Cut the gumf - if you want a still camera and a video camera you buy a 5dmk3 right?

[zenpmd]

There is a lot of choice nowadays, but actually isnt the 5dmk3 still the ultimate allrounder? For the price I'd like more dynamic range in stills, sure, but thats really this cameras only downside...I have wasted about 18 months (as I am new to this stuff) wasting time and money on other things and have now realised this is it...

[fuzzynormal]

Good for you. Find something that works and fits your taste.

I like m43 photography though, so I'm cool with small Lumix cams.

[wolf33d]

I am in the same shit since 2 years. 
Got 5D2, Pana GH3, Oly EM1, fuji XE1 ... One at a time. Couldn't be happy with any. 5D2 was a pain for travel, poor video. GH3 was amazing for video, but a shit in photo, Oly was better in photo but nothing close to 5D2 and poor video, XE1 was poor in video. 

I do 50%stills / video. 

 

So I taught about 5DIII but : too expensive, no 60fps (I need it absolutely), and big (but this is the minor problem for me). 

 

Now the A7S could be the best : good stills, good video (with 60fps) and small body. But there is no lens for it, and the price might be high. 

Let's see the 7D mark II, could be decent enough in stills (even if not Full Frame) and very good in video + if ML do RAW on it. 

Apparently kind of a 3D body is planed after summer, with A7R resolution, and 4K, but it will be more expensive than 5D3 so no thanks. 

then in 2015-2016, 5DIV should be cool. 

 

But I don't want to wait all my life. I have no more camera now. The problem is each time you have to invest in some lenses for the system so I would like to pick up the right one ...

[Guest]

If you like the 5D's image for both stills and video then yes, it's your ultimate all-rounder. If you're not shooting RAW video with it though, there are "better" video cameras out there for a lot less money. Unless you want full-frame, the Nikon D5300 has a superior video image (better dynamic range, better low light, 60p, S35 size sensor) and shoots superb stills - and it's 1/4 the price of the 5DIII. All Panasonic cameras are significantly sharper in video mode than stock 5D. Magic Lantern is the only compelling reason to buy a 5D for video.

 

For an all-rounder, personally I'd wait and see what the A7S is like.

[quivering_member]

GH3 was amazing for video, but a shit in photo

 

What was shit about the photos the GH3 produced? I'm confused because I've never heard anyone speak so strongly against it.

[zenpmd]

I've realised I have no beef with larger cameras - and my plan is to just use the replacement of the Fuji x100s for everything when I want smaller size. Dont need a small video cam. Full frame for intercheangle lenses, fixed for smallness.

[Inazuma]

I find the idea of shooting RAW to be ridiculous. 7 gigs per minute what. Plus the lack of 60p is a killer.

The d5300 could be great but I found the d5200 tended to have poor highlight control.

[Christina Ava]

yes i agree 100%. the mark three for its money is still a top camera for the following reasons

1. 100s of lenses to choose from! L-series! zeiss, vintage canon, everyone makes lenses specifically for this camera!

2. beautiful still photography Full Frame!, easy perfect photos fast professional raw

3. size, i cant even work with those tiny cameras, you feel you are holding a camera not a toy, doesnt need 100 paraphernalia to film, great live view size.

4. Full frame video, you put a 85mm lens and its stays 85mm!

5. NO COLOR CORRECTION!  apply correct exposure-apply kalvin ,manual whitebalance, and you have the footage ready to cut, dont need to spend 100 hours making it look normal. huge time saver, forget the "ill fix it in post"

6.the "canon look" warm tones, balances greatly with zeiss lenses that are colder.

7.ML raw looks fantastic

8.solid bulid quality, not flimsy, ergonomic, all the buttons i need are not buried in menus

9.takes two memory cards 

10.records sound internaly

11. iso 2000 has the same noise as iso 200! perfect for low light

 :)

[Quirky]

 

Cut the gumf - if you want a still camera and a video camera you buy a 5dmk3 right?

 

If you live inside an either-or, I/O kind of world, then that may indeed represent reality to you. However, if one is not a Canon luddite, there are plenty of different options. Some other people might even choose to get different cameras for stills and video. Nothing wrong with that, either.

 

 

There is a lot of choice nowadays, but actually isnt the 5dmk3 still the ultimate allrounder? 

 

Depends on your belief system and your internal wiring. There is indeed a lot of choice, and thanks to that, not everyone has to buy a 5D3. I for one would no longer buy any dSLR, let alone a Canikon dSLR, especially for anything video related, but that's just me. 

Whatever floats your boat. Your personal preferences, your money, your choice. 

 

 

 

 

I have wasted about 18 months 

 

That's kinda sad. There's always plenty of nice cameras to choose from. Just pick one and get on with it. If someone else chooses another camera, that's perfectly alright. You don't need to feel threatened by his or her different choice in any way, nor should you. What others think about your choice does not matter, and vice versa. 

 

Now, off you go to play with your "ultimate"camera, young man.  ;)

[maxotics]

I agree, the 5d3 is a beast.  My problem with it is the size and expense.  If you're always going to do prepared set-shots, in both photo and video, then that would be the camera to have.  I have a Sigma DP1m, which is under $1,000 and does 28mm shots as well (actually better to me) as a similarly configured 5D3.  Another poster mentioned the X100S, same thing.  The Blackmagic Pocket camera is $1,000, and it's much easier to shoot RAW than the 5D3, or at least significantly smaller.  So for $2,500 you can get both stellar photo and video in small packages.  You can portability AND great photo and video.  Finally, unless you are really going to shoot RAW a fair bit, the Nikon D800 is a better stills camera than the 5d3 (IMHO), so you would end up overpaying for photo.

 

Sony and Panasonic are going down the right path.  Canon and Nikon, as Andrew said, Whas-up?

[Quirky]

4. Full frame video, you put a 85mm lens and its stays 85mm!

10.records sound internaly

 

Just to nit-pick a bit...  ;)

 

If you put that 85mm lens into a mFT or APS camera, it'll still be exactly the same 85mm lens. You'll just have a smaller peep hole to view the picture projected by the lens, and therefore you see less. In other words, the lens will always stay and behave the same, only the size of the peep hole chances.

 

As for recording sound internally, that's nothing unusual these days, nor is the preamp inside the 5D3 particularly good for that. Not that bad, but certainly not "ultimate," either.

 

But nit-picking aside, not much point in arguing about matters of taste, soI'll zip it.  :)

[wolf33d]

What was shit about the photos the GH3 produced? I'm confused because I've never heard anyone speak so strongly against it.

 

 

Of course. Look at my video : 

 

at 1:03 : timelapse with Nikon D5200   /   at 1:14  timelapse with GH3

 

I shot and edited this video myself, shot in RAW, processed in Lightroom and LR timelapse. 

 

Of course the light is different, but we actually did some test during the other timelapse of the video, and the ones with the GH3 were so poor that I only picked the D5200 ones. 

 

I did many test, and even if ISO and sharpness become very good on M43, DR and DoF sucks. 

When I say DR, I don't mean Dxo result. I mean me taking 2 shots of a sunrise like this : http://500px.com/photo/58968152/golden-gate-by-loup-fsr?from=user_library   

 

With the GH3 I get an ugly image as well as the D5200. But with the nikon I manage to get the picture you see above thanks to lightroom. For example the rocks on the left were completely black, the image had no color, and so on. 
With the GH3 I can't get any good result. More light on the rock = noise and ungly definition and so on. 

 

I had those cameras for months and years, and try it yourself. Buy yourself a 5DIII which is rated as shit for DR on DXO, and get a Olympus EM1, take a sunset picture and play with it in Lightroom and be STUNED by the difference. 

 

So I keep saying, unless you do macro, M43 SUCKS for my type of photography (portrait & landscape). 

For portrait it is about DoF but also the look. Compare a portrait done with a Medium format and with a M43, see the look difference appart from deep of field....

 

People keep saying M43 is great because they convince themselves they have good equipment and because when they take 2 RAWS with 5DIII and EM1 of a watch on their desk they see no difference in a 100% crop, which is true, they don't understand that nobody cares about a 100% crop of their watch, but what we care is what we can get from editing the picture, and here the 5DIII files will give you MUCH more. 

I listen to those people and got GH3 and EM1, unfortunately ... to see that this is crap for stills. 

 

Of course if you shoot jpg or RAW and then adjust white balance and that's it, unless you want extreme DoF then the EM1 is pretty good ;).

[Aussie Ash]

Some pretty cool footage in there wolf33d ,looks like you haven't wasted 18 months.

 

I hope your Phantom copter doesn't land on some dear old lady's head.

[wolf33d]

Some pretty cool footage in there wolf33d ,looks like you haven't wasted 18 months.

 

I hope your Phantom copter doesn't land on some dear old lady's head.

 

Lol thanks. It landed on a rocks and stayed here. Maybe the lucky guy going there get a GoPro 3 for free... 

Memories... 

[Andrew Reid]

It all depends on what you want to do.

 

For some stuff I prefer the 5D Mark III and certainly raw video on it is mind-blowing for work involving rich colour saturation, heavy grading and low light. I also love the full frame rendering of my lenses.

 

The GH4 in terms of 4K and usability of course is a big win, but the smaller sensor and the stills are not up to 5D Mark III level. Still pretty good though... how much stills quality do you NEED? That's the question to ask, not so much whether the GH4 is rated that way or this way.

[dahlfors]

Don't forget that there are rumors that Metabones is working on a Speed Booster specifically for the Panasonic GH4, similar to the ones for Blackmagic cameras.

GH4 + specific Speed Booster for GH4 should be a great allrounder for stills and video. And you'd get 4k, 1080p60, 96fps slow motion mode.

 

Personally I'm not too found of Sony's AVCHD after seeing mushy low bitrate video on NEX cameras. I'd be checking the codec quality of A7S carefully in different scenarios before choosing that path. Hopefully it is better, but I'd certainly test it to make sure...

 

Consider for stills:

- Does GH4 + current m43 Speed booster get large enough? Will the possible upcoming GH4 specific Speed booster be large enough for your needs? If not, you'll have to go full fame.

- Will the extra dynamic range of Sony sensors on low iso be important for your style of shooting?

 

Consider for video:

- Is 1080p60 / 1080p50 important or other slow motion modes important?

- Is 4k important?

- Will you have use of RAW or other Magic Lantern features?

 

Consider for both:

- Will you be in a situation where you prefer a smaller / larger camera body & lenses? (Smaller: Going more covert for street shooting, hiking in demanding terrain or so. Larger bodies: Maybe that large gray lens and Canon logo will be important to see for your clients :))

 

I think either of GH4, 5DMk3 and A7S will be good allrounders for video + stills. Which one will be better, depends on the way you want to shoot, which features are important for you.

 

Myself I'm on D800, which fits very well, since my use is something like 75% photo, 25% video. If you can find a cheap D800 used, it might be an alright solution for video as well - for photos it is amazing. Rumors are that an update to D800 is coming, probably with Expeed 4 chip, 1080p60, higher bitrates and such, perhaps as moire free as D5300 - only time will tell.

Had my own usage been more 50/50 photo/video, I think Panasonic GH4 would have been a very interesting candidate.

[zenpmd]

Ignoring 5d raw, even the codec is "fine" remember all the good stuff on the mk2? People saying the D800 is a "better stills camera" is just stupid too. More dynamic range, resolution yadada. The 5dmk3 is not cheap, sure, so we ought to expect a lot from it, but its AF system is superb and considering I need something for action photography too, its certainly better to just have one system and really get to grips with it than running a few. "Good enough"

[dahlfors]

Ignoring 5d raw, even the codec is "fine" remember all the good stuff on the mk2? People saying the D800 is a "better stills camera" is just stupid too. More dynamic range, resolution yadada. The 5dmk3 is not cheap, sure, so we ought to expect a lot from it, but its AF system is superb and considering I need something for action photography too, its certainly better to just have one system and really get to grips with it than running a few. "Good enough"

 

A tip:

 

For people switching camera systems, the expensive part is usually if they sell equipment used, and buy new lenses for the new system when switching. If you buy lenses used and take good care of them, you can probably sell them without much of a loss later on, if you again find that you want to switch system. Lenses tend to keep their used values for long periods of time, at least for classic lenses like Canon, Nikon & Zeiss etc.

 

If you already have a set of lenses that you can fit to different cameras for filming, this does not apply of course - since you don't need to sell them. But for lenses with autofocus, where the brand lenses usually perform the best, Canon lenses for Canon, Nikon lenses for Nikon - this is a useful way to save some money when switching systems.

 

Camera bodies will lose value over time whatever you buy, so there's probably not so much to gain by buying used there, but perhaps a bit.

 

So, my recommendation: buy the Canon AF lenses you need used, and make the switch to 5DMk3 then, since it sounds like you would be happy with what 5DMk3 provides. If you later find a camera system to switch to that better fits your needs, you won't lose much by selling the lenses you won't need anymore.

 

D800 is amazing for stills, I love it. There are situations where the increased dynamic range or resolution will help. But in the end, a camera is a tool to learn and master - if a photographer can't get good stills with a 5DMk3, a D800 certainly won't have any magic to help either :)

 

To me, who started out doing concert photography with ISO400 & ISO800 films, it is insane how good just about any still camera is today. What I can find lacking considering video mode in cameras is to have the same kind of color in video as in the raw stills. That's an area where the 5DMk3 will have its raw mode that will really pay off.

[wolf33d]

100% agry with everything you said. 
Except that unfortunately sometimes you can't buy lens and body used (for EG A7S, with FE lenses) and will loose a lot after selling it 1 year later. 

But thats the game. 

[maxotics]

People saying the D800 is a "better stills camera" is just stupid too. 

 

I resemble that comment! :)  This is a video forum, so of course I'd have to give the nod to the 5D3 (actually any Canon that can run ML) over the high end Nikons.  I was just making a point that both the d800 and 5d3 are primarily stills cameras.  Don't forget that RAW on the 5D3 is NOT from Canon and you can't change the bootflag back. 

 

Again, video RAW from those Canons is fantastic.  I've spent oodles and oodles of hours on it.   In stills, however, Nikon tweaks their sensors like Panasonic teaks their video CODEC.  There are certain situations where the D800 will outperform the 5D3 as a photographic camera.  You never feel stupid until you wish you had that extra DR  ;)