D5100 or 550D

[John Wiley]

Originally Posted by Vincent Oliver

"No. You have absolutely no control over shutterspeed. Any adjustments you apply to shutterspeed in Live View mode or before entering Live View mode will be ignored once you start recording video. Same with ISO."

Not sure which Nikon you're using but on the D7000 you can control both shutter speed ans ISO from Live View.

I made this comment in response to a question about the D5100. Later in the same post I did mention that the D7000 has manual control.

I would not put too much weight on the differences between bitrate on the Canon and Nikon cameras. Bitrate is only one small part of a very big puzzle when it comes to image compression. Compare footage from any of these DSLR's to the 24mbps h.264 from the Panasonic AVC-Cam line such as the AF100 or HMC150 and you'll notice a world of difference. The Panasonic implementation is so much better, despite the lower bitrate.

[Vincent Oliver]

Also regarding the limitation of 24p. This should not be a problem, all PAL & NTSC sets will play this frame rate and if you are publishing to the internet then it isn't a problem at all. I shoot all my material at either 24p or 30p and I live in the UK.

The Nikon's do shoot 1920 x 1080 at 24p, but will do 30p at 1280 x 720. Almost all my work ends up on a Standard Definition DVD, so I tend to shoot using 1280 x 720 as this produces better quality when down sampled to Standard Definition DVD.

Both the Canon 550D and Nikon D5100 cameras have their plus and minus points, it all comes down to which system you prefer

[Laurence Kingston]

Well I ordered a D5100 last Friday from B&H. It should arrive tomorrow. I will still keep my Sony HVR Z7U camcorder (which I love) so it won't be my only video camera. I hope to be able to expand into regular photography and also use the 5100 for D-SLR type shallow depth of field and low light shots.

A couple of key points to choosing this over the Canon were:

1/ Tiltable screen at this price point.
2/ dc-bias powered stereo mic input.
3/ Auto-focus (I can live with autofocus as good as I am seeing on the outdoor auto-focus samples on Youtube).
4/ 29.97 and 23.976 with sRGB levels at both 1080 and 720p at this price point.

Points where the Canon is superior:
1/ Magic Lantern updateable (boy I would love the zebras and overlaid audio meters),
2/ Smooth autoexposure function
3/ Settings changeable in live view.

Points were both cameras are weak:
1/ Aliasing and moire distortion.
2/ Can't monitor audio from camera while recording.
3/ Neither great for following moving action.
4/ Neither produces video in a format I can use efficiently on a timeline without converting to an intermediate.
5/ No dual phantom powered XLR inputs with separate limiters, level control and metering.

I do mostly local ad stuff as well as church and non-profit group promos.

With that in mind, the way I expect to be able to use this camera is as follows:

1/ Unlit (or with one simple softlight) interviews in much lower light than I could get away with on my 1/3" CMOS camcorder. I have two electret dc-bias powered mics on a 10 foot Y cable into a 1/8" stereo mini-jack that I got from microphonemadness.com. This will be an extremely easy interview setup. Canon's don't have dc-bias voltage on their mic inputs, so I would need some sort of extra mixer or power supply for the mics. With the Nikon, I can have my 10' cabled Y'd electret condenser lapel mics in a pouch in my pocket and not need anything else for an interview.

2/ B-Roll slide type photos and footage. I expect to be able to shoot photographs (mostly in aperture priority mode) and every so often slip into live view mode and shoot video clips with the same depth of field as I was just shooting in aperture priority mode).

3/ I will be shooting mostly at 29.97 1080p mode on a simple tripod. Since I deliver mostly on the Internet at 720p, this means that I will be able to Ken Burns effect zoom and pan up to a third of the way in at full 720p resolution, the same as I will be doing with my still photos. This should give me really nice slight motion and means that I can set my templates up to use either stills or photos interchangeably. This is important to me because I am trying to deliver a relatively low priced product without working too cheaply. It is also important to me because I do so much work for churches and non-profit organizations and I want them to have slick looking productions without charging them too much.

4/ I will be shooting mostly locked down shots where I will set the focus by half depressing the photo button, then framing. This is not a good way to shoot animals or children, but I think I can get away with it most of the time for what I do.

For stuff that goes beyond this type of template, I'll just keep using my Z7 camcorder, lights and audio gear.

I'll be messing with it tomorrow after I get it, Friday morning and on a shoot on Friday afternoon. If I don't like it I'll return it. I'll post my experience with this camera after that here.

[Vincent Oliver]

Don't forget to add a Hoodman or other focus aid, even with the D5100 flip out screen you will have difficulty seeing the image on the bare LCD screen on a bright day.

I have been using both the D7000 and D5100 over the last month and you will have to take the camera out a few times for practice runs, once you get used to the HDSLR the results will be good. I am using the D7000 with a 10-24mm lens as a wide angle setup to compliment my Sony EX3, it works well.

[Laurence Kingston]

Which Hoodman is best for the D5100's articulating screen?

[Laurence Kingston]

Well my dc-bias powered microphonemadness.com mics work perfectly with the D5100! This is huge to me. It means that I can do an interview that sounds top notch with an audio kit that fits in my pocket!

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

I found a loupe at dealextreme.com but I'm not sure if it's good enough. The Nikon adapter works like a dream though!

[Ann Bens]

Originally Posted by Sareesh Sudhakaran

The Nikon adapter works like a dream though!

Which one would that be?

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Check dealextreme.com. There's only one.

[Marcus Martell]

Vincent i'm very curious about your stuff.....
Where can i see it?

[Bill Bruner]

Originally Posted by Laurence Kingston

Which Hoodman is best for the D5100's articulating screen?

Laurence -- I use the $25 Hoodman HD300 on my GH2's flip out LCD (which is 3" -- the same size as the D5100 screen). Very helpful in sunlight.

Bill
Hybrid Camera Revolution

[Duncan Craig]

As a Nikon D90 owner as well as a large collection of old and new Nikon lenses I'm looking at the D5100 as a compliment to my EX1. I have to shoot in 25p.

How likely is it that Nikon would add full manual options to the D5100 firmware? Have they ever added more control? I've looked at Nikon Rumors past posts and it seems unlikely?

I'm sure at some point there will be a Nikon camera that does what we all want, it's just holding fire until then.

I might just get it anyway as I shoot a lot of stills at home, and manual controls aren't always necessary as long as you can lock exposure down.

[Laurence Kingston]

I have the exposure lock button set to latch and it works just fine. If you set the D5100 HDMI port to PAL, 25p becomes one of your format options. In aperture priority mode you can set the aperture and focus manually. Exposure is automatic but you can add or subtract from it easily and then lock it down with a single button push. Definitely good enough for me.

If you shoot in 720p mode, the footage will play back natively on an iPad. I can immediatly edit this footage with an app called "Splice" but not iMovie for the iPad. Anything I export the the camera roll from splice can be edited in iMovie however.

I edit with Sony Vegas and a not too powerful 2 core laptop. On that computer I need an intermediate to work with 1080p, but 720 edits natively as easily as standard definition! Very cool.

[Duncan Craig]

Hi, so another couple of questions. Can you zoom into the video image to check focus on the 5100? And what does the HDMI output do during recording? Duncan.

[Laurence Kingston]

There is a function to digitally zoom way in to check your focus. I don't know what the HDMI port is outputting when you shoot. I'll see if I can check it out tomorrow. Good question.