Nikon at nab 2014

[Jacques Mersereau]

I have to say, out of all the DSLR cameras I saw at NAB,
for me NIKON was the one with the most cinematic look.
The D800 and D4s make some sweet images.
I also very much liked the presentations at the booth.
I think I spent more time there than anywhere else. Good job on that Nikon.
The only thing that keeps me from buying one is that they don't do 4K video.
For me, that is a deal killer. If they could port it so that a Convergent Odyssey could record its 4K output,
that would make a killer rig.

So, NIKON, when?

[Craig Chartier]

Yes Nikon is very behind in the video world. Yes the booth and footage shown looked great. 4K from a DSLR body is gonna still be Sony A7S, GH4 and 1DC. Gotta say the Sony A7S footage - Not shown 4K -
looked great due to no pixel binning and no line skipping.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Nice meeting you at DVINFO party at NAB Craig.

Good times.

[Craig Chartier]

It was good running into you as well Jacques, lets do it again next year!! Maybe Nikon will have a 4K camera for us to look at ;-)

[Sam Renkin]

I shoot with a D600 and have to agree - the images (and color) are fantastic! My clients don't care what name is on the camera - they only care about great video. From a functionality standpoint, I've used Nikon side by side with Canon (5D MkIII). I know I'm a minority in the world of production, but I just prefer Nikon's logic.

Interesting comment about 4K video - why is that keeping you from buying a Nikon? Does your work specifically require 4K video? I produce video content for use at corporate events (1080p HD projection) and distribution on the internet (usually 720p). Never have I delivered a video to a client on Blu-Ray, and only rarely do they ask for a full HD file. So for me, 4K is not a real-world requirement yet.

Interested to know your thoughts?

Sam

[Jacques Mersereau]

There are a number of reasons for capturing at 4K- or above, even if only delivering 1080.
One of them is being able to shoot wide and then re-frame (Pan/Zoom) without any resolution loss and that is huge. (Possibly the reason why RED's went to 6K with their Dragon sensor.)

4K Capture down-converted to 2K looks nice and sharp too.

The other thing is future proofing. When things go to 4K you aren't known as the HD guy :-D

From what I saw at NAB 2014, the 4K train is rolling and prices are falling, but that said,
2-5 years before both the content delivery system and the hardware are there.

As always, YMMV

[Jacques Mersereau]

From WIKI - why to shoot in 4K for 2K delivery - MTF

<<<Just as standard definition video with a flat MTF is only possible with oversampling, so HD television with
****full theoretical sharpness is only possible by starting with a camera that has at least twice[citation needed] as many pixels, and then digitally filtering****.

With movies now being shot in 4k and even 8k video for the cinema, using cameras like the Red, we can expect to see the best pictures on HDTV only from movies or material shot at the higher standard. However much we raise the number of pixels used in cameras, this will always remain true (unless a perfect optical spatial filter can be devised), and the same problem exists of course with stills cameras, where a better image can be expected when, say, a 10-megapixel image is converted to a 5-megapixel image, than could ever be obtained from an even the best 5-megapixel camera. Because of this problem of maintaining a flat MTF, broadcasters like the BBC did for a long time consider maintaining standard definition television, but improving its quality by shooting and viewing with many more pixels (though as previously mentioned, such a system, though impressive, does ultimately lack the very fine detail which, though attenuated, enhances the effect of true HD viewing).>>>