Quote:
Originally Posted by andy153
Has anyone noticed the trend with DSLR's recently to include movie capability? I've just been reading the specs for the new Nikon D5000 - it boasts 24 fps with mono sound ?? Yet in Camera mode its only 4 fps. Does anyone want/use/need this feature? Has anyone tried it or is it just marketing gone mad?
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Andy,
Video ........... not something I have any interest in, but my thought is that there must be some demand from this feature. Nikon introduced it on the D90 closely followed by Canon in the 5DMkII. I have seen the Vincent Laforet video using the 5DMkII and that is very impressive. So in each case I think the manufacturers were testing the market. Now there is no way of knowing how many sales of each of these cameras was primarily driven by the ability to shoot video and neither have been on sale for that long really. I think it quite logical that the latest offerings from Nikon ( D5000 ) and Canon ( 500D ) are aimed a bit lower in the budget range so a different target market. Those releases must help give both manufacturers a fair base to understand the desireabilty of this feature among their customers.
" Does anyone want/use/need this feature? Has anyone tried it or is it just marketing gone mad? ".
I have it from a reliable source that a current TV commercial was made on the Canon 5DMkII, and having seen Vincent Laforet's video I have no reason to doubt him.
How big is the market ? ......... at the moment no idea, but this sort of technology is far more likely to appeal to the new generation of photographers so lots of potential.
There is no doubt though that using a DSLR for video gives a control of dof that simply cannot be matched by handycams and the same seems to apply to low light applications. As I understand it at the moment the biggest problems at the moment are the method of image capture off the sensor ( rolling line by line rather than grabbing in one go ), and a more effective autofocus ( not using the live view system ). If the market is there then no doubt it will pay manufacturers to solve those problems. Just look at the advances in DSLR technology since 2001. In your minds eye travel back to 2001 the year of the D1X release. Cutting edge stuff then. Now look at your D3 and its specs and remember that was announced just 6 years later for a lot less money in real terms.
In the long run perhaps the question should be how much we stills shooters will benefit from advances in sensor and associated in camera processing engines if this takes off, and then if it becomes a regular feature of DSLR's how much of a price premium will we stills shooters are asked to pay for a feature we feel we are unlikely to use.
That does beg a question though. If you bought a camera with that feature built in would you be tempted to give it a bash just for a bit of fun, or even for grabbing single frames from a sequence. Thoughts of action stuff springs to mind. I seem to remember something about concern being voiced in some quarters about the use of such cameras at major sporting venues.
So marketing hype, I personally don't believe so. I expect this to be a regular feature at least in part of the ranges offered by the various manufacturers.
Don