HD video shoot with Nikon D7000

This week I've got a new toy: The Nikon D7000. Today I had a chance to test it for the first time. I am with my folks in Germany over the weekend and the weather is gorgeous.

One of the great new features of the D7000 is that it can shoot HD video at 1080p and 24fps with auto-focus enabled throughout the shoot. I didn't have a camera that could shoot HD video before, except for my recently purchased Canon S95, which "only" shoot 720p.

After some tests in the garden using flowers and fishes as my subjects I have mixed feelings, although I am mostly positive: The picture quality is stunning. Especially when watching the footage on a big 1080p screen. The DSLR lenses enable you to shoot with shallow depth of field which enables some quite professional looking shots.

So what's the downside you might ask: Although the D7000 is able to focus throughout the shoot, the focusing technique used is not very good. The contrast detection mechanism forces the camera to focus in and out a bit until it gets it right. This should make it very hard to e.g. shoot moving targets reliably. In addition, the constant focusing is quite noisy, which renders the internal mic useless in such situations.

I guess one solution to the auto-focus problem is to focus manually, but this can be quite challenging.

Nevertheless, I am quite impressed by the video performance of the D7000. After all, this wasn't the main reason I bought it, as I mainly want to take great pictures. But having such a powerful video feature at hand is certainly nice. I am sure, I will use it quite a bit in the future.

Here is a little video I cut using iMovie from the weekend footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly3P4KBQytk&hd=1.

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