5D3 and Canon's Comeuppance

[briansquibb]

Since when does any sane person view videos at pixel level?

When they are looking to slam Canon and praise Nikon

 

[unkbob]

Was saving up for the 5DIII, then something happened. A little something called the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.

Guess who'll get my money now.

Canon really bogged up the much touted video / cine on the 5DIII to the rage of cinephiles everywhere,

Doesn't the Blackmagic have a much smaller sensor than the 5D3?

Yes...much smaller, and a different form factor to boot. The BlackMagic is not a replacement for the 5D III. Its an alternative with some very different characteristics.

From what I have actually seen, the 5D III video is a definite improvement over the 5D II, and its a hell of a lot better than what you get from the D800. I don't think the 5D III's video is "botched"...its definitely an improvement, I think its just not as much of an improvement as people wanted, and since the C-series HDSLR's are more expensive, what people want is also not within the price range they want it at. Same deal as always, same reason people want more from the 5D III at a better price point than they already DID get.

I'm disappointed that they have barely (if at all) improved the video resolution of the 5D3, which is still a long way from actual 1080P. Full res 1080p was not an unrealistic expectation, was it? It's still the best camera for me, but that's my biggest gripe.

I think you mean 4:2:2 encoding, which is simply a variant of quality for 1080p. It is still a "full res" 1080p camera, since 1080p simply means the number of lines of resolution. The 5D III may not be 4:2:2, but its still a hell of a lot better with full 3x3 binning. You would need a 7680x5120 sensor, or 39.3mp, for full 4x4 luminance binning and 2x2 chrominance binning for 4:2:2 encoding. Not even the SoNikon alliance was able to create a 40mp sensor yet, and 3x3 binning was the next best option. So technically speaking, the 5D III video is the best it could be for its price point and release date, and 4:2:2 WAS an unrealistic expectation. At least the 5D III doesn't use skip-line encoding like the D800, which may be razor sharp for what it does encode, but it has a ton of rather severe problems as a consequence.

I must admit I understand only a fraction of what you've just said. I thought 4:2:2 was about colour depth, but I'm not a video tech guy, I just know there are not 1080 lines of actual resolution in 5d3 video files. There are 1080 lines of something, sure, but those are not individually resolved lines of information - ie it is not sharp at the pixel level.

Since when does any sane person view videos at pixel level? The problem with forums like this one is that people obsess over things at minute detail at a purely theoretical level. Perhaps at full theoretical 1080p, you could get it sharp at pixel level but at the cost of moire and aliasing. Moire and aliasing are visible at normal levels so I know which I'd target. Not the one you have to stick your head against the monitor for certainly.

Haha, how ridiculous. When you watch a 1080p video on a decent screen, you're seeing it at 100%. The difference between 5D2 / 5D3 resolution (roughly 720p of resolved detail) and footage from high end cameras like a C300 and above is immediately obvious. If you don't care, you're not making professional films. This is not like "pixel peeping" a still photo, which might only be printed at 8 x 10 inches - it's easy to crop a 22MP file and mess around with it and still retain perfect sharpness for printing. NOT SO for video.

As for Brian's snarky response - whatever, I've never shot Nikon and I don't think I ever will. But it IS possible to bring up a flaw in the 5D3 without detesting Canon mate. And just a big BY THE WAY - the D800 is arguably no better than the 5D3 in this regard. I would rather have moire-free video than more resolution but it's not unreasonable to want both.

 

[itsnotmeyouknow]

I don't use my cameras much for video. My 645D doesn't do it in any case. My case still stands looking at individual pixels is pixel peeping no matter what the media. When I watch videos I don't look at individual pixels on the screen, nor does any other sane person. I stand by my point that if there is a choice, I'd rather not see moire

 

[AdamJ]

Even Harley Davidson eventually had to start building better bikes in the face of the competition.

"Hardly Movingson" as we like to call them.

 

[unkbob]

I don't use my cameras much for video. My 645D doesn't do it in any case. My case still stands looking at individual pixels is pixel peeping no matter what the media. When I watch videos I don't look at individual pixels on the screen, nor does any other sane person. I stand by my point that if there is a choice, I'd rather not see moire

I'm not looking at individual pixels, I am looking at a moving image comprised of individual pixels. When you remove half of them, that shit is noticeable! Like I said, it's not like stills, where you can downscale a 22MP image to 2MP and often see no practical difference. It would be like downscaling a still image after it's already been printed at the required size. That is destructive, and noticeable. Average Joe might not be able to see much difference between, say, a 50dpi print and a 300 dpi print, but you, the photographer would.

 

[jrista]

Was saving up for the 5DIII, then something happened. A little something called the Blackmagic Cinema Camera.

Guess who'll get my money now.

Canon really bogged up the much touted video / cine on the 5DIII to the rage of cinephiles everywhere,

Doesn't the Blackmagic have a much smaller sensor than the 5D3?

Yes...much smaller, and a different form factor to boot. The BlackMagic is not a replacement for the 5D III. Its an alternative with some very different characteristics.

From what I have actually seen, the 5D III video is a definite improvement over the 5D II, and its a hell of a lot better than what you get from the D800. I don't think the 5D III's video is "botched"...its definitely an improvement, I think its just not as much of an improvement as people wanted, and since the C-series HDSLR's are more expensive, what people want is also not within the price range they want it at. Same deal as always, same reason people want more from the 5D III at a better price point than they already DID get.

I'm disappointed that they have barely (if at all) improved the video resolution of the 5D3, which is still a long way from actual 1080P. Full res 1080p was not an unrealistic expectation, was it? It's still the best camera for me, but that's my biggest gripe.

I think you mean 4:2:2 encoding, which is simply a variant of quality for 1080p. It is still a "full res" 1080p camera, since 1080p simply means the number of lines of resolution. The 5D III may not be 4:2:2, but its still a hell of a lot better with full 3x3 binning. You would need a 7680x5120 sensor, or 39.3mp, for full 4x4 luminance binning and 2x2 chrominance binning for 4:2:2 encoding. Not even the SoNikon alliance was able to create a 40mp sensor yet, and 3x3 binning was the next best option. So technically speaking, the 5D III video is the best it could be for its price point and release date, and 4:2:2 WAS an unrealistic expectation. At least the 5D III doesn't use skip-line encoding like the D800, which may be razor sharp for what it does encode, but it has a ton of rather severe problems as a consequence.

I must admit I understand only a fraction of what you've just said. I thought 4:2:2 was about colour depth, but I'm not a video tech guy, I just know there are not 1080 lines of actual resolution in 5d3 video files. There are 1080 lines of something, sure, but those are not individually resolved lines of information - ie it is not sharp at the pixel level.

You really don't understand video, nor do you understand resolution. The 5D III resolves THREE TIMES as much information as necessary to produce FULL 1080p output. Three times the information is cross-processed and downsampled, which effectively produces a BETTER output pixel, for the given target resolution, than you would generally have by recording natively. Multisampling is how all top-end cinematography cameras work....4k or higher cameras are always recording more than necessary for 1920x1080 progressive output, and they ALL downsample. This produces better results. The only real drawback is that the 5D III doesn't output the full RAW native 3x oversized video (like most Red Digital 4k+ cams offer), so that you can work the raw with video post-processing tools then downscale later on at your leisure.

Stop bitching about something you clearly do not understand.

 

[Ivar]

The 5D III resolves THREE TIMES as much information as necessary to produce FULL 1080p output. Three times the information is cross-processed and downsampled, which effectively produces a BETTER output pixel, for the given target resolution, than you would generally have by recording natively.

The 5d mk3 video is more like 720p, not real 1080p according to some test comparisons, i.e. panasonic gh2 driftwood or canon c300, those are proper 1080p.

So much about sampling and Canon's marketing.