Nikon Announces D850 Filmmaker's Kit

The Atomos recorder can display focus peaking which should make manual focusing to required accuracy fairly easy. I find focusing for video using manual focus e.g. in the 35/1.4 quite easy in LV using peaking (after making suitable adjustments to the settings) but natively the camera doesn't provide this function during 4K recording, only FullHD and LV.

 

Nikon seem to be unwilling to give up any still image quality to enable better video AF. I think many customers are unhappy about this policy and it could cost them many customers. I don't doubt for a second that they could offer it since they were the first to commercialize on-sensor PDAF in the Nikon 1. I think the striping in highlights with wide apertures may be the reason they don't offer it in DSLRs today. They seem to have been working on some kind of quadruple-pixel AF judging from recent patents. This would enable cross-type OSPDAF which I believe would be the first ever camera with such capability. But it's not clear whether it is purely for mirrorless or for mirrorless and DSLRs. I personally think they would be wise to offer it in a camera such as the D750's successor. In the meanwhile AF-P lenses also improve LV and video AF but thus far there is only one AF-P lens with FX coverage. Now that it seems they've fixed most of the backwards compatibility issues, they probably should consider releasing more lenses with stepper motors. In fact I'm hoping for AF-P Micro Nikkors for focus stacking.

Edited March 27, 2018 by ilkka_nissila

The 30 minutes minus 1 second is for tax purposes. Devices capable of recording 30 minutes or more are considered being video recorders and are subject to ~ +5% extra TAX.

 

I understand the Panny GH4 gets around this by recording to an external HDMI recorder.

 

Is this still the same when recording a D850 to the Atmos? What are the inbuilt limits?

 

The manual says nothing about this other than the 29 min 59 second limit...?

The GH4 has a special R variant which records indefinitely but only 4K, the limit for FullHD is still in place. It was several hundred euros more expensive.

 

I believe that when recording to an external recorder there is no limit but I have not tested.

I don't think anyone's planning a remake of Hitchcock's Rope, so being limited to a just-short-of 30 minute take won't put many customers off.

 

However, the dodgy AF....... that's a different matter.

I'd like to put my D810 in it's waterproof housing and film the hedgehogs in my garden all night......not just for 29 minutes........:)

PS. Obviously whilst not being next to the camera all night.... I need the sleep.:D

I'd like to put my D810 in it's waterproof housing and film the hedgehogs in my garden all night......not just for 29 minutes........:)

 

Hmm. Where do you live again, Mike? I could do with a spare body. :-)

 

(I am not, of course, allowing for your trained attack hedgehogs.)

They're like small prickly pussycats until they get all riled up, then they get kinda feisty ......:eek:

Given the number of scars I got from my cats, that's enough to scare me off even from a "free" D810. :-)