Part V
Introduction to Movie-Making with the D800/D800E

In the next three chapters you’ll find enough about movie-making with the D800 or D800E to get you started shooting your own video. As you probably know, Nikon was the first camera manufacturer to offer HD movie capabilities in a digital SLR, specifically the Nikon D90, introduced in August, 2008. Every subsequent Nikon dSLR also had movie-making capabilities, but Nikon found itself in the odd position of having to play catch up as vendors like Canon offered improved video features (for example, full HD 1920 × 1080 video vs. the standard HD 1280 × 720 video Nikon pioneered).

With the Nikon D800 and its upscale stablemate the D4, Nikon’s video features take a backseat to no one. These cameras are equipped with a headphone jack that serious videographers need to monitor audio as it’s recorded (usually with an external microphone or two), an HDMI port that can output raw video files to external storage or a monitor, and both full and standard HD formats with industry-standard H.264 encoding. Your D800 rivals the quality of some professional video capture gear—and goes them one better because its sensor is much larger, allowing exquisite control over selective focus and depth-of-field.

In this part, you’ll find the following chapters:

Chapter 14: Basics of Live View. The D800’s live view feature is an important component of its movie-making capabilities. Video capture is, after all, continuous live view, stored on your memory card at a frame rate of 24, 25, 30, 50, or 60 frames per second (depending on mode). In this chapter I’ll show you all the controls and capabilities of the D800’s live view and movie modes.

Chapter 15: Shooting Movies with the D800. Once you learn the basics of live view, you’ll have much of what you need to know to begin shooting movies. This chapter shows you all the controls and settings you need to begin, and will have you shooting your first video in minutes.

Chapter 16: Advanced Movie-Making Techniques. If you want to take your products up a step from camcorder mode, you’ll need to learn the basics of movie production. There’s not enough room to give you the 200 or 300 page short course you really need, but this chapter will introduce you to the terminology and techniques so you can begin using them right away, while picking up on-the-job training.