Just few days ago Nikon Australia published the news, Nikon D4 and D800 DSLR cameras have become the first DSLRs to pass the BBC Test OR known as the European Broadcast Union test,. Later on Petapixel also published the victory news but the thephoblographer move towards further investigation and they have published the article on October 5, “Did the Nikon D800 Really Pass the BBC Video Test?”
But take a look at the results very carefully….The end of the D800′s PDF clearly states, “This camera cannot be recommended for serious programme-making.” …see the full article (here),
After reading it Andy Quested (Head of Technology BBC HD & 3D) replied
Dear all. The cameras did not “pass” and the BBC is not and will not be using them for HD programmes.
Here are the sections from the test report
Nikon D4
10 Conclusion
The camera has very limited controls when in video mode, but has reasonable connectivity, allowing full resolution external monitoring and recording. Sound facilities are sparse, the internal microphone is adequate for note-taking or guide sound, and the microphone connector is a 3.5mm jack offering only un-balanced input.The test procedures were as described and recommended by the EBU, in Tech 3335 (http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/t…. Video performance is quite good at 1080p, much less so at 720p.
However, even though the sensor has 16.8 million photo-sites, it achieves only about 1,355×764, only a little better than 1,280×720.
Noise levels are very low, and the camera could be acceptable with ISO settings up to 6,400. Coloured spatial aliasing is present, and is clearly visible even on the camera’s LCD display (921k pixels, about 1,176×784). In theory, meticulous control of the shooting style can minimise this, by using only motivated
pans together with fairly short depth of field, such that detail out of the focused plane is always soft and therefore can never provoke aliasing. Exposure range is, potentially, as high as 13 stops, although this will be limited by the acceptability of the noise levels near black.Nikon 800
The test procedures were as described and recommended by the EBU, in Tech 3335 (http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech/t…. Video performance is not really acceptable at 1080p, much less so at 720p. Even though the sensor has 36.8 million photo-sites, it achieves only about 1,355×764, little
better than 1,280×720.Many thanks
Andy Quested
Head of Technology BBC HD & 3D
