wAntAn productions

Here's a sample video I shot with the Nikon D90 in my living room.



One of the D90's biggest claim to fame is the video functionality. It's the first DSLR that can record video.

Took me a little figure out how to record videos because I haven't had time to read the manual. Basically all you do is press the LV (live view) button to activate live view then click on OK to begin recording. You end recording by clicking on the OK button again.

When the D90 first launched along with the Chase Jarvis campaign (Google for it if you want to know more) the highlight of the campaign was the video feature. In short the videos they shot were awesome.

In truth the D90's video capabilities aren't that great.

In the embedded video I was trying to show off the depth of field effect. That's where I separate the subject from the background by having a sharp in focus subject and a nicely blurred background.

It's a cool effect but you have to focus the lens manually. There's absolutely no autofocus support when you're doing video on the D90. Also if you tend to have shaky hands you must remember there's no built in stabilisation in the camera too (note to self: test video with VR on).

One other flaw you can see with the video is the flickering. I believe this is caused by the fluorescent lights in the living room which most people probably have.

There's another problem called the rolling shutter problem. I shot another video to illustrate the problem but couldn't get it uploaded. I'll try again tonite then blog about it.