The “Tech this out!” crew over at ABC News (update: originally reported as being on yahoo! – I suddenly realized it is an ABC News show being shown on yahoo!) is using Nikon and Canon HDSLRs to record the show and in this new behind the scenes video, they discuss how they’re using them on set. [source: found via this tweet from @jcvsatlanta]

“It is all part of the increasingly popular way to shoot anything from news footage to commercials to prime time shows like Fox’s popular ‘House’” the announcer says. “Here at ‘Tech this out!’ you could say we’re a bipartisan operation” – then they show the Nikon D300s and also discuss using the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (reviews).

For info on the follow focus unit they show – check out Bruce Dorn’s site IDCphotoVideo.com. Their follow focus is pretty nice as it works on friction and doesn’t require gears. We’re planning a planet5D live interview coming up with Bruce – keep your eye out!

Note: You can see it much larger than they let us embed it on the ABC News site

(Photo credit: snap from the video)

Today, Nikon announced a new version of their D300 – the D300s. Many call it a ‘semi-professional’ camera, but how does it compare to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II? DPreview has this morning’s announcement of the Nikon D300s and that’s where we got most of this data. DPReview included a ‘brief hands on‘ article for the new camera. Nikon also announced the D3000 – an entry level DSLR without video.

Update: I’ve obviously failed to make it clear that this isn’t a post comparing two cameras in the same class – the D300s is a “semi-pro” camera and the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is a “pro” camera. Yes, there’s a $1000 price difference too. The point of the article is to simply show what differences there are in the cameras. A lot of people were asking this question so I wanted to help people understand what the each camera does in relation to the other with the understanding that they’re aimed at different groups of photographers/videographers.

• The D300s adds video at 24fps – the 5D2 is 30fps
• The D300s highest resolution video is 720p – the 5D2 is 1080
• The D300s stills are 12.3mp – the 5D2 is 21mp
• The D300s does have an external mic plug which is better than the Canon Rebel T1i/500D with no plug
• The D300s retail price is $1799 – the 5D2 is $2699
• The D300s adds cropping of the video (start and stop) – they call it ‘in-camera movie editing’
• The D300s has dual slot storage (one SD and one CF card) with management of what is stored on each
• The D300s has 51 point auto-focus – the 5D2 is 9 point
• The D300s has a 5 minute video clip limit (see this post) – the 5D2 is 12 minutes
• The 5D mk ii has manual shutter, aperture and ISO control in video – the D300s does not

So, the the D300s brings 24fps (the holy grail?) but they still don’t have the full 1080 HD size! And we’ve yet to see if they’ve improved the jelly of the video either. We’ll have to wait for the production release (Aug 28).

Here’s a bit more detail – again much of the info comes from the DPReview story

It seems to me that the Nikon D300s is a good camera, but it isn’t at the level of the 5D2. If you can’t yet afford the 5D2, it might be a good intermediate step.

(Photo credit: snaps from dpreview)