Nikon D750 review - initial thoughts and real-world footage - ladies and gentleman we have a contender!

[lafilm]

There are quite a few arguments going on other forums about the Sony A7s vs Nikon D750. 

 

I've seen videos where you can argue the sharpness and dynamic range on either camera.

 

I believe Andrew could probably answer the question as he has used both cameras. Not sure if he's going to do a side by side video test, however.

[dahlfors]

What's important to remember is that dynamic range declines fairly quickly as you go up in ISO. I've shot a lot with D800, and I know that the 14+ EV steps that Dxomark has measured is real at ISO100 when I shoot raw stills - it's just miles better than what I've been able to pull out of other cameras. However, on the D800, not all of that DR translates to useful DR in compressed H.264.
 
The D750 probably does a whole lot better than the old D800. But, since DR goes down when you go higher up in ISO, what's interesting with A7S is if you check the following graph from Dxomark:

 

 

For stills, D800 and D750 has an advantage as long as you're around ISO100 to ISO400, and the A7S catches up at ISO800. What is amazing with the A7S is how it can keep a high DR as the ISO increases. Almost 9 EV steps at ISO 25600 is pretty impressive. That's where the A7S really shines in comparison to other cameras - it can keep a very high DR at a large ISO range.

 

Dxomark measures DR for still photos, so it's hard to say how this translates to video since a lot happens to the image frames when they get processed and encoded into a lossy video format.

[hmcindie]

Using S-log the a7s keeps DR quite well when going high in video.

[leeys]

From what I've seen, the A7S has an even bigger advantage in video. While in stills it's barely a stop (I'd go with half), video compared to its peers is as high as 2. Shows how important a good internal compression engine is.

[lafilm]

Nice test

[Taranis]

Nice test

 

Which was posted here 6 days ago :)

[lafilm]

Ah my apologies! Thank you for pointing it out. In my excitement I missed that earlier post! Probably an omen not to purchase this camera!

[Taranis]

Some test samples with downloadable originals here: http://tekniikanmaailma.fi/kuva-ja-aani/testit-ja-pikakokeet/nikon-d750/nikon-d750-videot

Notice the moiré on the last video.

[Danyyyel]

The last video is really a stress test for moire, I can see it in two places, above the 15 in the centre and at the base of tubular structure, but we are talking resolution chart frequencies in this case.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

I am officially having an affair with the D810's image. It's the D5300 soul but just better. Wow. The detail is amazing yet it has no digital sharpened look, AND with great colour and flat profile that's easy to grade, (the combination of colour and detail was only exclusive to the C line, now this looks similar!) and the image doesn't fall apart, almost feels like ProRes it's just so clean of artefacts! Who would have thought Nikon would deliver the best h.264 implementation I've ever seen. And the stills quality, don't get me started. Canon has a lot of catching up to do with the 5D given the D810's image quality! I am waiting for the D750 to hit the country before buying the D810, the D810 is quite expensive here for my budget so if the D750 delivers similar video with a flippy screen I am definitely making it my A camera for years to come.

Note these are all over exposed in purpose to test the highlight clipping nature. They are also graded and not SOOC, 








 

[Danyyyel]

Ebrahim, you should open a thread dedicated to the d810. It seems to be a winner in terms of resolution/detail and DR. Unfortunately I already have a D800 and that is why I am more in search of details on the D750 to complement it as a more versatile and manageable 24 megapixel camera, as most of the time the 36 megapixel is overkill for mos jobs.

 

I did a little test with the second image and it shows very good DR. With the white sunny lit white façade on one side and the darker shadows like the black car, and to be able to still show detail with an image that has been re-compressed, I think is very good.

 

[dafreaking]

Yikes! Just saw some of the comparison shots I took and they are all out of focus. *hides forever*

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Dafreaking: just had 2 hours of testing thrown out the window for the same reason!  :rolleyes: 

Danyel; since you want to play and push around some images here are properly exposed ones in higher quality. They were just converted to Jpegs with no visual loss as far as I can see, they should pretty accurate representation of the D810's video image & grade-ability

Sorry for forgetting the in-camera sharpness turned high (looks a bit digital/videoy), it looks much better with 0 sharpness & 0 Noise reduction and the flat profile, this is just standard with 0 contrast and high saturation. I am impressed with images so far it almost re-ignited my passion in cinematography! It's the killer combination of full frame aesthetic and high detail which when combined together makes close ups of people almost 3D like, add perfect colour/skin and strong low-light performance and no artefacts. I can't find a single downside to the image. This is a very special camera and if the D750 is the same it will be mighty powerful and almost the leader in that range vs the similarly priced A7s and 1900$ Gh4. The D810 is too expensive to be that.





 

-The tack-sharp 24-70mm 2.8 VR and F11
-Lowest ISO (i believe 60)
-Standard profile with medium NR, 5 sharpness (called clarity), 0 contrast, 5 saturation and 0 hue
-Just exported as high JPEGS
 

[Inazuma]

How does the image compare to the d5300? In terms of colour, sharpness and DR (such as seeing details in the shadows underneath those little metal shack things).

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

It's just better in everyway. The same image but better.

When using the same picture profile Colours are exactly the same (i,e: stunning). I still can't put my hand on why I like Nikon's image and colour that much, it's hard to describe, the images that come out just look, almost "happy-looking!" There a certain "lightness" or "brightness" to specific elements and colours like skin tones and trees and blue skies, it just makes people's faces better than they actually do in real life. I am starting to believe that it actually selectively elevates the exposure on the skin colour, makes it a bit lighter, and gives it a reddish lively tone, and even applies some sort of NR/skin smoothing hat looks very pleasing to people when they see themselves, it's not accurate but it's beautiful. I am having a hard time explaining this as after all my English is quite limited.

Compared to the D5300 it is quite a bit more detailed and you can see distant fine elements that are soft and lost in the Canon/d5300 images (I always rated the D5300 to be similar to the 5D sharpened image in detail). It's a good step up in that area. Not GH4 detail but close, yet the image is softer and more "organic looking", with some sharpening you lose that organic sense but it gets very close to the downscaled gh4 4k, I would bet most would not be able to tell them apart in sharpness/detail.

Dynamic range, I did no comparative tests and it would be pointless to say how it is without having a well known camera to reference to. But when I was (unscientifically) testing it in the big Nikon vs. Canon battle earlier, I thought there was no huge leap in dynamic range on the d810 (or any other DSLR), they are all quite similar and they all clip at nearly the same point and clip quite harshly/ugly. The D810 is no exception. But while they do clip at the same point in the highlights and shadows, the ability to push up the shadows is in my eyes improved, the shadows are very clean of codec artefacts and ISO noise compared to most other DSLRs (especially d5300) that when you push them up you still get a good looking image, especially below 3200 ISO, after that I wouldn't recommend pushing shadows up at all. So it's not technically better shadow dynamic range or clipping point, it's just that the area before clipping is clean, so it does effectively have a better dynamic range (or not, it's quite confusing to define dynamic range!) All I can say is that the image is very nice and flat compared to the d5300 baked-in look, with more ability to push around and grade because it is "cleaner" of noise and artefacts. One would have no problem just shooting flat and getting any look or grade in post, even if it's a bit extreme, raw is slowly losing that advantage as Jpegs and h.264 are getting to the point where you can change white balance in post (I corrected WB from 2500K to 4600K in D810 h.264 with no visual loss, and just by using the three colour wheels. I am sure raw has its place in high-end cgi and such but it's really just a pain for most (99%) shooters, which is why I believe the d810 is far a superior video camera to the 5D, only just because it compresses neatly with no huge difference in quality vs raw.) 

Compared to the D5300 I would say 1 stop ISO improvement, somewhere around the mk III level. And the full frame 3D aesthetic is my deal breaker. I would be able to live with the earlier points with the d5300 as it's a very good image and very close (the d810 is just a "bit" better in each point - not a deal breaker and hardly noticeable by my audience I am sure), but the full frame aesthetic is what makes me love the D810 so much and is a point the clients will do notice. I just never shot with a full frame image that is sharp too, now I know why people love the 5D raw image so much, it produced that sharpness element into full frame shooting, where you have very creamy and soft backgrounds and foregrounds yet the subjects in focus are leaping off the screen and are tack sharp. It's a glorious 3D feel and very artistically moving.

Note: Don't buy a d810 now even if we're praising it so much, wait for the D750 as it actually might be same with added cleaner high ISOs, articulating screen and at 2500$. I really really hope this is the case.

[dafreaking]

I absolutely loved using the D750. Take it with the a grain of salt as I'm someone who personally uses a 600D with MagicLantern for personal use and 5Dmk3s for "paid" gigs.

 

There are a few quirks with the D750, but none that I would call deal breakers for my use.

 

1. The ribbon on the tilt screen is an accident waiting to happen.

2. The mic jack is below the headphone jack, so the cord of the mic is moved around a bit by the cord of the headphones.

3. Even if the camera is in movie mode one has to press the liveview button when switching on the camera. Seems to be a a weird quirk with Nikon as all their other cameras seem to have it too.

4. Can't use all meters,info,grid etc at the same time. e.g. you can't have the histogram and audio meters at the same time or even for that matter the grid along with audiometers. 

5. The liveview framing grid is divided into fours as opposed to the regular threes.

6. No magnification while recording. 

 

These are the things that I missed compared to my MagicLantern'd 600D (that doesn't have a headphone jack though)

 

My not so scientific battery test gave me 100 mins of recording on one charge, Obviously not under an ideal scenario as I would immediately hit record after the 20 min mark and not move the camera. 

[Taranis]

Just found some new samples on vimeo, they are part of an upcoming review I think:

Continuous AF:

[Inazuma]

ISO 3200 looks pretty similar to the LX100 :/

[dafreaking]

I couldn't seem to fine what picture profile was used in those tests. I shot a similar scene in a bar at 6400 ISO using the Flat profile and it is quite noisy. The Standard picture profile not so much though. And the clips look brighter and noisier in Premiere than say in MediaPlayer

[Danyyyel]

ISO 3200 looks pretty similar to the LX100 :/

>

 

It's things like that that make me think the noise performance of larger sensor cameras is oThose two scene cannot