Testing the D7000 with Photos and HD-Movie – including YouTube video!

February 8, 2011 2:23 AM Category: Experiences, Generally, HD-Video, Photographic gear, Tips, Videos

Some weeks ago I bought the new Nikon D7000. I had been long enough…uhm…pissed of jealous of owners of the D3s or Canon 5DmkII/1DmkIV, who were able to make HD video clips in a stunning cinematic look by using lenses with wide open apertures.

After watching hundreds of videos on YouTube and Vimeo (especially this video made me sit in front of my iMac like a dog waiting for lunch) my excitement aroused and I felt the “Wanna Have” in my brain a bit more every day.

I know, with the D7000′s predecessors D90 and D300s Nikon has already offered DSLRs with HD Video. But it put me off  to buy them because  it was not possible to film in complete manual mode and the autofocus must be set before you start the recording.

Hey Nikon, I want to control the camera, not vice versa!

Nikon D7000 with 70-200 2.8 VR (I) and TC 2x

Nikon D7000 with 70-200 2.8 VR (I) and TC 2x

Finally they heard of photogs all around the world and all this points of critique were removed by Nikon with the D7000. So I bought one in the mid of January. I also purchased the battery grip, three additional accus and two SDHC memory cards with 8 and 16 GB (had already one 16GB from a Panasonic Lumix pocket cam)…

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by Stefan Simonsen

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Jim Horne - Hey Stefan – Thanks for the great review! A friend of mine was asking about the D7000 and after showing him your review – he was sold :-)

Stefan Simonsen - Ka-Ching! – and another item of Nikon I got no comission for LOL

Glad I could help! :-)

Jon Gorr - What are you doing different from me and why can’t I get any high quality video clips out of this camera?

I’m a pro still shooter but cannot get any good results in video format from this camera.Allof the internet clips I look at are very decent but mine look like hell.

Any suggestions or should I return it as defective?

Stefan Simonsen - Any examples of your camera output online?

Edward - Thanks for the spectacular review, Stefan. How do you zoom using the D7000? Is it as cumbersome as Canon models (at least their rebel series)?

Stefan Simonsen - Forget zooming, it’s quite terrible. But that’s because of the optics’ construction. Another problem is that you have to follow with the focus after every zoom…

Craig Getc - Hi, I really appreciate your review of the Nikon D7000. Like you I am interested in this camera for it’s video. I am just getting into video and it would be nice to shoot both photos and video from the same camera. My question is how easy is it to go back and forth from photos to video and to photos again? Thank you.

Stefan Simonsen - Hi Craig, thank you for your comment. It’s really easy to change between movies and photos: Just pull the live view switch at the back (near the display) like you would do for taking photos with LiveView.

Then press the record button in the middle of the LV-Switch. You can even take a photo while filming by just pressing the shutter button full down – instead of half-pressing it for activate the focus.

There’s a digi tutorial from Nikon out. Got to point “Movies” – “Recording movies” and take a look from 1:40!

http://www.nikonusa.com/en_US/o/sW8RomxQReezfbQt-6GkHk62paI/Video/Digitutor/index.html

I think this will help you!

Regards
Stefan

Craig Getc - Thank you. I will check out the tutorial. – Craig

Mark Madaus - Excellent review, Stefan! I am really impressed with your photo quality with the Nikon 70-200 VR (1) and the TC 2x combo. I own both the D7000 and a 70-200 VR (1) and am interested in adding a 2x teleconverter, specifically the newer Nikon TC-20E III. But, most reviewers caution against that and recommend a shorter 1.4x or 1.7x converter due to better image quality (I’m less concerned about the two stop loss with the D7000 ISO capabilities). Anyway, your pictures look great to me! What 2x teleconverter did you use? Any regrets with the 2x teleconverter? Thanks for sharing. — Mark Madaus

Christopher Harrison - Stefan – thanks so much for this! I have been following your blog and all your previous posts and continue to learn a lot from your expertise. Like you, I recently acquired the D7000 and so this entry in particular was very helpful. I shot some test footage a few weeks ago that can be viewed here: http://www.vimeo.com/20974935

Thanks again and I look forward to viewing your future projects.
Best regards,
Chris

Hugo Carlone - Hi there Stefan. Great review of yours. You have done a great job showing us actual results and not just a bunch of technical sutff. Well done.
by the way, I’m also trying to gather as much argument as I can to convince my wife-to-be of the importance of owning a brand new D7000. I hope your video will do the job :-)
Cheers

Hugo Carlone

Sanjeev Chandra - Hi Stefan

Thanks for sharing your experience. These are really good pictures. Were any of these photos taken handheld or were you using a tripod?

thanks and regards

Sanjeev Chandra

Rod Smith - Hi Stefan, like Jon Gorr I am struggling to get top quality video from my D7000. I have had better results from a 200 euro panasonic handycam. Instead of giving your knowledge away free I would be more than happy to pay you for an ‘idiots guide’ to the camera/menu set-up for four or five typical shooting situations.
What do you say?
Rod Smith

Ahmed Sharif - impressive review indeed, Stefan!!….. thank you very much for putting the effort…. I also have my eyes on this camera for the last several months now…. your review has been a great help!!… all the best!! – Sharif

Stefan Simonsen - Thank you for the kind comment, Ahmed! Great it helped you :-)

Nishandh M - thankyou Stefan.
This is the last review i read before chosing the D7000.
Very assuring.

Stefan Simonsen - Glad to hear, you’re welcome :-) Have fun with a great camera!

zedd - nice review, we have the same setup minus tc20e. thinking of getting one or not, but after reading you rblog, it makes me wanting one.

Proof of life

January 23, 2011 7:43 PM Category: Behind the scenes, Generally, Thoughts

Hello world!

It’s over seven months now (woah, that’s more than half a year!) after my last blog post in english and I’m very sorry for that. But time flew away over the last half-year like never in my life. I had to make some really important decisions for my future (e.g. if I move for the news agency to Regensburg in Bavaria, 250 Miles from Hanover, where I live) and had to rule how to go on as a photographer.

I witnessed some shocking stories like a double homicide at two children (13 & 14 y.o.) in the small town of Bodenfelde near Kassel, that started for me right after they had found the bodies with taking photos of the crime scene and the bereaved town members and ended five days later after the arrest of the Killer (26) with an exclusive interview in the kitchen of his father that, in hindsight, have been too personally for me, too close to the story.

Exclusiv interview with the father of a young double killer (26) who killed two children (13 & 14)

Exclusiv interview with the father of a young murderer (26) who killed two children (13 & 14)

Okay, beside this there are three main reasons why I didn’t blog over the last six months. Maybe it’s more easy for you to understand my motives after you red them:

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by Stefan Simonsen

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Jim Horne - Your work is amazing, truly an inspiration – be it on your blog, facebook, flickr – I enjoy viewing your images, reading the behind-the-scenes…

-Jim

Adam - Stefan, I only found your blog and site in the last few weeks and immediately saved it as a favorite. I think you do great work and am very glad you are so generous in sharing your experience. You have great talent and a wide-ranging ability to make great photos. I was really hoping you would be back soon. I look forward to following your blog! Cheers! Adam

Stefan Simonsen - Hi Adam, big thanks for your kind words. That ment a lot to me!

@ Jim: Thank you too, hopefully I have something more to post now. And please don’t missunderstand my words – they were not directed to the ones like you, Jim, that always gave me feedback at the blog or at facebook! I really enjoyed the conversation with you guys! :-)

Ahmed Sharif - Hi Stefan….
This was just the first visit for me at your blog…. I’m not a professional, but I do take photography as a great passion…. my passion started including strobist elements couple of years back and that brought me to your videos…. your effort has been a great help for me and now I’m feeling guilty of not leaving enough mark at Youtube….

I also maintain blogs, two of them…. and had similar experiences… I always try to think why I started blogging…. its not the potentials benefits that drive us, its the passion behind what we do that gets us going…. when you figure out that you are one of the few, thats worth more that anything, isn’t it?

please keep this up…. :)

cheers!
Sharif

Ciaran Kelly - Hi Stefan..

I have been trawling the net of late, looking for inspiration. I found your vimeo videos first of all, when looking for help with my new Pocket Wizards, and I followed the links to your site and this blog. I think your work is fantastic, and it has given me the energy and motivation to work to improve my own efforts. Your lighting skills are wonderful- as I looked through the images on this site I had to continually stop and smile in wonder at the creativity on display.
Please keep blogging! (and post plenty of photos!)

Ciaran K.

PS It is possible to teach an old dog (me!) new tricks!

Stefan Simonsen - Ciaran, thank you very much for your comment. I’m reorganising my blog(s) this days and will keep posting after the relaunch! :-)

An afternoon with Sandra and Stephan

June 6, 2010 1:06 AM Category: Couple, Engagement, Generally, Shooting, Wedding

Hi, finally there is some time to write a new blog post. The last weeks have been very exhausting. Appointments for news agencies in politics and miscellaneouses, two concerts (STING and Green Day – both really awesome!) and assignments for companies† – wished the days had 48 hours ;-)

A small ray of hope was an engagement shooting I did with Sandra and Stephan two weeks ago. It was my only really free day in two weeks, but I was happy to have the time for this really nice couple. It’s something really different from all this stiff politicians and the agency appointments where you have the feeling that bring in your creativity is like to throw pearls before swine…

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by Stefan Simonsen

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Jim Horne - Hey Stefan – I’ve been anxiously awaiting a new post from you, and here it is – once again you have truly captured some spectacular moments in time….

-Jim

Stian - Hi Stefan! Outstanding photos as always.It is truly inspiring looking at you pictures.
Good luck with the wedding, im sure they will be very happy with the result :-)

Stian

Stefan Simonsen - Thx Jim and Stian, hope to bring a new post with some pics of Green Day and Sting on the way this week. And I have already three videos in the pipeline with BTS’s ;-)

PS: Stian, I corrected it ;-)

Sheena - In one of your videos you said before shooting you checked the ambient light around first then added the flash. I was wondering do u take and use the settings from the absent light and add the flash. I was just wondering how u got the background colors looking great without making it to light.

Stefan Simonsen - Hi Sheena, thanks for your comment!

I’m sorry but I didn’t understand what you asked… Do you mean how the background get full of light even when the flash did not hit it?

This is really easy. Just make the exposure time longer! A flash like SB-800/900 or Canon 580/430 has a flash time of around 1/1000 to 1/1300 of a second. Changing the exposure time will only let more of the available light hit the picture while the flash still fires only 1/1000 to 1/1300 of a second. So you can easy get from no ambient light in the photo to a of of ambient light just by changing the exposure time WITHOUT touching the aperture value!

Sorry, I don’t know how to describe it better without pictures. So maybe you should do a simple test at home:

Choose a room with some windows at daylight, use a wide angle lens to have the room on the picture too. Put on your flash on the camera, directed to the ceiling and set to iTTL/eTTL.

Take one photo in A(v)-Mode set to 8.0 at ISO 200 at daylight and REMEMBER the aperture and the exposure time the camera chose. You will get a picture with a well-lit room.

Put your cam in M and set the aperture and time to the one you remembered. Take a photo, it will be still the same photo as before.

NOW the magic start *hehe*: Shorten just the exposure time for three steps. You will see a picture with less lights outside the window. Repeat this as often you have to do until you have no more light coming through the windows.

It will look like a photo taken at night!

Now do the opposite and make the exposure time longer. Still JUST THE EXPOSURE, don’t touch the aperture.

That’s all of the secret how photographers kill the ambient light in photographs or let more a-light into the picture to make the colors more impressive even when the flash do not hit the background.

Puh, hope you had success? Then please let me know.

If this wasn’t your question please give me more details about it!

Stefan

Wedding photo shoot with Caroline and Helmut

May 10, 2010 6:31 PM Category: Couple, Shooting, Wedding

The last saturday was very cold, grey and uncomfortable. But for Caroline and Helmut it was their wedding day and they were happy. After their town hall wedding and a first champagne reciption at a boat on the Lake “Maschsee” they met Steffi and my humble self to take some pictures.

Caroline and Helmut - aren't they cute? :-)

We had only three hours left to take the photos at two location in Hanover and an old witch tower from the medieval in Marienwerder near Hanover before they had have to go to their wedding feast. And man, they were very brave. With low temperatures in a range of 12 to 14∞C (53 to 57∞F) they did a good job!

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by Stefan Simonsen

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Jim Horne - Stunning images as always!!!

Marco Ghislanzoni - Great pics Stefan!

One question: what is your technique to get the skin tone right when shooting and in post-production?

MfG,
Marco.

Stefan Simonsen - Hi Marco,

I do my post-production with Lightroom or Aperture. If you use the vibrancy-slider instead of the saturation slider, both softwares give a punch to the colors but exclude the skin-tones. The second advise is to slightly use a flash to light up the faces. I have some photos from this shooting where the flash didn’t fire – it was not possible to get the same good colours in the faces in this pictures!

But see for yourself:
- Example without flash
- Example with flash

Alireza - Super beautiful pictures. I love your work. Good Luck…

New video online – Part 2 of the photo shoot with Anouk

April 19, 2010 3:41 PM Category: Behind the scenes, Flash setups, Generally, Shooting, Strobist, Videos

Hi there, hope you had nice early spring days with some time for photos in the warm sun :-)

I had a very busy week with travelling to Berlin at Tuesday, a visit at Joe McNally’s workshop in Hamburg (northern Germany) on Thursday (Joe was really humorous and made me laugh a lot) and a seven hours business assignment on saturday where I had to wake up at 5.45 AM. But the people there were great and we got some very nice pictures!

So there was rather no time for me sitting in the office and cut movies. But in my last post I promised a prompt follow-up with part two of the video about the shooting with the beautiful Anouk – and here it is!

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by Stefan Simonsen

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John - Your videos are interesting and helpful – thanks for posting them!
JH

Tom - This is a great series of videos. Interesting to see how steady the sandbagged C stand is in the wind with the light panel on top.

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