dSLR Dad

RED Digital Cinema founder Jim Jannard, who recently announced their own Digital Still and Motion Camera has also gotten his hands on a Nikon D90.  The results of it’s motion capture are not impressive:

You can follow Jim’s discussion of CMOS motion video capture in the RED User forum:

The details of the RED DSMC (Digital Still & Motion Camera) will be announced at the end of this year.

Given the announcements and release of still cameras from “others” that now shoot video, RED is excited to enter this game. From our vantage point, it is a lot easier to enter the still market from a motion background than visa-versa. The biggest issue that needs to be solved by the still capture group is skew… slow read-reset of CMOS imagers. This “typical” CMOS issue shows itself by moving the camera during motion capture. It is seen as “jelly movement”. Red has overcome this issue with a rapid read-reset CMOS sensor program. The Monstro Mysterium sensor is the fastest read-reset CMOS known to man enjoying the same motion characteristics as a film camera.

Later on he continues:

Since (RED One) Build 12 we have heard no complaints about skew whatsoever because we enabled the “rapid” in rapid reset. The D90 skew is unbearable because it has a very slow read-reset. My impression is that the Canon will have a similar problem. We have heard that there is quite a bit of scrambling going on inside the “C” about this. But nevertheless, it will become very apparent as soon as the camera ships.

We have yet to see a still camera with a rapid-reset CMOS sensor. That doesn’t mean that Canon could have all of a sudden found one, but I would be surprised and would certainly test it out before I bought one. Unless you just want it for stills. In that case, I am comfortable that it is an excellent performer. Most all Canon and Nikon DSLRs perform very well as still cameras these days….

…..As for the D90, I bought one to see for myself what the issues really are (or not). The stills are very good. Very nice consumer still camera. The video is not. The skew is totally unacceptable to me. You can mitigate it somewhat by shooting wide but I’d hate to be constrained or always worried about “what might be acceptable and what might not” when shooting any camera. This camera (shooting video) needs to be locked down. You can get some pretty good results if the camera does not move and the subject is not moving very fast. It is a start down the right path for many. Which is why we are building a DSMC.

Every camera is a compromise… the RED ONE and D90 are no exceptions. But the truth is what it is. The read-reset is too slow for this sensor to be used as a real motion capture camera where the results matter. And to answer Bob Simon’s comment… unless the dealer works at Nikon and has inside scoop that no one else has, it will need a new sensor, not a firmware upgrade.

When the Nikon D90 was first released, I stated that this was a first generation feature and three years from now we will look back and laugh.  Maybe it won’t take that long.  What are your thoughts?  As a dSLR Dad, are you OK with just shooting video on a tripod with your kid’s standing still?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 10:01 am and is filed under Cameras, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.