Okay, Nikon, it seems you need some help designing a video camera. You're not alone. While Panasonic (GH1) and Canon (5DII) have made better strides than the constant Nikon 720P efforts, no one has hit it out of the park. And I somehow doubt anyone will until they embrace the concept that a good video camera needs to be designed as, you got it, a video camera.
RED is trying to get there with the Scarlet, but pricing is still an issue with RED, even with their upcoming products. When you option out a fully functional RED product, you end up spending a lot of dough. But at least RED has some good ideas: modularity + raw video + large sensor + interchangeable lens mount is very, very attractive to the serious videographer (and the "raw video" bit extends appeal up into the feature film production crowd). But frankly, it's the large sensor + interchangeable lens that are the Big Wishes from the videographer crowd.
So let me outline the basic target:
- Max US$5000 target price (usable body only; by usable body, I mean add only a lens and you're taking photos)
- Max 5 pound (with lens) target weight
- Large sensor (DX or bigger, specifically low-light capable)
- Interchangeable F-mount
- 1080P/24/30/60 capability (anything above that is gravy), plus 720P and 4:3 options as well
- dual, stereo XLR balanced inputs for audio, with manual levels
- headphone monitoring
- S-video and composite video in and out
- fold-out, 3"+ rotatable video monitor (900k dots, daylight viewable) and/or large electronic viewfinder
- multiple storage options (built in SD/CF card slots, USB drives, direct to pro decks, etc.) preferably with multiple formats (AVCHD, MPEG, direct Final Cut Pro, etc.)
- Stabilization (through body or lens or both)
- Shoulder mount design, but configurable with optional kits for different photography styles
You also need autofocus lenses with geared manual override to do this right. Preferably, you'd also have a LANC input on the camera and LANC-enabled lenses.
Nothing in the above list is particularly special. If you look at the US$5000-10,000 pro HD video camera market, you'll see a lot of commonality to those specs. What would make a new video offering from someone like Nikon special is one simple thing: the sensor. Whether it's DX or FX isn't 100% important: the large size of the sensor should offer better low light capabilities plus the faddish DOF isolation that videographers are seeking right now. Indeed, there's more gain to be made than the 5DII has given videographers: once you drop the high pixel count still capability, you can use very large photosites. Indeed, I'd be tempted to go to the DX size for that reason: we could still use a large enough photosite size on DX to get noise-free low-light HD video results. The smaller sensor keeps the price down and potentially helps us produce a smaller overall package.
So, put together a nice D3-derived DX video sensor with the above specs and you get: the Nikon V1. With those specifications it would cause a splash in the video crowd that would not go unnoticed. 720P on a D3 with limitations? Unnoticed.