Re: Nikon D 90 Brochure

On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:23:05 -0400, Alan Browne wrote:

But really, why do you always make this personal as opposed to just
someone's opinion? (rhetorical).

Of course it's rhetorical, partly because it's what you are most
guilty of.


and it this instance used it to turn an amazing advance into "not
good enough for me". At the time I wrote my reply, I didn't know

Oh sheesh. Did you read my last post? I said "this is welcome". But
it is a half measure indeed given the state of the camcorder industry.

A welcome direction, but evidently not good enough for you or your
home video system. You later admit (see below) that even if it
wasn't a half measure (by adopting 1080p vss. 720p), you'd still
have found fault with it, and it would still only be a half measure.


If they cap a video at 5 minutes, then _something_ is the reason. What
would that be? Capacity? File format? What?

Per the strobist it is due to the sensor heating up. (!).

Sounds like Nikon have been abusing pooches releasing a camera with a
thermal limit ... but I really wonder if that *is* the reason ...

Ah, you're suspicious. Your opinion of your own knowledge is that
it is clearly superior to Pogue's, but now you're claiming to know
more than the strobist as well. But they both have theories that
remain reasonable, while you put more credence in a tax conspiracy
theory (also, see below).


and even if it were, it would not prevent a higher res video image as
you still have to bucket the data off of the sensor regardless of the
resolution chosen.

True for CCD sensors which read out the sensor's row data using
the bucket brigade technique, but the D90 doesn't use CCD sensors.
They're CMOS. Guess again.


Why can it go 20 minutes at a lower res? Still has to do the same
bucket brigading regardless of resolution.

This does not make sense.

(one commentor on dpreview says its a tax classification issue - if the
res were higher, it would be classified as a high end video device ...
no idea if this is true either).

It's all in the assumptions you're making. And the last
suggestion can't be true because at the lower 720p resolution, tax
classification wouldn't be a consideration whether clips were
limited to 5 minutes, 20 minutes or 5 hours, since you're saying
that 720p isn't considered to be high end video. So far it looks
like David Pogue's and the Strobist's heat theory still holds up,
and you'll have to guess again. It probably isn't even a theory if
they're just repeating what they've learned and for whatever reason,
aren't in a position to be able to safely identify their sources.


David Pogue? Oh my, your credibility was _much higher_ than his ...
until now. Don't try... you can't get up.

"" The D90 has a 12.3-megapixel CMOS sensor that measures 1.14 inches
diagonally (24 by 16 millimeters), a hair smaller than on professional
cameras. "" -- David Pogue, NYT.

Pretty freaking big hairs on old David!

That's just your supercilious streak acting up. Pouge has a great
deal of credibility. You fail to take into account that his writing
is simplified for an audience that either wouldn't want to, or
wouldn't be able to follow a drier, more technically written
article. When you learn that CMOS and CCD (bucket brigade) sensors
have different characteristics, then perhaps your own credibility
might be reconsidered. Hint: CMOS generally uses less power, so
wouldn't normally have heat problems. But CMOS is needed for Live
View, which begets video, and at this point is still seems plausible
that operating the sensor for long periods at high data rates might
cause heat problems. Not hot enough to, as you said, "abuse
pooches", but may be warm enough to degrade image quality. It has
been noted more than once that in normal shooting, even at very low
frame rates, and especially with extended half-shutter-press times,
early pictures are more noise free than pictures taken several
minutes later due to sensor heating. This isn't likely to be a
problem with high frame rates using traditional DSLRs, as a burst of
100 shots will only take about 10 seconds with the fastest DSLRs,
and 1/2 minute with the slower ones. Not 5 minutes and not 20
minutes. But it may be a completely different matter if the high
speed DSLRs take as many shots as possible for 5 minutes, which
would be 300 seconds, yielding about 3,000 shots. Yeah, it's not
like video since you'd have more heat due to also having 5 minutes
worth of energy wasted by clanging mirrors, but even so, I'll bet
that image quality would slowly decline, and would return to normal
after letting the camera return to ambient temperature.


As I said previously, the D90's video mode clearly won't allow it
to take the place of the better video cameras, and wouldn't even
come close if it provided the higher resolution you want. The
article mentions some of the other limitations that were evident
before Pogue's article was published. Even if the D90's video was
1080p compliant, I doubt that you'd be enticed to get one. You
might even have complained about some of its other limitations.

Probably ... but not due to Pogue! I don't have Nikon lenses, and if I
did I would be in the FF camp.

Of course not due to Pogue. As is clearly stated, these other
limitations were mentioned before I had even heard of Pogue's
article. And since you've now admitted that you probably wouldn't
have been interested in the D90 even if it had the 1080p compliance
that you required, the reason for your bitching about its 720p
limitation seems to have been just to have something to bitch about.

As I said, you're a "glass is half empty" kinda guy. A "glass
half full" kinda guy would have said, "Great. It may not be good
enough for me yet, but it'll force the other manufacturers to
compete and we'll eventually see DSLRs with 1080p or higher
resolution." And if we're *very* lucky, maybe it will even have
high quality multi-channel sound using external mikes." which I'd
value more than higher video quality. YMMV.


I'm sure Sony will do their v. of this eventually, and like all things
of all cameras I will find a reason to be critical. Never met a perfect
camera or one that compromised where it should not have; or overdid
something it had no reason to.

Yes, that's consistent with your demonstrated personality. Funny,
though, that it's not considered to be a personal insult when you're
the one that says it. :)

.