Take photos for training manuals.
Now inserting videos when actually training.
Take photos of equipment failures.
As I am in the coal industry have set the camera so use one lens all the time less chance of coal dust.
Do a lot of travelling and can carry one camera to meet all my needs even video’s.
A lot of travelling on planes and trains and need to limit what i need eg Camera, Video, clothing, laptop, diary, external hard drives and cables for all this equipment.
At times previously with point and shoot camera found was not able to get close enough to items to see the small data that was required for the above manuals and report of failures.

Therefore the D90 meets all my requirement even if only used for point and shoot and do not get into advance photo taking.

Regards

@stratman- for my kind of shooting the depth of field is important, I do more visual storytelling, so subject isolation is important to me, more important than deep focus, so for me (and lots of indie filmmakers) raw footage out of a camcorder isn’t what we’re looking for. It’s only the 5d (FF) which has such shallow DOF, the 7d (APS C) and especially the gh1 (m4/3) have more depth of field, and if you stop down to say f11, or shoot wide angle, you get loads of depth of field anyway, and if you consider the fact you lose what 2 stops of light when using a 35mm adaptor on a camera that means you can get 2 stops more depth of field on a DSLR (in the same lighting), and you can stop down even more and just increase the iso (which, at least from footage i’ve seen, works much much better on even a 4/3′s camera compared to a

maybe i’m just in the 2% niche who’s looking to break into pro level videography but happens to want a new SLR and doesn’t have the budget or the will to purchase an EX3
yeah i’m not denying that pro cam’s are better for certain things, but SLR’s are good for certain things too- low light, bang for buck quality, lens selection, compactness, versatility, of course the next generation of pro cams will mop up with the SLR’s, and the SLR platform is fundamentally flawed

I’d like to see Canon develop a true “LCD Free” TTL video solution just like TTL for stills. I vaguely recall Sony was working on a DSLR that included a dedicated video sensor up behind the viewfinder screen in the prism housing. Can’t remember where I saw it though, it might have been a fake?

The specs of the XM2 are based on Canon’s website as is using the video cam’s built-in lens. Obviously if one would outfit the thing with a 35mm and a separate lens you’d have to account for their weight separately.

When was the last time you saw your local TV station or CNN using a 5D Mk II for live outdoor broadcast? I thought so. And yes, I did watch clips of the season finale of the TV series House. The DoF in some scenes was unbelievably shallow that the camera man had difficulty in focusing on Hugh Laurie’s face. It was a one time experimental thing.

Let’s see if entire seasons of TV shows like House, Leverage, 24 and the CSI franchise would be shot entirely with a 5D Mk II.

and it has a flip out screen, full manual control, 60p- and is basically the best speck’d HDSLR at the moment (video quality of the canon 5d not withstanding)

@ stratman-I think you forgot to factor in the size/weight of a 35mm adaptor, and L series lens onto your consumer cam weight
and footage just looks better when it comes from a tripod/jib/dolly mounted cam- by forcing me to stabilise my shots, it forces me to get better footage rather than just be lazy and hand hold everything

While playing with my 5DII video features I’ve had to review things I knew but almost forgot about photography. It forced me to think about some basic concepts from a different perspective which i found helpful.

For example, while trying to solve the video focus issue, I had to review some old hyperfocal calculations I hadn’t used in many years. I figured the lazy solution would be to maximize my depth of field so I wouldn’t have to worry about where my subjects were in the frame.

Then I started thinking about how I might have taken some recent shots differently. So in the end, I figure anything that makes me rethink and improve my photography can’t be all bad?