Well the gap between video cameras and DSLR’s continues to become more and more blurred. Canon started it all with the 5D Mk2 and it’s rather good video performance. I was never a fan of the 5D as a video camera, it had too many issues for my liking, but it certainly shook the video camera industry up. Nikons latest offering, the D800 offers full 1920×1080 recording at 24, 25 or 30P as well as a clean uncompressed HDMI output so you can use one of the many external recorders available today. It also has proper control over audio levels, audio in and audio out. Now it is a stills camera and it does have a 36 Mega pixel sensor, which is way to high a pixel count to be optimum for HD video, so I would expect there to be some aliasing issues (unless they do some very clever pixel binning). But, it has to be said that the £2399 price tag is extremely attractive compared to the £10k of an F3 or C300. I’d love to try one out and see what it can do. I’m particularly intrigued by the ability to use either FX or DX sensor crops giving you the option to use lower cost DX lenses or get wider FOV which full frame lenses.

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