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Panasonic G6 vs Canon 5D MarkIII - VIDEO


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It unbelievable how good is 700 USD Panasonic G6 doing against 3500 USD Canon 5D MarkIII:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu2iscZIaMg

 

That looks really great. The G6 seems to be an excellent performer. Though i have heard a while back about it having trouble in 1080p 50fps mode that the image sharpness was reduced quite abit has this been fixed in some firmware update?

 

How many stops of dynamic range do you get from the G6 in video mode? And how much better is it compared to Sony RX100 video mode?

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It unbelievable how good is 700 USD Panasonic G6 doing against 3500 USD Canon 5D MarkIII:

 

The 5D Mark III is doing all that full frame.  I can output a movie from my 50D that spanks all of those shots.  Unfortunately I would have to shoot raw and in the zoomed in mode.  The caveats are important.

 

The G6 is definitely impressive.  I took a hard look at it after the rave reviews I saw on this forum.  But since I already have Canon glass the $700 price of admission would have been the smallest part of my overall investment.  I wish Canon would get on the ball with pixel binning in the rebel line of cameras and an option for a higher quality codec.  Panasonic has really shown them the way forward.

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I think the 'best camera on the market' is just impossible to say, its simply a question of does the camera give me a look that I like and do the things I would like it to do in a better way than other cameras on the market, thats as much as anyone can say.

 

Personally I think the G6 looks very videoish / digital here. Aesthetically speaking only my preference in order since the first VDSLR (d90) has always been 1.Nikon 2.Canon 3.Panasonic but I shoot Canon for being able to do more of the things I want it to do.

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I just had to make this choice, and went with 5D MKiii.

 

  • Just about the best stills camera around, aside from medium format ( I have used a Hasselblad H3D out and about, foolishly enough. My wrist hurts just thinking about it.). Nikon D800 may pip it, but it's quite clunky in use and the video sucks.
  • Raw feature and Magic Lantern in general will mature as the cards and storage catch up, so it's relatively future proof. Now raw is impractical, in a while it won't be.
  • Harder than Chuck Norris in a Viagra factory - it won't break if I take it to a desert. If it does Canon will fix it more quickly than most other companies. Size matters.
  • No moire issues. A tiny bit of softness doesn't distract. A tiny bit of moire does.
  • Enough resolution. I don't care about absolute resolution, pixel peeping is silly really. I like 16mm film best of all formats. The feel of the image is more important than razor sharp eybrow hair. See also The Hobbit. The G6 has a video feel IMO. I'd rather have a softer image that's more cinematic.
  • Brilliant low light performance.
  • Menu systems that I understand.
  • All my lenses are adapted to EF.  Full frame means buying one longer lens though...
  • A huge range of accessories, as it's industry standard.
  • It's familiar to my collaborators - on a corporate shoot recently, we all knew what we meant when we chatted settings.
  • I got a good price second hand, which was important. The retail is a bit high IMO. Depreciation will be minimal, comparatively.

 

The G6 is sharp and has 1080/60p, but I don't want to be swapping bodies a lot and I feel it would likely be superseded swiftly. I prefer to learn one and keep it for a long time, much like an instrument.

 

I also feel the image quality itself is pretty video-like on the G6. This is hard to pin down, but laymen (and wives and girlfriends too, often) will use terms like "cheap" or "TV like". That's important to me as it's audience reaction, not geek reaction! ;)

 

I had an RX100 for a while and though it's impressive, it just has a real video look that stood out when I cut it with Canon EOS. As far as I can see the G6 feels similar. Just a personal preference, your mileage may vary, but I can't buy off a spec sheet, I must purchase on real-world application. I won't repeat mistakes.

 

I would buy and RX100 in a heartbeat for documentary or TV work. It almost renders camcorders obsolete I feel. It's just not very "filmic".

 

So far 5D MKiii raw appears to look more electronic than Alexa/Red/BMD. I feel this is because many tests are relatively unprocessed, too saturated and sharpened, and I look forward to taming it creatively as it becomes practical to use technically.

 

I may still keep the 600D with Mosaic filter, just for the 3x crop video mode.

 

I wish Canon would put this mode in the 5D.

 

In short, yes I know they are cynical with feature splitting across SKUs. I do agree that it's frustrating.

 

But at the end of the day a creative tool needs to  work on many subtle levels. Being the best at one thing doesn't cut it. Having a good all-round package, whether I like to admit it or not, does. So they get the cash.

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I agree that in the most of situations G6 looks videoish but I believe if good lenses are used (Panasonic 25mm f 1,4 or some Canon FD), sharpness is decreased to -5 and I do some grading in post so I thing that the result will be really good and comparable to GH3. Of course it is incomparable to RAW from 5D but considering the money and all gear around it is one of the best choices untill the BMD will do something better for documentary purposes than BMPCC :-)

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there is alot of misconception about the G6 looking video - this is not so - I use the G6 extensively and it shoots superb cinematic looking footage day in day out.

What alot of people preceive as 'video looking' is they are watching test footage on youtube or vimeo shot deep focus around - f11 -f22 on akit lens and they saying 'oh the G6 looks video'

- a Canon at f11 looks very Videoish I was shooting outside last weekend on a BRAND NEW Canon 5DMK111

with my 24-105mm L series lens on it and it looks very videish just because I had the camera set at f16 as it was very sunny outside,

so HUGE depth of field everything is in focus!! = video looking !!

 

Get the G6 camera in your hands use it yourself and it shots stunning cinematic images - it takes all my fast glass and renders great narrow depth of field footage full of lovely Bokeh.!!

 

Having tested G6 against 5DMK111 in my opinion G6 wins hands down in image detail and look and sharpness of the image , I only use Canon on certain jobs if the client wants it

G6 is my main camera - nuff said!!

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Having tested G6 against 5DMK111 in my opinion G6 wins hands down in image detail and look and sharpness of the image , I only use Canon on certain jobs if the client wants it

G6 is my main camera - nuff said!!

 

No one is disputing that the G6 is a wonderful camera.  But taking comparison shots of buildings will not show the where RAW is better over H.264 (in fact, RAW might look worse because it isn't sharpening the image and smoothing the colors).

 

The problem is we don't know what color those buildings are supposed to be, so any image you show, assuming the bricks aren't green, will look good.  Take comparison video of a human face, however, and people will see the difference between footage shot in H.264 and RAW.  Biologically, we are programmed to "read" face color/mood/health.   Even if we've never seen the person before, we can tell when they look healthy and when they look less so. (though I'm not saying people can't look great in H.264)

 

Again, I am not saying everyone with a G6 should trade it in for a 5D3.  It depends on what/how you shoot.  I use those cameras. But you're only hurting yourself if you won't look at the differences objectively.  I love your posts.  I love your videos.  I also love the look of RAW.

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I think that RAW is only for a specialized work with a lots of SDcard storage or SSD discs and very fast post processing gear. For documentary shooting it is not a good option and many people will stay with H.264. May be in near future it will be better solved out for me as a non professional shooter.

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I wouldn't use Magic Lantern RAW for anything where I need to shoot continuously for more than 3 minutes.  In a review of the BMPCC an engineer said the camera uses powered peltier cooling of the chip, which is why the battery can drain quickly on warm days.  I believe I see hot pixels on my 50D after it's been shooting for a bit.  I want a GH3 or G6 too, for all those reasons!  For now I use H.264 on the EOS-M or Panasonic GF3

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That's interesting about the cooling, I don't know what it means though! Is there an explanation somewhere?

 

I'm by no means militant though, I may end up with a G6 if I can justify another body. I don't think it's necessarily a DOF issue that puts me off it, but I'm ready to be shown otherwise. I also took issue with GH2 regardless of bitrate or DOF, I felt is was a bit plastic... but still, I'm open to be shown otherwise! In fact I'd like to be!

 

1080/60p would be nice!

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No one is disputing that the G6 is a wonderful camera.  But taking comparison shots of buildings will not show the where RAW is better over H.264 (in fact, RAW might look worse because it isn't sharpening the image and smoothing the colors).

 

The problem is we don't know what color those buildings are supposed to be, so any image you show, assuming the bricks aren't green, will look good.  Take comparison video of a human face, however, and people will see the difference between footage shot in H.264 and RAW.  Biologically, we are programmed to "read" face color/mood/health.   Even if we've never seen the person before, we can tell when they look healthy and when they look less so. (though I'm not saying people can't look great in H.264)

 

Again, I am not saying everyone with a G6 should trade it in for a 5D3.  It depends on what/how you shoot.  I use those cameras. But you're only hurting yourself if you won't look at the differences objectively.  I love your posts.  I love your videos.  I also love the look of RAW.

I am commenting on the above topic .......I did not film the houses / bricks etc..........I have both a G6 and Canon 5D MK111 and have done extensive tests with both shooting pop videos - there are lots of faces to film in pop videos!! thats what I do !

I use the Canon for stills and the G6 for shooting almost everything now .......G6 renders moving images much nicer for me I prefer it for my work.

There are alot  of people commenting on the G6 that it looks like video who have never used the camera just watched footage online

and as big user of G6 Im saying it is not videoey at all when used correctly !

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nobody is comparing the Canon 5DMK111 ML RAW on this thread if you read the top post it is about a stock Canon .

I am NOT using ML RAW on my Canon as it is way too labor intensive to work with right now for my clients

they will not pay for time converting massive files and the inconvenience of ML RAW its just not worth it.

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As Andy says above I'm not intending to use raw for full projects right now, but to learn it for when it's more practical (IE when storage is faster, cheaper, so on). Right now all the storage and conversion wouldn't work for a lot of the things I do. The 5D iii stock video is great though, as is the G6, it's a matter of both footage and tool and process preference.

 

Next time I do a personal short I'll try the raw.

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If I turned up at the edit suite with Canon ML RAW file my editor would have a heart attack due to the file size and processing time need to make anything look remotely useable for the client to see!!  plus for me it would just take far too long to work with doing basic edits ! never mind time grading from a flat RAW image .

G6 gives stunningly sharp image way better than any stock Canon camera right out the box

and small files sizes too every quick and easy to work with less $$$$$ in the edit suite!

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