summer light from Glen Ryan on Vimeo.

Quick test of manual controls on Nikon D3s – just shot it in the backyard during a break yesterday. Was incredibly bright – and didn’t have a stack of NDs with me so just made do with one ND and a circular polariser in the Genus MB to try and get some nice DOF on the new 70-200 2.8 VRII (and the Micro 105 2.8 VR).

Was still too bright in most shots so went for Lo ISOs and a few faster than ideal shutterspeeds on some shots to get something to look at. Not sure this is the best way to optimise quality but was a bit limited for time!

Other qualification I really need to make is I had planned to just drop them straight into PPro CS4 on the laptop – but for whatever reasons the files kept crashing the Importer (and on my desktop with CS4) – so in the name of trying to get something together quickly I resorted to converting them to MP4s to get them into the project. So the end result has been converted (and compressed) twice – which is obviously not ideal – but all I could could come up with! I’m sure there is a simpler, better way to do it – and I hope someone will point this out to me!

So it’s not ideal – and there is a bit more visible compression in some areas than on the original files… but the aim was to test out the manual functions – which are great – I’ll work out the workflow from here.

Files are pretty much straight out of the camera – just adjusted levels here and there.

If you don’t need 1080P then the compression is probably the only obvious weakness – although not in every shot by any means. Still – no need to sell the 5D2 just yet! But at smaller sizes – like web applications – I think the D3s will be pretty useable. If you already have heaps of great modern Nikon optics then this is definitely an option for getting some nice footage with them.

D3s note: leaving resolution out of the equation for stills the D3s is easily the best full frame DSLR I have used – the focus speed and accuracy is incredible and the low light performance is unique. If the new Canon 1D Mark IV is better than this then get one!

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