I’m a die hard Nikon user, have been since 1977. I’m retired, don’t have the funds, but was thinking of saving up for a D300s, D3s would be better (for the high iso) but lets get real. My son came home from a college class (he’s a digital film major) and was in awe by a classmate who bought a Canon 7D and was impressed with its 1080. What is the difference between Nikon’s 720 and Canon’s 1080? I’m thinking up a prolonged project to use this new multimedia stuff, so which would be better? I hate the thought of changing!
Help anyone!?
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Hi Garry,
I have a 7D, and I think I can answer a few of your questions.
The 1080 and 720 numbers refer to vertical lines of resolution. So when you shoot video at 720p, you are only recording about 2/3 of the resolution that you would normally have. In the footage I’ve seen, 720p video has some problems with aliasing (jagged edges in fine detail.) Whether that’s a problem for you depends on your destination media — if you’re shooting for YouTube, it’s no big deal. If you’re showing it on a site like Vimeo or on an HDTV, then it’s a lot more noticeable.
A bigger issue is one of frame rates. The 7D can select a variety of frame rates, including 24 fps, 30 fps, and 60 fps (but only at 720p.) 24 fps is ideal — it’s the same rate as movies and it lends a very filmic look to your footage. 30fps is more of a web standard, and it looks very digital. 60 fps is nice for capturing fast motion.
As the lineups stand, only Canon’s 7D and new 1D mkIV offer 24 fps, but Canon has also promised it in a firmware upgrade for the 5d mkII next year. Canon’s Picturestyles are also a great way to pre-adjust color in video footage without buying expensive color correction plugins like Magic Bullet.
That said, I can’t imagine that Nikon will let Canon lead in DSLR video for long. If you love Nikon enough, wait it out — there will always be a next model.
In my opinion, unless you’re going to be showing a movie on the big screen, you don’t need 1080. Even if you had 1080, you’d be compressing you video for the Internet anyways.
I am trying to get a D3s, but at this point with very little bites on my D3 for sale, I may be waiting out (as originally planned) for a Nikon 5D Mark II equivalent…which my guess would be a D700s.
a quick note that doesn’t address video at all, the D300 has the same high ISO quality as the D3.
thomas covered all this very well. most people can’t tell the difference between 1080p and 720p, especially if they aren’t standing right next to the screen. but it seems if you had the choice you’d want the most pixels you could afford.
Good points, Trent and Patrick. One more thing to watch out for with all video DSLRS is rolling shutter, an effect of CMOS sensors that makes your video look like Jell-o. In a nutshell, it means video DSLRS work best when the camera is stationary or moving slowly. Fast pans and tracking are prettymuch out of the question.