First Takes: K-7 Video

We will be uploading some videos that headquarters has produced in the next week or two. However, being the sort of hands-on guy that I am, I thought it was important to post some other samples so there would be a wider range of video for all of you to look at.

When I started to write the copy for my post yesterday, K-7 Movie "Sound" Primer, I was thinking that I'd briefly touch on the sound recording options of K-7, and then in a separate post share my initial impressions as a "user" about the video recording capability shooting with a pre-production camera with firmware versions 0.34 and 0.35.

However, I realized that there are so many facets to the new movie mode in the K-7, as well as it's other rather "deep" set of improved and new features, that I decided to try and combine a few initial observations about both sound and video in this post which is clearly only my first take on this new video era of SLR's that we're embarking on. As we've been extremely busy testing and confirming all the various features in the pre-production samples, I will not list the specs here. Sites like dpreview and imaging resource have down a great job in detailing all the speeds and feeds in their respective "first looks". Since I did post some photos yesterday of the Rode Stereo VideoMic, you might want to check out imaging resource's comments about the K-7 internal mic and their use of the Rode mic since we gave them a unit to test as part of their K-7 Hands-on Preview.

Based on my initial and limited experiments shooting video with the K-7, here are some observations.

STABILIZED VIDEO
The K-7's in-camera shake reduction is going to be a big plus for allowing one to produce smooth, non-jerky video clips. I've fooled around holding the K-7 at arms length and shot video in wide sweeping motions moving the camera up and down as I walk around. The resultant video looks remarkably smooth. Based on my hand-held and very casual videos shot with the DA*200 and DA*300, SR video will be very important when using longer, heavier lenses.

SOUND RECORDING
Advancements in technology typically never come without some compromise or challenge. Our SR system is doing an incredible job in stabilizing images, and offering even greater capabilities than possible in the past. For example, "Composition Correction" is a new feature of the K-7 that takes advantage of our stabilization system. When shooting on a tripod, it's possible to fine-tune your framing by manually adjusting the position and rotation of the image sensor. The drawback to SR, now that we've incorporated video, is that the SR motors create a definite "whine" or "buzzing" that despite our attempts to totally dampen it can be detected when using the internal mono mic on the K-7. Depending on the type of video you're shooting and the level of ambient noise that's present while recording, you might find this noise less than pleasing. For casual video footage, such as my little league baseball video clip, you're likely not to even notice. However, if you're doing serious video work, we included a 3.5mm stereo jack on the K-7 thus allowing you to use a high quality external mic.

TRUE APERTURE CONTROL
Based on my initial experiments, being able to explicitly set your aperture when shooting videos is going to be a big plus. It's really important in video to have control over the DOF and decide when you want a soft look or let everything in the frame be sharp. While you can only select aperture at the beginning of a video clip, in most cases you wouldn't shift from say f/2.0 to f/8.0 in a single scene. The other benefit of aperture control is being able to match the same DOF and "look" from a video with the way you control that same lens when shooting stills. For example, I've started to experiment shooting with my beloved FA 31mm f/1.8 Limited and it's really encouraging to see that the 31mm is going to produce the same beautiful color, contrast and feel on video.

FIRST TAKE VIDEO SAMPLES
One thing that immediately struck me when I started testing the K-7 is just how challenging it will be to thoroughly test video. Not only do you have to test a wide range of lighting and sound situations, there are the tens of lenses of different focal lengths and speeds that need to be shot with, as well as seeing the effects of shooting at different apertures, etc, etc. For this reason, and recognizing that I had to start producing some sample videos, I've tried to keep the selection of videos for my first take pretty simple. However, I have tried to select video clips that show or give you a glimpse of the likely capabilities inherent in video recording with the K-7.

UPLOADING AND SHARING VIDEO
Just a word of caution for anyone that's viewing or planning to upload videos. Not all video hosting sites are delivering full HD video when you play them. From my experiments and talking to a very seasoned cinematographer, even though YouTube offers "HD" video playback, in reality your videos are being processed and down sampled to the equivalent of 540p. Therefore, I would place no faith or base your judgement on any camera's video capability by pixel peeping through videos on YouTube. I've chosen to use Vimeo for my video hosting and sharing, and have confirmed that the size of my native file (.AVI) is the same as the HD file that Vimeo is streaming to you.

Lastly, I have embedded my first take video in this post directly from Vimeo and it does play in HD mode, as indicated by the little blue bug on the right side of the viewer frame. If you want to see a larger view of this video, simply click on the Vimeo logo at the bottom of the viewer frame.

First Takes: K-7 Video from Ned Bunnell on Vimeo.