Thread: Dazzling video!
View Single Post
Old 06-14-2016, 06:46 PM   #23
Rich Z
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karl_Mcknight View Post
Auto focus and programmed shooting, and Full Auto this and that are fine. The Canon I have will do all that, but I don't want to be Lured into the belief that anything "Auto" is better than anything manual, nor do I want to have to rely on my camera to make decisions for me. I try whenever possible to "Turn Off" all the auto gizmos and put the camera in Manual mode and select my own aperture, shutter speeds, and focus myself. This is the way I used to take pictures with "Real Cameras" and although I've bitten the bullet and dove into the world of Digital, I don't necessarily believe digital is better.

I only have to break out my cell phone and CDs to understand the quality of digital comes nowhere close to the quality of analog, and so I believe that also holds true with photography.
Well, I guess I look at this a bit differently than you do. Personally, I WANT to be able to take advantage of what new technology can offer in the way of labor saving devices and services. Back when I was taking video of the baby snakes I was hatching out, it was pretty much impractical to try to manually control both focus and zooming at the same time I was doing the videos. I needed three hands to do that. One to activate the zoom control, one for the focus, and the third one to keep the baby snakes from bolting out of the containers. Auto focus just made the task much easier to do..

Basically, taking video of anything that is, or likely to, move pretty much requires the speed of processing that goes beyond what a human brain and reflexes can realistically handle in order to get the shots wanted. Flying birds, fast moving animals, or fast paced sports events pretty much are (as far as I know) pushing the requirements for the photo/video equipment used to ensure that a sizeable proportion of photos taken will not be rejected because they just missed the mark. Can some people do this manually? I'm sure there are, but I'm just as sure they are few and far between. Quite frankly, electronic processing is certainly going to far exceed what the human brain can do with fast paced motion in unpredictable directions.

In any event, it seems to me that Nikon still hasn't embraced the fact that video is here to stay. They seem stuck in the rut of old school still photography, and the concessions they are making towards people who WANT video appears to be luke warm, at best. Obviously decent auto focus during video is a practically attainable goal, simple because other manufacturers seem to have done so.

Speaking of which, I stumbled upon a different brand of camera that I actually felt a bit excited about, even though it is a 2 year old design.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...al_camera.html

The specs look pretty nice, and I was quite impressed with the videos I looked at on YouTube. I know it doesn't accept removable lenses, but dang, with a 25 to 400mm lens incorporated into the body, that would likely take care of easily 95 percent of everything I would do with a camera/camcorder anyway.



So hopefully Nikon will either fix the deficiencies with the D500, or maybe come out with a new model that does better autofocus with video. I just think that for a $2K camera body, it SHOULD do better than it apparently does with video, ESPECIALLY when they are touting the 4K video as being a desirable function provided. Just fix the autofocus algorithm so that it doesn't jump PAST the focus point and then back up to being in focus. Just slide TO the new focus point and STAY there until needed to refocus.

I once bought a Sony camcorder years ago that pretty much did the same thing, and seemed to pick random times to refocus. I got rid of that turkey in a hurry. Every video I took with it was ruined by that nonsense.

Anyway, while waiting to see if Nikon fixes the D500, I'm going to play around with that Panasonic. I went ahead and ordered one today. Heck, I might even find that I don't even need a Nikon camera body at all.