Was this video eally shot with a Nikon D7000?

Merlin5 · 22 Jul 2011 at 05:33

An amazing quality video, but there seems to be debate in the comments about whether it's the Nikon D7000 shooting the video, or steadycams, or the D7000 with ultra expensive lenses. I'm aware the D7000 is about £700, but this video quality must be worthy of much more expense, like thousands of pounds worth of equipment surely?

Scam · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:40

What makes you think its not? It looks lovely to me.

Russinating · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:42

^^ As above. It's the glass that gives it the quality anyway.

MikeHunt79 · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:45

Nice vid, I imagine the video was done with a D7000 or 2...

I guess an external Mic was used also...

Merlin5 · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:47

Well I've seen a handful of videos on youtube of the D7000 doing HD video tests, and tbh, there's a massive difference between those and this video. Those videos looked very good but at best like typical amateur HD footage.This video however has all the qualities of a hollywood style movie.

matja · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:52

The secret recipe is to stick on large aperture lens, find an interesting subject, plan your shot, light well, bump the contrast and vibrance in PP. Works on any camera really. Results on my D7000 with 18-200 f/3.5-f/5.6 look the same as any HD camcorder, stick on a 50mm or 85mm f/1.4 and the look is transformed into something more 'cinematic'.

Merlin5 · 22 Jul 2011 at 12:54

Reading through the comments section though, there's an awful lot of people who seem fairly sure it was done with steadycams, a 'merlin' steadycam is mentioned a lot.

the shadow · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:16

Well a clip of the d90 video showed them using a skateboard i don't think it had any jelly effects showing

Raikiri · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:31

Merlin5 said:
Well I've seen a handful of videos on youtube of the D7000 doing HD video tests, and tbh, there's a massive difference between those and this video. Those videos looked very good but at best like typical amateur HD footage.This video however has all the qualities of a hollywood style movie.

Post processing, good lighting and a good subject all help massively.

Merlin5 said:
Reading through the comments section though, there's an awful lot of people who seem fairly sure it was done with steadycams, a 'merlin' steadycam is mentioned a lot.

They do, you can see in the video they do. They also have eyepieces on the screen, shoulder mounts etc.

All that does it allow them to get smooth movement and helps with focussing.

P.S. You can always make a steadicam which work pretty well: http://diycamera.com/stabiliser/index.html for next to nothing

Merlin5 · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:39

Cool, ok then, so it seems it is indeed a D7000 filming this video. That's incredibly impressive then for a £700 camera. Or maybe it costs a bit more. Anyway, how deep would one expect to have to reach into the pockets to add the kind of large aperture lens lthat matja mentioned to replicate this exact quality?

mattyg · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:53

Merlin5 said:
Reading through the comments section though, there's an awful lot of people who seem fairly sure it was done with steadycams, a 'merlin' steadycam is mentioned a lot.

D7000 on a steadycam. Whats wrong with that

You can actually see the steadycam at a couple of points

MikeHunt79 · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:56

Merlin5 said:
Cool, ok then, so it seems it is indeed a D7000 filming this video. That's incredibly impressive then for a £700 camera. Or maybe it costs a bit more. Anyway, how deep would one expect to have to reach into the pockets to add the kind of large aperture lens lthat matja mentioned to replicate this exact quality?

The 35mm f1.8 lens is nice and around £150

The 85mm f1.8 is more and also a nice lens, these two would be a good start, but as said, lighting and camera mounting (grip) count for a lot also, you could have the best lenses in the world but if the camera is wobbly and lighting is poor then it will never look pro.

Raikiri · 22 Jul 2011 at 13:56

Merlin5 said:
Cool, ok then, so it seems it is indeed a D7000 filming this video. That's incredibly impressive then for a £700 camera. Or maybe it costs a bit more. Anyway, how deep would one expect to have to reach into the pockets to add the kind of large aperture lens lthat matja mentioned to replicate this exact quality?

I paid £180 for my 30mm f1.4, a 50mm f1.8 is £100.

In that video he uses a lot of different lenses, one of which looks like a 400mm f2.8 which is £6,000. Although for the purposes of video using older lenses is perfectly acceptable, Nikons old 300mm f/4 would offer a similar level of IQ for about £350.

the shadow · 22 Jul 2011 at 14:23

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6zK6cz52CI :cool:

sarge78 · 22 Jul 2011 at 14:59

Nice.

mattyg said:
D7000 on a steadycam. Whats wrong with that

You can actually see the steadycam at a couple of points

Yep, a steadycam is almost essential if your shooting video with a DSLR/compacts.

You don't have to spend £600+ on a merlin, check out something like the £60 Hague MMC.

bigredshark · 22 Jul 2011 at 16:10

I'm sure it was all shot with a D7000 as said above, thing is, it's a £800 D7000 and then 10x times that on glass and 10x that on support gear (steadycam, z-finder, audio gear, all sorts).

You can produce those results but you need to plan your shots according to the equipment you have, I've seen people make DIY dollies for video work for no money at all by just making a frame with wheels to put their tripod on it. That works.

In this case, it's not the camera but the skill level which is producing the results though, check out Apple's trailers for the iMovie for iphone stuff, all shot on editted on an iphone so they say. It's impressive but it's possible because it's pro's who do it day to day and they'll have planned everything like they were using normal gear...

sarge78 · 22 Jul 2011 at 16:30

^ Oh yeah, that reminds me of Nokia's short film shot on the N8.

Merlin5 · 22 Jul 2011 at 17:19

mattyg said:
D7000 on a steadycam. Whats wrong with that

Nothing. I put myself under a misapprehension that a steadycam might be some £20,000 professional video camera, but it's obviously not.

sarge78 said:
^ Oh yeah, that reminds me of Nokia's short film shot on the N8.

THAT was all shot on a phone?? :eek:

I'll check out the iphone one bigredshark mentioned, but I'm sure it'll be amazing too. So this seems to suggest the 1080 video camera on my SGS2 phone could make a movie as good as that nokia one.

Ksanti · 22 Jul 2011 at 17:57

You're shooting at 1080p, the glass makes very little difference outside of focal length and aperture. Pretty much every piece of glass ever will outresolve that so I don't see why everyone's complaining about the lenses he use?

Raymond Lin · 22 Jul 2011 at 18:07

bigredshark said:
I'm sure it was all shot with a D7000 as said above, thing is, it's a £800 D7000 and then 10x times that on glass and 10x that on support gear (steadycam, z-finder, audio gear, all sorts).

You can produce those results but you need to plan your shots according to the equipment you have, I've seen people make DIY dollies for video work for no money at all by just making a frame with wheels to put their tripod on it. That works.

In this case, it's not the camera but the skill level which is producing the results though, check out Apple's trailers for the iMovie for iphone stuff, all shot on editted on an iphone so they say. It's impressive but it's possible because it's pro's who do it day to day and they'll have planned everything like they were using normal gear...

Exactly, it's shot on a £700 body, but not £700 camera. It probably cost 5 figures in glass, sound equipment, steady cam rig, processing rig, editing software etc, it's not straight out of the camera. You can't say the other videos shot on the D7000 looks nothing like this because for the reason that they are not. Not to mention the skill involved.