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*Video* Z6 120 fps slow motion - Flat Profile + Active D Lighting

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Varuas

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I shot a couple of footage this evening in Z6 slow motion 120fps and turned up the Active D Lighting to Extra High. The half of the scene was directly facing the setting sun and the half was in complete shadow. The Active-D-Lighting + FlatProfile look to REALLY preserve the dynamic range.

I applied a Fuji "creative look" in Premiere Pro... no other post processing done, or needed to be done, except to add a background music. To upload to Youtube and prevent Youtube from compressing too much, I rendered the footage to UHD at 40 Mbps.

What do you think? The Fuji creative look did change the look quite a bit, but I think it looks great. I have just finished uploading this to Youtube, so all the resolutions are not yet available as of my post.

Feedback/constructive criticisms welcome. Note that I shot this with the 50mm f/1.8G at f/2 and focusing/tracking was entirely up to the camera. Would I have gotten a considerably better footage if I had shot with the NLog using NinjaV?

Nikon Z6
50mm f/1.8G
120fps @ 1/250s f/2
Flat Profile + Active D Lighting Extra High
Fully Automatic AF
B+W CPL+ND Filter used to keep aperture at f/2, ISO at 100, and shutter angle at 180
 
Looks great!
While the light was good enough for this video, if you need to crank the ISO then I'd use 60 fps because 120 skips a lot of pixels so you're not getting the full frame image area, and noise can be a problem.

Also you can't record 120 fps to the Ninja V. Log (and even more importantly 10 bit recording) plus a much higher IQ codex (like ProRes) do increase what you can do with the footage (pulling up shadows etc) but as you've shown here, even the internal recording can look really good.
 
dantastical said:
Looks great!
While the light was good enough for this video, if you need to crank the ISO then I'd use 60 fps because 120 skips a lot of pixels so you're not getting the full frame image area, and noise can be a problem.

Also you can't record 120 fps to the Ninja V. Log (and even more importantly 10 bit recording) plus a much higher IQ codex (like ProRes) do increase what you can do with the footage (pulling up shadows etc) but as you've shown here, even the internal recording can look really good.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I did not know a few things you'd mentioned. So, 120fps is not using the full sensor? Also, NinjaV cannot record 120fps in NLog? If so, that is good to know because I was planning on getting NinjaV later this year.

As far as the footage, for outdoors with high dynamic range, I can definitely see how flat profile + active d lighting really helps flatten things. Grading 8-bit footage is like grading a JPG, so not much you can do. Unlike stills, you can sort of get away with a bit more degraded video because things are moving and people do not notice the quality as much.
 
Last edited:
Varuas said:
I shot a couple of footage this evening in Z6 slow motion 120fps and turned up the Active D Lighting to Extra High. The half of the scene was directly facing the setting sun and the half was in complete shadow. The Active-D-Lighting + FlatProfile look to REALLY preserve the dynamic range.

I applied a Fuji "creative look" in Premiere Pro... no other post processing done, or needed to be done, except to add a background music. To upload to Youtube and prevent Youtube from compressing too much, I rendered the footage to UHD at 40 Mbps.

What do you think? The Fuji creative look did change the look quite a bit, but I think it looks great. I have just finished uploading this to Youtube, so all the resolutions are not yet available as of my post.

Feedback/constructive criticisms welcome. Note that I shot this with the 50mm f/1.8G at f/2 and focusing/tracking was entirely up to the camera. Would I have gotten a considerably better footage if I had shot with the NLog using NinjaV?

Nikon Z6
50mm f/1.8G
120fps @ 1/250s f/2
Flat Profile + Active D Lighting Extra High
Fully Automatic AF
B+W CPL+ND Filter used to keep aperture at f/2, ISO at 100, and shutter angle at 180
Click to expand...
My Z6 video setup. I have the Neewer step up/down rings pack and an 82mm ND fader-filter and a 77mm CPL. In this picture, I only have the B+W CPL but not the ND filter, although I have the 82-77mm step down ring attached to my 77mm CPL. The series of step down rings make my nifty-fifty lens look huge, but it still weighs nothing.



6Uvr8sR.jpg
 
Varuas said:
Interesting. I did not know a few things you'd mentioned. So, 120fps is not using the full sensor? Also, NinjaV cannot record 120fps in NLog? If so, that is good to know because I was planning on getting NinjaV later this year.
Click to expand...
On the Z6, the 120fps mode does use the entire sensor, but may skip some pixels. This doesn't affect noise as much as it may cause aliasing or blurring artifacts on very fine detail (eg. textured cloth or faraway tile roofs), depending on how it's reducing the number of pixels.
 
Not trying to be difficult....

How do you all know that Nikon Z6 120fps skips pixels .....?

Thanks in advance....
 
alandalsong said:
Not trying to be difficult....

How do you all know that Nikon Z6 120fps skips pixels .....?

Thanks in advance....
Click to expand...
That would be news to me as well. I thought the Z6 120fps was doing full sensor FF readout and oversampling to a very nice 1080p 120fps. Looking at the video quality, the 120fps at 1080p is VERY nice. But I have not shot fine textures from large distances to check for aliasing/moire so that's that.

We know for sure that Z6 UHD 30fps is full sensor (16:9) readout with oversampling, so I was assuming 1080p 120fps should be as well. Both should have same sensor processing data-wise... But please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
The Z6 sensor readout is much slower than 1/120s so it would be impossible for it to read it all. Also, if it were capable of reading out the full sensor and downsampling it to 1080, the Z6 would certainly have 4k 60fps video as that is much less demanding on the sensor and processor

Because it skips lines reading out the sensor at 120fps it is effectively not full frame in terms of noise, low light etc. Personally I think 120fps is too slow for most subjects so I prefer 60fps for slow motion, still clearly slower in a 24fps final project but with higher quality
 
thoroughly enjoyed your video. I know that this is a equipment forum, so a mention about the outstanding, Z6 autofocus performance, is in order. Your creative skills are also noteworthy. After forty years of shooting stills, it is only now that I am experimenting with the world of movement. Creatively, I am often frustrated, making the scene flow. Your vision is superb. My focus will be on dance as both of my granddaughters are involved with dance, and that creative flow has already been determined by the choreographer. I am confident that the Z6 will perform its job well.
 
Thanks for sharing your understanding..... But that's not what I was trying to understand.

In the post with which I followed my question, the author wrote: " may skip some pixels. This doesn't affect noise as much as it may cause aliasing or blurring artifacts on very fine detail". It seems to me that, despite reading needed pixels to construct 1080P from a FF sensor in whatever scheme implemented, there are additional pixels skipped in order to allow 120fps.

so being an engineer for too long, was wandering if there had been any official Nikon, or any other camera vendors, statement about the actual implementation.

Could be a rat hole ...
 
Mikspin said:
thoroughly enjoyed your video. I know that this is a equipment forum, so a mention about the outstanding, Z6 autofocus performance, is in order. Your creative skills are also noteworthy. After forty years of shooting stills, it is only now that I am experimenting with the world of movement. Creatively, I am often frustrated, making the scene flow. Your vision is superb. My focus will be on dance as both of my granddaughters are involved with dance, and that creative flow has already been determined by the choreographer. I am confident that the Z6 will perform its job well.
Click to expand...
Thank you and glad you enjoyed the video. I am myself just getting into creative video editing. Having high quality Z6 footage (even if internal 8-bit) is great. AF in good light is very good even with a relatively slow AF lens like my 50mm f/1.8G. One must-have item is a ND filter. I have a fader-ND filter that is flexible in how much light I want to block. I also have a polarizer to remove reflections/highlights in some scenes... having the polarizer helps dial down highlights, also saturate colors.

As for your granddaughters' dance videos, you would get amazing shots using 120fps slow motion. Mix and match with UHD and 120fps footage and edit to music if you are getting started with editing. Editing to music is fun and the music tends to guide your edit. At some point, you will have to adapt music to your vision, but -- until then -- let the music set the vision and you just fill in the shots.
 
alandalsong said:
In the post with which I followed my question, the author wrote: " may skip some pixels. This doesn't affect noise as much as it may cause aliasing or blurring artifacts on very fine detail". It seems to me that, despite reading needed pixels to construct 1080P from a FF sensor in whatever scheme implemented, there are additional pixels skipped in order to allow 120fps.
Click to expand...
I don't think there is an official spec. Like many things involving Nikon technology, lots of guessing and outside testing is required to divine the answer. Moving the camera across fine detail (try it for both vertical and horizontal axes) like small tile roofs just a few pixels large may be able to tell you what downsampling is being done.

Ultimately, you have to just look at the footage, and see if it's good enough for what you need to do.
 
dantastical said:
Because it skips lines reading out the sensor at 120fps it is effectively not full frame in terms of noise, low light etc. Personally I think 120fps is too slow for most subjects so I prefer 60fps for slow motion, still clearly slower in a 24fps final project but with higher quality
Click to expand...
Same here. I wish the Z6 had more frame rate options too like 48, 72, and 96 fps. The GH5 has those and more, and it's useful because different subjects look better with different frame rates.
 
I appreciate your feedback. The shift to 120 would be out of the question, as the dance routines are choreographed to music already. The girls only get to perform their dance once on stage. I would need a second camera recording to pull that off. Maybe next year. Your tip on the music is well received, though. I have not seen the girls routines yet this year. If I could get a copy of their music track,I could then plan a video lens focal length change ( I will be using the afp 70-300 VR E lens). I have much to contemplate and little time to prepare. Thanks again, Mike.
 
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