Nikon D800 with video features

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

It is early days yet, but video quality straight out of the D800 is better than I expected, and far better than the video performance from its more expensive brother the D4. The D800 seems to have a slight problem with pixelated reds (although at least it has HDMI out option to overcome this). Despite that price increase, the D800 seems to be a match for the Mark III in both stills & video in most quarters. Some aspects of D800 are far better in both stills & video with the D800 far better in detail and sharpness (although this can be improved with Mk 3 in post), but out of the box the Mark III copes much better with moire patterns, and is much cleaner and relative noise-free at high ISO in extreme low light video.

[Jon Fairhurst]

But what about aliasing?

If the D800 line skips, it will win/tie on some shots and lose badly on others.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

A few issues are beginning to show with the first batches of the Nikon D800:

Nikon D800: Not Perfect After All | TechnoBuffalo

I'm not sure yet if Nikon are going to correct the problems on the cameras they have yet to export, or will deliver Firmware updates to those who already have the early Nikon D800 bodies.

[Jerry Manco]

Originally Posted by Tony Davies-Patrick

It is early days yet, but video quality straight out of the D800 is better than I expected, and far better than the video performance from its more expensive brother the D4. The D800 seems to have a slight problem with pixelated reds (although at least it has HDMI out option to overcome this). Despite that price increase, the D800 seems to be a match for the Mark III in both stills & video in most quarters. Some aspects of D800 are far better in both stills & video with the D800 far better in detail and sharpness (although this can be improved with Mk 3 in post), but out of the box the Mark III copes much better with moire patterns, and is much cleaner and relative noise-free at high ISO in extreme low light video.

Hey Tony,what do you like better in the video qualities by the 800 as to the D4, and how much better is it.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

The video out of the D4 is less detailed than the D800, but then again it has slightly less problems with moire patterns. For some reason the D800 is cropping the video frame more than the D4 when using same lenses. I haven't got both together at same time to test this out at the moment, so maybe someone who has can double check this for us and post their findings.

[Jerry Manco]

Hey Tony, I originally ordered the 800, then changed my mind and ordered the D4 only because the D4 for stills is more suited for what I shoot. I thought the 800 and D4 would be equal in the video features and now I'm hearing the D4 is not as good as the 800. I still need it for stills, I'm hoping the video is good enough for what I need for I may have to get the 800 down the road as a second body if I'm not satisfied with the video quality of the D4. All these reports are making me nervous. Thanks for your reply, if you find out any other info on either camera, please fill me in. thanks, jerry JLM

Jerry Manco Photography and Video ? Niagara and Southern Ontario

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Jerry I actually think that the D800 produces slightly better stills than the D4, but the bigger brother's more robust build qualities, tighter seals with no inbuilt flash, faster drive and better battery life may fit your kind of work. The D4 is still no slouch in the video department either, so I'm sure it will fit your requirements without having to fork out for an extra D800 body.

I love some of the work on your website by the way, and that colourful opening image is certainly eye-catching.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Mr. M. Pappas, long time Watchdog hero, has passed along some URLs on the CML of the D800 including a lot of bricks and tiles footage, which deliberately tries to show some of the worst case scenarios of moire and jello cam.
From what I can tell from these, I know I can work with the D800 and turn out some killer images.

D800 RAW Interview "test" on Vimeo

D800 RAW Old lens sharpness test on Vimeo

D800 RAW BRICKS on Vimeo

Disclaimer: Is the D800 perfect? Well, for $3K and clean HDMI out? Just about - yes.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

5D2 Plus D800

Nikon D800 & Canon 5D Mark II Moire test on Vimeo

Another of the D800 moire...

Nikon D800 - Of Bricks and Crazy Colored Moire - YouTube

[Jacques Mersereau]

Yeah, the 2nd video is pretty bad, but I wonder if HDMI were used and we could view it on a real monitor what it would look like. That said, I know not to use that place or anything similar as my set.

[Jon Fairhurst]

HDMI isn't likely to improve moire.

It looks to me like the Nikon's smaller grid allows better co-siting of the luma and chroma pixels than the 5D2. The 5D2 doesn't just alias, it does so with the green, red, and blue pixels at different phases. When one color disappears between the pixels of the 5D2, another color nears its peak.

I shot video of a number of people in various shirts, jackets and sweaters yesterday with the 5D2 and VAF. It was a joy to nail the focus and not have a hint of aliasing. :)

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Jon, what is the widest lens you've used with the VAF?

[Jon Fairhurst]

The 35L and ZE 35/2 work great. The 16-35L II is pretty good to about 30mm. It's hard to identify a specific cut off point. The ZE 21/2.8 is a fail. I haven't tried the 24L, but would love to see how it holds up.

I've now used the VAF with the 16-35L II and the 70-200/2.8L IS II. Both are near parfocal without the filter and are wildly non-parfocal with the filter. With (this one copy of) the 70-200 you can go end to end and you just have to nudge the focus a bit. Add the filter, and I was turning the Redrock FF by nearly 90 degrees to compensate for the zoom. Needless to say, I did no live zooming - especially since you often need to pan/tilt to hold the composition. I can't pan/tilt, zoom and focus at the same time! Without the filter, I would zoom, then nudge and hope that nobody noticed. :)

I think the VAF adds field curvature. That's partly why wides don't work well. It's not just soft out there, the focus plane simply isn't flat so the corners are out of focus.

That said, if you are super close to a small object with an ultra-wide at a wide aperture, it might work as the corners would be blurred due to shallow DOF anyway. But this would be a rare shot.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

Thank you for that info, Jon.

[Tony Davies-Patrick]

D800 video test clip:

Nikon D800 Test on Vimeo