. I like the sense of composition and the grading.

 

The problem with these supposed reviews is not for the people that have bought the cameras but the undecided or beginner. It is a sense of sharing and trust that have made people create those internet site or communities. It has perhaps badly replace the photo clubs etc. So when someone comes to search for these information and they find some biased or rushed reviews, I think the trust is broken. I don't mind if someone makes money out of his site, once it is clear and he does not break this trust.

 

One of worst case is the philip bloom test of the Nikon D800/d4 vs 5dmark3.

 

So +200 000 person saw a test when the low light was done in a crowded Bar. Oh god, can you have a place where the light changes constanly as this to make a camera test !!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

 

As for Eoshd, I think it is more gear porn. The new shiny toy today is a gem and all the one before are now crap. And it goes on an on as the next one come along. Just look at the Blackmagic production cam threat, you wouldn't believe me if I told you that the 5d mark 3 raw mode is describe as shit LOL. And how one year ago makes such a big difference  LOL

 

'?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>>

 

Bought a Nikon D5200 yesterday - This thing is really surprising me... appears the new Toshiba sensor in the Nikon D5200 fixes moire. There's nothing like the problems here that plague the D600 and D800 full frame sensors. There's still a tiny bit of aliasing but no more than on the GH2. It is giving really nice Canon C300 approaching detail in 1080p, all on a $800 DSLR. You can dial it down really flat in-camera too, though I prefer to shoot graded in camera with a standard picture profile.

 

In producing footage for the review I have found it to be in the same league as the mighty GH3 for video so far. Here's a 100% crop of a 1080p frame grab shot in 25p mode. The picture profile on the GH3 was slightly flatter in-camera so ignore the contrast difference, just look at the detail. Really nice!

[stokstad]

 

Slow motion test shot with D5300 this weekend.

 

 

Nice, which profiles did you use on this?

 

On the D800 Im starting to use standard profiles again to avoid noise in shadows.

[maxotics]

Having been here a while now, I can certainly agree that Andrew is certainly a bitter pill sometimes.   He sometimes seems to get equipment from the smaller manufacturers, but then he seems to be more balanced in his reviews.  He seems to go a bit crazy when it's equipment from the large corporations that, I can assure you, do not cow-tow to anyone.  Indeed, I think it is their aloofness that irritates him to say things like the "baby mode."   Having been up again big corporation in other matters, I can sympathize with him there.  

 

Again, just want to say, having been here awhile, that the last thing Andrew is is anyone's shill. 

[Wild Ranger]

Wow!  Nice job.  This was all done on a D7100 and a D5200?

 

Michael

Yep, mostly on D7100.

[Guest 89e2bdf5797fbbdc17c2cc6da1413fa0]

Nice, which profiles did you use on this?

 

On the D800 Im starting to use standard profiles again to avoid noise in shadows.

Hey Edvard, I didn't get a chance to load your profiles this weekend (because the in-laws were staying!) This was all shot with a custom Neutral profile (2,-3,+,-2,0). I will certainly try your profiles, but I think I'll probably stick with Neutral in the long run. I agree with Andrew that you can loose overall contrast with Flaat etc, but I don't agree that Standard is best with the D5300 at all. It was necessary with the 5200 to shoot Standard to avoid banding, but I really like that you can choose not to crush the blacks with this camera. Most 5200 footage is just a little too low on detail in the shadows for my taste. I like Andrew's D5300 video, but I think he could have got more detail out of the shadows without loosing any contrast - I think he was just being lazy, as with the rest of his "review"  ;) . Neutral is a good compromise for me. Then you have options in post but you're not straying too far from the very nice image Nikon give you straight out of the camera. For really high DR scenes (interiors through windows etc) I would still use Flaat etc though.

I'm coming to the conclusion it's best to have sharpness at at least 2 or 3.

[stokstad]

 I will certainly try your profiles, but I think I'll probably stick with Neutral in the long run. 

 

 

Yeah I think in the end no one profile will be best all the time. Im learning at what ISOs to have what contrast to get the most DR but still not have to tweak too much in post. And also what colour you like the best. In low-light it seems the codecs will benefit from not having to much noise to deal with in the shadows, so more contrast might give better image and detail even in the shadows (they will be darker but cleaner and more discernible) from what I can tell with the D800. I think the whole notion of flat should probably be considered an aesthetic choice more than a workflow choice when working with these 24mbps codecs. That said, the dynamic range of these cameras are really good and we don't want to waste actual detail, we just don't need that detail REALLY bright, its fine if its a bit darker and sublte.

 

What I meant with standard profiles (which was a dumb choice of word) was the Nikon profiles the camera comes with. Slight tweaking with these will likely yield very good results. I like both portrait and neutral, each with different saturation and contrast setting. But having contrast on 0 (the default) you can really tell Nikon has chosen that setting for best results in higher ISOs. The Standard profile is a bit to punchy for most situations, even with the contrast dialed down max its like the "0" setting of neutral or portrait.

 

Aslo: many Nikons seems to produce a greenish tint, I have therefor adjusted my WB-settings just a tad towards magenta.