Nikon D3400 Video Issue

I'm new to the 3400 and I love it so far. I'm using it for video primarily. I'm having two issues. I'm in manual mode, so I'm a little confused...

(1) While panning an area that goes dark, the camera seems to be automatically adjusting the aperture, so the lighting is very inconsistent.

(2) Before filming, I can scroll through the shutter speed, aperture, and F-Stop and I see no difference whatsoever.

What I've been able to film so far looks good, but I really need to figure out what I'm doing wrong as I plan to film quite a few house tours for a client.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

JeffKnight said:

I'm new to the 3400 and I love it so far. I'm using it for video primarily. I'm having two issues. I'm in manual mode, so I'm a little confused...

(1) While panning an area that goes dark, the camera seems to be automatically adjusting the aperture, so the lighting is very inconsistent.

(2) Before filming, I can scroll through the shutter speed, aperture, and F-Stop and I see no difference whatsoever.

What I've been able to film so far looks good, but I really need to figure out what I'm doing wrong as I plan to film quite a few house tours for a client.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

You don't have full control over video settings with the D3400, but don't despair, because it records beautiful images. Read this for some tips:


And there's more info if you search.

Thanks for the response. I'll definitely read that link you sent. I'm used to video cameras that don't auto adjust when in manual mode. It's frustrating as I'm filming house tours and as I pan the room the aperture seems to be auto-adjusting to light. It's very frustrating.

Another big issue I'm having is that there is no difference in lightness/darkness when I adjust ISO, F-Stop, and/or shutter speed. There is literally no difference from the highest to lowest setting. Any ideas?

JeffKnight said:

Another big issue I'm having is that there is no difference in lightness/darkness when I adjust ISO, F-Stop, and/or shutter speed. There is literally no difference from the highest to lowest setting. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

You're expecting manual control. You don't have manual control for that camera for video. You can make it better than it is out of the box, though. It's going to take some reading. Start with the link I posted.

JeffKnight said:

I plan to film quite a few house tours for a client.

Click to expand...

You mention having a client and seem to have experience with proper video cameras. So why use an entry level DSLR?

JeffKnight said:

Another big issue I'm having is that there is no difference in lightness/darkness when I adjust ISO, F-Stop, and/or shutter speed. There is literally no difference from the highest to lowest setting. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

Live view on these Nikon’s do not show the actual exposure. Instead the live view auto adjusts to give you a consistent visible representation. This requires you to look at the exposure meter to see if the image is ‘correctly’ exposed. (Not a great feature for most things. Though handy for long still image exposures.) This and the aperture thing and slow live view AF (and for D3400, no mic connection) are among the reason why Nikon don’t have a great rep’ for Video though the actual video is pretty decent.

Its only on the latest higher end bodies that you get a ‘what you see is what you get’ image in live view.

JeffKnight said:

Another big issue I'm having is that there is no difference in lightness/darkness when I adjust ISO, F-Stop, and/or shutter speed. There is literally no difference from the highest to lowest setting. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

With the D3400, D3300 and D5500. I found that the camera has a default set to shoot no lower than 1/60 shutter even if you have it set to full manual exposure. If you're shooting lower light that would require shutter 1/30, 1/40 or 1/50, it's not possible with these cameras. The camera's default detects under exposure and goes into auto ISO and you end up with ISOs up to 6400 depending on how dark the scene is. That's why you can't shoot at f/5.6 and expect the camera to auto change to aperture to f/2.8 or larger when the light gets lower. Eventually the video will come out with a dark exposure if the light gets lower than what the camera settings allow (1/60, ISO 6400, and aperture you set).

These Nikons are not really optimal for video when you consider the other options out there that make shooting these conditions much easier with full control over exposure, and with stabilization.

It's the reason, I don't use DSLRs for video. I found shooting higher quality 4k video much easier with MFT cameras, any of them.