I don't think this really matters for which Nikon dSLR that you use. I'm back to shooting video on my D4 after being a wedding videographer for a few years about 10 years ago with a Canon XL1. Focusing was easy, kept it on MF and utilized the AF button.

With these dSLR's, it's a lot tougher. For one, you can hardly see the back of the screen when you're shooting video. But worse, the only way to really track a moving subject is to move the MF with them, using the focus ring, and I'm just not very good at that at all.

What are your tricks? What do I need to learn here? Are you guys using AF for moving subjects?

Ron

Ron,
We've talked about a lot especially lately. When you use a pro type lens you need to do 1 of 2 things.
1) get really really good at follow focus
2) Learn how to Spot focus

To do the first (and you should learn how to anyway) you need to practice practice practice. Shoot the kids, dog (uh, not literally of course) go to the corner and shoot cars going down the street. I used to shoot some NASCAR and always had corner 3. Cars coming at me at up to 190mph. Follow the leader thru the turn and to the next corner (or until the director called another shot). I would practice even when we weren't on the air. Not hours but 10 minutes here and there just to keep my skills up.

To do 2) spot focus (or also called zone focus) is where you place yourself at a certain point and focus on a point say 1/2 way down the aisle. Now keep in mind that DoF is not just iris opening (F/stop) but also how long the lens is and how far to your focus point. Wide lenses are more forgiving. Zoom a lens in and they are less so. Some more than others.
I use mostly spot focusing today using the HM700 with the Fuji17 lens. Of course making sure your point of focus is 110% sharp is critical.
Again, practice practice practice!

I just saw this yesterday. Seems Nikonhacker has a new firmware hack that allows manual control over iso and shutter while in liveview mode. Here is a YT video with a link to hack. I have not tried it yet, but I'm seriously thinking about it.
Nikon D5100 Manual Control In Live View - YouTube

I loaded on the firmware the other day and so far, so good. Read the directions carefully, and it only works with the 1.1 firmware, not the new 1.2 official. There are many choices to change like extend or no recording limit. (It seemed to add 4 more minutes of recording time but I still need to look at it), NEF no compression, less compressed JPGs, support for third party batteries and the manual ISO control. I just activated the extended recording, battery and iso control. I didn't bother with the others. Here is what I found with a quick test. In liveview, you can manually control the iso and shutter, but nothing seems to happen when adjusting the f-stop. I'm not sure if you have to set that before going into liveview or not. So I'm still testing but having some manual control is cool so far.

One of the specs is supposedly 120 fps at 1280x720.

Depending on the price of the camera and something like Red Giant's Instant HD, may be a cheap (relatively) slow motion solution if it works.

400 fps and 1,200 fps at lower resolutions.

This is the Nikon 1 V3 camera | Nikon Rumors (http://nikonrumors.com/2014/03/12/this-is-the-nikon-1-v3-camera.aspx/)

.... Now.... if they could just do something like this in a new D400/7200/9000 - I'd buy that!

Anyone use or have used this DSLR for shoots? Thoughts? My Wife just got one for some stills and it looks good with some quick test vids I did. But just seeing what anyone else's thoughts would be. I know its not as nice as the D4's and higher end Canon's, but I couldn't convince her to get a BMD pocket. :(

I have a D5100, which is similar. Coming from more of the video background, I've found that you can take really nice video with it but it takes a lot more work. Controlling your environment is very helpful, and testing and adjusting your settings. I bought it because I wanted to be able to take stills and/or video at some of the events that I go to. I was tired to trying to decide which camera to take and didn't want to carry 2. Look on line and you can find some tutorials that help out with lens choice, ND filters etc.

Last Thursday, I got my used FT1 (Adorama $149) and began playing around with it on my V1.

Saturday, a friend of mine was filming a wedding up in near Nashville and I asked him if I could bring my new set up and test it out at his wedding shoot. He said sure, so I loaded up the car with my V1, FT1, F2.8 trinity, Manfrotto 561 monopod, and Konova K3 slider.

It was a sunny afternoon with little clouds and it was an outdoors wedding.

Overall I'd say the V1 worked quite well for the video. It took me a while to get use to everything, but shooting in manual mode allowed for great control. Some things I noted

(1) Of course, the hardest part was viewing the LCD screen in the super bright sunlight. Needed some sort of hood or something. I did resort to using the viewfinder as the day went on.

(2) Shooting on the monopod, while good for tight quarters indoors, still yielded noticeable "wobble" for lack of a better term. Would have been better to be on a tripod, even for indoor shots.

(3) I like that while recording, I can push the focus button and it requires focus. For instance, when the bride was coming down the aisle, she was in focus for say 5 or 6 feet, and then I'd have to refocus as she got closer.

This will now be my poor man's solution to getting shallow DOF shots, as the quality is very good in my opinion.

Last night, Nikon unveiled their new D810 which upgrades the camera to 1080 60p and uncompressed output to external recorders. There is also a newe filmmakers kit option:

Nikon D810 DSLR Filmmaker's Kit 13456 B&H Photo Video


Story:
Nikon D810 now available for pre-order | Nikon Rumors (http://nikonrumors.com/2014/06/26/nikon-d810-now-available-for-pre-order.aspx/)

I may be upgrading my D90. As I've noted elsewhere, I've been using my Nikon V1 extensively for video the past few months at weddings and it does a fantastic job. I can only imagine that something like a D810 would be even better... especially ergonomically. Yes, I do have regular ENG type cameras I use at weddings, and external audio recorders etc, but for all my creative shallow DOF type shots, these kinds of cameras are the way to go!

I was wondering about the video output. Even with the 800/800e video is un-compressed going into an external recorder. So nothing new there.

Is there any information about a setting for shooting non-h.264 right to CF card? That would be really cool.

Jonathan

I saw the other day that Henry's Camera is selling the very useful Nikon 10-100mm video lens for $250!

At that price, I may have to pick one up for my V1.

NIKON 1 10-100MM F4.5-5.6 VR BLACK PD-ZOOM 3318 (http://www.henrys.com/66539-NIKON-1-10-100MM-4-5-6-VR-BLACK-POWER-ZOOM.aspx)

Bana Bak! "Look at Me!" on Vimeo

I am trying to capture the menu screen on the D750, I am using a BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle with HDMI in. This capture the Live Screen output OK but will not capture the Menu screens. When I plug the HDMI cable into my TV set I do see all the menu screens on the TV. Can anyone shed some light on this and hopefully a solution.

Problem solved. Just for information the camera has to be set to 1080i and the capture format on the BlackMagic set to HD 1080i 59.94. Found that out by going through every setting one at a time.

Looks like Nikon introduced their latest DSLR last night, the Nikon D7200. Upgraded video specs and some neat in camera features like timelapse.

What caught my attention though is their new ME-W1 mireless microphone system. It uses Bluetooth and claims it's good for 164'.

I dunno... I can't get more than about 30' out of my iPhone 5 and Bose Soundlink mini speaker. lol

Nikon ME-W1 Wireless Microphone 27159 B&H Photo Video

Maybe they'll do a Nikon 1 V4 with UHD at 24 or 30fps...

Unveiled: The Nikon 1 J5 Mirrorless Camera with Selfie-Ready Screen | explora (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/news/unveiled-nikon-1-j5-mirrorless-camera-selfie-ready-screen)

Hi Folks,

Just added a Nikon 5200 to my arsenal. Only reason I went with Nikon was because I already had a couple of nice Nikon lenses that I inherited from my father in law when he passed away a few years ago. This is my second experience with a DSLR after over 30 years of ENG/EFP work. I DP'ed a horror short with one back in 2011, I was skeptical at the time about DSLR's for video in general, they're not the run and gun TV cameras I was used to. I've learned that hand holding can be steadied a bit by putting the strap around the neck and holding a little pressure with the arms. It seems to work pretty well following my hyper Jack Russell Terrier-American Bulldog mix, Loki around. He's epileptic and we're working him in as kind of a mascot for the local Epilepsy Foundation here in Windsor.

I've noticed that in movie mode, the shutter speed will not go any lower than a 30th. You can't slow it enough to get a streaky motion blur effect. Is there a way to achieve this? Also the camera has an interval timer that would work for time lapse. Is there a function in iMovie that can animate single frames and also is there a way to do custom still picture moves? The program seems to randomly pick moves on its own.

Here are some of the videos I've test shot so far.


Dog's Epileptic Siezure - YouTube

Meet Loki-American Bulldog-Jack Russell Terrier Mix - YouTube

Loki Today-Nikon 5200 Test-6-21-15 - YouTube

YouTube

Compare this to the video I shot with a Canon Gl-1 last year.

Loki's New Home - YouTube

Thanks,

Marty Hamrick

Raindance Media Centre

Windsor, Ontario

Used the interval timer last night for the first time. Got a few!

I was super impressed with the battery life of the EN EL15.

I started at 10:00PM and it last until 2:30AM! I put a new battery in at 3:00 AM when I work up and continued. At that point though dew was setting in heavy and since I was asleep the lens got foggy.

Loving my D750 more every day!

Perseid Meteor Shower Timelapse on Vimeo

Couple of days ago bought d750 and my first impressions are positive.
The extra button called 'I' at the back of the camera bottom left is very useful. It allows quick changes to the current mode that you are in. As I am shooting a video at the moment I found it very useful for quick reference check.
What I find annoying that you cannot assign the FN button to change between the full frame FX and Dx mode as I have done on my D600. It is also not given as an option as you toggle between various things. POssible due to the factr that D750 has three option here the FX, 1.2 and DX.

I was wondering how stable is the high bitrate hack on the d610 and d750. Is playback on camera available yet? Can I revert to the original firmware if necessary?

What hack are you talking about?

Hello, curious as to what the PAR setting of a D750 1920x1080 video is for Photoshop CS6?

Regards Aaron

Ungraded video short I put together today while my kid played with Legos. This was shot handheld with a Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 macro using the Flat Picture Profile.

https://youtu.be/epdVwPy-G2Y

More tests with the new Nikon D500. This time in HD: Active D-Light, Stabilization, Face Detection and Rolling Shutter.

Nikon D500 Tests: Rolling Shutter, D-Light, Face Detection - YouTube

Today I put a Nikon D500 vs. my Sony FS7 to see if I could get a comparable look out of each with minimal fuss. I was pretty impressed with the results.

http://youtu.be/2nyA92bUEuM

Details: In this video we shot several scenes on both the Sony FS7 $8000 cinema camera and the new $2000 Nikon D500 DSLR. The Sony was in Cinema EI mode and shot on Slog3.cine with an Alexa-like LUT applied (Sony provided), it then received minor saturation and luma tweaks. The Nikon was shot using the Flat color mode and it too received saturation and luma tweaks. With more tweaking we're sure we could get color even closer but this was to test a quick grade since not everyone is a color master. We feel this is an easily-achievable match for almost any video editor. One thing to note is that the FS7 has a mountain more color information at its disposal. The Nikon requires that footage be shot correctly from the start.

The Nikon was equipped with the Tokina 11-20 f/2.8 lens, the Sony camera used the Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 DX.

I've posted elsewhere that I use my Nikon 1 V1 with 6.7-13mm lens for processional safety shots. It works great.

This past weekend, we had a situation where that camera ended up being the rear shot with a 10-100mm lens. It wasn't quite enough reach to get a "tight" shot.

I rectified that situation by getting the 70-300, which is a 810mm max equivalent. lol This is an amazing lens and will be perfect for outdoor weddings.

That's always been one of my hesitations of DSLRs at weddings... being able to get tight shots, because a lot of times 70-200mm even with a 1.5x boost isn't enough.

That's why I like my Sony NX5 and Canon XA20.. 600mm zoom range.

Hello,

thank you for posting your sample. May I ask, would you be kind and tell us the bit rate mbps for video UHD and 1080p at 60fps?

I understand the camera is using rolling shutter (CMOS sensor design), what is your experience with andti-aliasing, bending and other artifacts caused by motion?

Best regards,
Pavel