Port Huron Video Tests

 The video saga continues.  And with much better results.  I'd been waiting all week for Saturday.

The weather forecast was for storms all over the state.  The decision was to head to Mackinaw City or Port Huron.  Since both location had virtually no chance of nice weather, I went for Port Huron.  Turns out, that worked.

But getting to PH was a journey.  The video journey.  

So far, I've figured out what the GoPro is good for, and not so good for.  Let's start with the positive.  it is set for wide angle.  With a very a small sensor.  And infinity focus.  It has an auto leveling function, where the horizon for the most part is level.  It has a 'smoothing' function where the image is not shaking, such as when the truck is on unimproved surface.  Very handy features.  It will take videos at 5k, but is somewhat limited on other functions.  The not so good side is it is fixed wide angle.  Although there is a 'narrow' mode, it is only less wide angle.  For an action cam this makes sense.  For my interest in videos, not so much.  I want the close up.  That being said, I won't be sending it back.

What really drove home the wide angle elements to me was this clip.  This is from a drive in the Refuge where a Heron flew across the front of the truck.  When it happened, I thought it would be great on the GoPro.  In reality, not so much.  Looked small and far away.

However, the GoPro sparked the interest in videos for me.  There aren't any feature length videos in my plans.  I am, however, looking to 'enhance' some of my photos when I can.  There's more to a F22 demo than afterburners.  With a video clip, there is movement and sound.  Same for the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels.  And if the GoPro won't get me what I want, then maybe the Nikons will.

In my video viewing experience, I know more about what I find in a 'bad' video.  For now, a good video just is.  First on my list of unpleasantries is video jumpiness.  This is not video shakes from being handheld, but action too fast for the video frames.  I my research, I found normal video frame rates are 30 frames per second.  To test this, I shot video of a car passing in front of me at a theoretical 35 mph.  Theoretical in that 35 mph is the speed limit in the sub-division.  At 30 FPS, the images were shaky, not smooth.  What would a jet at 450 mph look like?  The image of a car crossing at 35 mph looks much better at 60 FPS.  The Nikons will handle a 60 FPS at 1080 - and that's good enough for me.  But what does a Nikon video look like?

And that takes us to Port Huron, for video testing.  Nikon video testing.  I had the D500 paired with the 70-300 and the D850 paired with the 24-70.  If I was walking around an airshow, this is my kit for now.  I didn't take a tri or mono pod to PH.  With the prediction of stormy weather, that was one less piece of equipment to deal with.  I'll deal with the next level later.

What did I learn?

First, the Nikon DSLRs have a very bad reputation for video auto focus.  Nikon made great strides in this area with the mirrorless models such as the D780 and the Z line.  But I have what I have.  I'm too late in the game, both age and financial, to switch to mirrorless.  So I need to see what the auto focus is really like.  And I found out.

I will also note, that while showing some of the errors of the day, the errors are mostly my issues.  It's a journey, right?

Left to its own, the AF will come in.  But it would be better if I could start out in focus.  And after experimenting, I could get the start of the videos much closer to an acceptable focus.  Staying with the focus subject, one of the other things I noticed when I reviewed the videos on a larger monitor was the auto focus tracking occasionally would search.  I read that depending on the subject and environment, might be better to go to manual focus., At least now I know why this might be better.  Set it and forget it.  This sequence would have been much better in constant focus.

The D500 with the 70-300 did OK, but stretch out the lens magnified every little 'shake'.  There is software that will help out, but for now the level of video editor I have does not include this option.  And some form of pod would have helped.  But for now, this is annoying!

Most of these issues were with the D500 combo.  With the D850 and a shorter lens the videos were much 'better'.  

You can still see the camera shakes, but here it only feels like a home video, whereas with the wind surfer the shakes were really bad.

The was the next to last video shot with the D850 combo.  It's not bad, looks home video.  But what gets to me is the clear, sharp image.

I like the detail on the water and on both watercrafts wake.

Journey fist steps.  Still have to work on color grading.  But have good test files to work on.