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Nikon interview: CIPA tests hide the D4's improved battery life imaging resource (press release)

18.01.12

DE : So it's not doing any alignment of the images?

LS : No, it's not. It does not align, and we recommend using a tripod in our instruction manuals for both cameras to get the maximum performance from HDR. That doesn't mean you can't handhold it, as I do all the time.

In the D5100, when you shoot an HDR sequence and you want to shoot another sequence, you have to go back into custom settings. With D4, there's a setting that allows you to take a series of HDR shots, so you don't have to keep going back and forth to custom settings. Also, I have noticed -- because I shoot HDR a lot -- that the D4 with EXPEED 3 is very, very fast at processing HDR. In fact, you can shoot a sequence, and then literally take your finger off the shutter release, and then come back down and the camera is ready to shoot. So the processing time on D4 is faster than on the D5100.

DE : Another reader question: The D4 can send its video feed through HDMI instead of to a memory card. In that mode, will it record for longer than 20 minutes, or is there a limit because of sensor heating?

TA : If we use HDMI output, we can capture a long movie, over 30 minutes. But there is an issue with sensor heating, so if the temperature sensor detects overheating, the camera will turn off.

LS : It will power down by itself at about 60 minutes. It starts to count backwards. It's a 30 second countdown, 30 - 29 - 28, to tell you when the camera will power down. It might take a few seconds for it to cool down before you can reactivate it again.

Arthur Etchells, Features Editor, Imaging Resource: Do you know what that period is?

LS : It's brief. I don't know the exact time, but it is brief.

AE : And then you'd be able to do another 60 minutes?

LS : Yes. It also depends on external factors, like heat. So if you're in a hot environment, not only is it the sensor's heat, but it's the hot environment that will cause that as well, so both are considerations.

AE : In looking at the connectivity, there's a wealth of different ports on the Nikon D4, one of those is the LAN. Looking at the spec for that, how did you decide on 100Mbps as opposed to gigabit LAN?

TA : We kept considering power consumption and heat. If we used gigabit LAN we would have a heat problem, and greater power consumption. So we chose 100Mbps LAN.

DE : We're curious about video modes, and the time of recording. In 24p mode, the spec says you can record for 20 minutes, but in 30p, you can record for almost 30. That seemed odd to us; we thought faster would mean shorter time.

TA : We think these specifications are incorrect. Both 24p and 30p are capable of recording 29 minutes, 59 seconds.

DE : The D4 does 1080p at 30 frames per second, will it possibly in the future do 60 frames per second? Is there any possibility of upgrading the firmware?

TA : 60 frames per second, p or i?

DE : I think they're asking p.

TA : 1080p 60? No.

DE : It's a hardware limit?

TA : Yes.

DE : Another question people are curious about: why two different memory cards? Why not two the same, instead of CF and XQD?

TA : CompactFlash is technically limited in terms of speed, so our company and Sony constructed a new technology because we needed a faster card, so we made the XQD card. But [building the D4 with] two XQD cards is a little risky, so we chose to use Compact Flash and XQD.

DE : So XQD has a better spec, but you put a CompactFlash in because there's so much CompactFlash already in the market?

LS : To put two XQD cards at this time, which is a newly developed card system, would be a risk because they weren't sure if XQD would be available when the camera shipped. So the decision was to offer one slot with the CF card standard, which photographers already have, and to offer the newer XQD as well.

AE : Which of those cards ends up being a constraint, or a potential constraint in bandwidth or buffer pool?

TA : XQD card is faster than CF, by almost 30%.

Yasuhiro Nozaki, Planning Manager, Nikon Inc.: 30% faster is the current status. You know, the new card has much more potential, so for the future, maybe 50% faster than the CF card.

DE : We had a meeting with Lexar yesterday and they said they have a 1,000X CF card now, it's 150 megabytes per second. They said that's faster than the current XQD, but that's really the limit of the CF format.

LS : Right, because our current XQD runs at 125 megabytes per second, but the next generation will be faster.

DE : The D4 battery has lower capacity. We understand that was because of a Japanese regulation. One question about that is, is that a limitation on strictly milliampere hours, or is it on total power, combination of voltage and milliamp?

DE : We're trying to figure out how Canon got away with 2,450 milliamps in the 1D X.

TA : The reason we changed the battery is because of the Japanese standard, we have to change it to keep to the Japanese standard. Tested to the CIPA standard, this model can take about 2,600 pictures, a slight decrease compared with the D3S battery. But in the case of a professional photographer shooting continuously, this battery can take more pictures than the D3S.

DE : So you're saying that for an actual, professional photographer, burst shooting, the D4 will take more pictures than the D3S?

TA: Yes.

LS : Dave also said that he noticed that Canon's 1D X battery was 2,450 milliamp. How was Canon able to come up with a battery with a higher milliamp?

YN: The character of the battery is different as compared with Canon's new battery. This one is much more powerful than our old battery, so we created this battery in order to have the best performance with this one, or other old model. When you make a burst shutter, it requires much more power... but based on the old battery, sometimes performance is not good. When you use this one, it's much better performance.

DE : So it can deliver more current in bursts than the old battery?

YN : When the temperature is cold, the performance of the D3S battery is not stable. But the new Nikon D4 battery is much more stable. That is another unique point for the new battery.

AE : The appeal of the D4 is undeniable for videographers. What would you say are the top features, and what is the appeal of the Nikon D4 for still photographers?

LS : From an outward appearance, the camera has been refined so that, while working all day holding a camera, the camera is much more comfortable to hold than the D3S. So, the controls, the layout -- although it doesn't look much different, is slightly different, but in a very, very good way that makes it much more comfortable to hold, and controls are much easier to get at.

As for the inward technology improvements: Now, you would say that a nine frame-per-second rate in the D3, versus 10 frame in the D4 is not a big improvement, but in fact it really is a big improvement. That was done in several ways: by updating the sensor technology of the autofocus, the Multi-CAM 3500, and also the inclusion of the 91,000 pixel RGB sensor, which allows D4 to focus-track in a much more fluid manner. So instead of the 1,005 pixel RGB of D3S where I lock in on Akagi-san's face, and he's running, I say "focus-track, color, gap, gap, gap, gap, gap, color; gap, gap, gap, gap, color" on this particular array, we have 91,000 RGB, so it's now "color, color, color, color, color, color, color, color, color." So the focusing is much smoother, and much more fluid, and in fact, more accurate with those high-speed bursts.

Also, because of that 91,000-pixel RGB sensor, auto-white balance has improved, iTTL flash has improved, auto-exposure has improved, so for a still photographer who makes a living on decisive moments, you have a camera that will respond quicker, and give you more accurate exposures, in more varieties of light, thanks again to the wide ISO range on the camera.

So very, very critical for this photographer -- that one frame per second is a very critical specification for shooting sports or even just decisive moments of a wedding photographer, where the bride might turn and look to her dad, and that's one of those very private moments that only happens -- (snaps fingers) -- like that, so as you turn and shoot that burst capacity, it's very, very critical to how a photographer makes a picture. So improvements go hand-in-hand for still photographers.

And then of course, the new sensor. While photographers are very smart, and they understand in some cases that D3S at 12 megapixel had great image quality and had great high ISO performance. So this new sensor, this new 16.3-megapixel sensor, was chosen because of its balance between image quality, high ISO performance and burst rate, so that the camera can do all that. So it's a carefully choreographed balance of how well these features work together. I think you really can't overlook the ergonomics of the camera, because that's... you're working six, seven, eight hours a day holding a camera, it's got to be comfortable in the hands; it's got to be fluid to work. I believe they have achieved that in a very, very big way with the camera.

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