Canon EOS 5D Mark III vs Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera

[hutjeflut]

makes you wonder how much better dslr's cn do when the software on the camera gets a totalo redo.
the sensor is obviously better yet the immages dont lie (unless they are falslky edited on purpose to favor the ciname cam.)

so with better software or better raw data management the 5d2 should be a LOT better then the cinemal cam.
if the photo's are that much better thn the ciname fram captures than the movie in theory should be able to be be much better also as its nothing more then stitched togethet photo's after all.

all this movie shows to me is that either he wants to discredit the DSLR filmers or that the DSLR video software needs a LOT of improvement and when it does it wil be better as the sensor simply is better.
if not i want this sensor in a dslr as its mucgh sharper with the same lenses
somthing is just off here either canon firmware or video editing of the 5d as it simply doesnt match the theory.

 

[risc32]

I'm not a video guy, but i've been taking little clips of my kids in the backyard, and at their sports, and they look pretty darn good. I must be missing something, as the 5d's video quality in these videos looks pretty bad. When shown in this fashion every little thing is noticeable(as should be done) but that seems to be a bridge to far. I mean, that 5d footage REALLY sucks compared to the BM.

 

[dhofmann]

When the 5D3 downscales the raw image data from 22MP to 2MP for video, I wonder if it's throwing away information that could be used to increase the dynamic range. Removing 91% of the pixels creates bigger "virtual pixels" and that ought to add at least a few stops of dynamic range.

So if the 5D3's processor is fast enough, maybe we'll see a new firmware that improves the dynamic range of video.

 

[lourenco]

The DR of the 5D Mark III does not seem that great. DXOMark shows it only DR of 11.7 at best. It just gets worse at the higher iso. I was considering of upgrading to the 5d Mark III. I am not sure now after seeing this video. I am now waiting for Canon to come out with DSLR camera with 1080p at 60 fps under $3k. 60fps with MagicLatern HDR video would allow someone to cheat a little bit to increase the DR. I am hoping that Canon is going to come out with something better next year.

If I was just into doing video I would consider the Blackmagic. I currently need something to do both video and photography.

 

[Policar]

The DR of the 5D Mark III does not seem that great. DXOMark shows it only DR of 11.7 at best. It just gets worse at the higher iso. I was considering of upgrading to the 5d Mark III. I am not sure now after seeing this video. I am now waiting for Canon to come out with DSLR camera with 1080p at 60 fps under $3k. 60fps with MagicLatern HDR video would allow someone to cheat a little bit to increase the DR. I am hoping that Canon is going to come out with something better next year.

If I was just into doing video I would consider the Blackmagic. I currently need something to do both video and photography.

These lighting conditions were meant to stress the cameras, and they really don't get much more punishing, and the 5D would have done much better were highlight tone priority set to on although that would also make the dark areas noisier (if it was, then these tests reflect really poorly...), but it's clear that the BMC camera does very well. It's the softness that really gets to me, though. If Canon can fix that a bit I can surely live with the poor DR. The DR is also much better for stills, particularly when shooting raw.

I think the issue is that Canon's sensors have a ton of read noise and the technology to prevent it is proprietary to Sony sensors. It's introduced between the sensor and the ADC and it's not terrible in stills, but since the sensor bins on-sensor, in effect the read noise is 4X more present (or scaled up 4X larger) for video. And when using highlight tone priority it really gets noticeable, but that can help the highlight detail a lot.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

The little GH cams have crop modes, but can Canon give their DSLR crop mode video? Nope. Marketing would slap the engineers silly for daring to try to take anywhere near close to full advantage of the hardware. The 5D3 sensor actually has an ASP-C section that could be read exactly the same way as the C300 in 2x2 blocking since it is the same 8MP in the APS-C crop portion.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Problem with both GH3 and Sony a99 is that to me they both still look kinda video-y. At least, despite the small sensor, the BMCC does have a nice cinematic quality to the footage that I've seen so far.

The GH2 was a touch on the video-looking side, true. While the 5D3 kind of soft, the GH2 is sort of almost a touch too video-crisp.

 

[NormanBates]

The DR of the 5D Mark III does not seem that great. DXOMark shows it only DR of 11.7 at best.

I love DxOMark tests, but they're only relevant for stills. When shooting video, you can't record RAW, you can only record debayered, processed, compressed H.264. The curve that Canon (and Nikon, and Sony) apply when debayering kills a lot of the DR captured by the sensor.

On the Canons, in video you actually get around 11 stops, if you don't mind running some NR to clean the shadows. For Nikons and Sony the difference is much bigger: the D800 has a DR advantage over the 5D3 of a bit less than one stop; the NEX-5N is on par with the Canons.

If the BlackMagic is actually recording 14 stops of DR, as they claim, that's nearly 3 stops more than the best DSLRs.

Check my measurements of the D800, T2i, GH2, NEX-5N, at the end of this:
http://www.vimeo.com/similaar/shootout2012

 

[lourenco]

Check my measurements of the D800, T2i, GH2, NEX-5N, at the end of this:
http://www.vimeo.com/similaar/shootout2012

It is interesting to see how bad the GH2 did. I was somewhat suprised that the D800 did not do any better. The 550D results look good.

The guys at MagicLatern are currently working on increasing the bit rate I believe on the 600d. They are currently limited to the max limit of the SD card of 20MB/s or 160mbits/s. It would be very interesting to see what happens if they can apply that to the 5d Mark III where the CF card is much faster. It is not fast enough for raw though.

 

[facedodge]

https://vimeo.com/38989476#

This test shows the 5D3 can reveal more detail with post sharpening. The video says he did color grading but didn't mention sharpening.

 

[gene_can_sing]

The writing is on the wall for Canon, as it has been for some time now. But now, many people (including myself) have gone to greener and much better pastures for video (Sony, BMC, Panny, Nikon, etc....)

Canon needs to start competing in video instead of riding on their fast fading name. Cut prices and start making competitive products. Even in stills, Nikon has the better bodies now. That's really sad for a company that accidentally started a revolution with the 5D2, but failed to follow up on it because of greed.

Canon had to do so little to own the video market, but the way they played their cards was like going into the NBA finals with a 30 point lead in the fourth quarter and somehow losing. Seemed almost impossible to do, but they lost the video market they should have owned.

 

[Nishi Drew]

The writing is on the wall for Canon, as it has been for some time now. But now, many people (including myself) have gone to greener and much better pastures for video (Sony, BMC, Panny, Nikon, etc....)

Canon needs to start competing in video instead of riding on their fast fading name. Cut prices and start making competitive products. Even in stills, Nikon has the better bodies now. That's really sad for a company that accidentally started a revolution with the 5D2, but failed to follow up on it because of greed.

Canon had to do so little to own the video market, but the way they played their cards was like going into the NBA finals with a 30 point lead in the fourth quarter and somehow losing. Seemed almost impossible to do, but they lost the video market they should have owned.

I, along with those countless others joined Canon on the journey of HD-DSLR video, and it was awesome, right at the beginning. Canon somehow lost out on the point of the 5D being popular because it was a "Cheap 35mm sensor with HD video" and decided the world wants the Cinema cameras instead, not the same camera system with improved specs and usability of the new feature. Soon after, every other manufacturer embraces the roll of putting video in their still cameras and moves forward with the evolution, even m4/3 looks to be better what's up with that?

 

[jhines]

That's really sad for a company that accidentally started a revolution with the 5D2, but failed to follow up on it because of greed.

Amen!

Canon's cinema line has alienated pretty much of all Canon's customers who bought their DSLR's for video. The sad thing is that in order for the DSLR's to step up their quality they will be stepping on the toes of their Cinema line (C100,C300, etc). You can't even get 1080p 60P for less than $15,000 with Canon and that's utterly absurd when every cheap point and shoot from Sony has had it for the last 3 years for a few hundred dollars. Time for Canon to wake the F up.

 

[lola]

Unfortunately for me; I'm not surprised even a bit...
Fortunately for Canon, there are so many fanboys who won't get anything out of this video...

 

[sb]

This is embarrassing to watch. Not that an SLR needs to be able to compete with a dedicated video camera, but at least put up a fight in the DR department.... And the price point - OMG... At sub $3000, this video camera is probably the best bang-for-buck on the market. 5DMK3's footage looks like it's been downsized to 720p and then stretched to 1080p. I dont understand what Canon was doing for the past 5 years.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

The writing is on the wall for Canon, as it has been for some time now. But now, many people (including myself) have gone to greener and much better pastures for video (Sony, BMC, Panny, Nikon, etc....)

Canon needs to start competing in video instead of riding on their fast fading name. Cut prices and start making competitive products. Even in stills, Nikon has the better bodies now. That's really sad for a company that accidentally started a revolution with the 5D2, but failed to follow up on it because of greed.

Canon had to do so little to own the video market, but the way they played their cards was like going into the NBA finals with a 30 point lead in the fourth quarter and somehow losing. Seemed almost impossible to do, but they lost the video market they should have owned.

Yup.
They had the market, until their marketing realized it and then they went and tossed it (not completely but a lot). As you say they could've so utterly entrenched themselves as THE player in the small pretty high quality little body video field. Instead they went to their internal segmentation, cripplings, delaying until they absolutely must release something game and now they are just going to be one of many side players quite likely.

 

[LetTheRightLensIn]

The writing is on the wall for Canon, as it has been for some time now. But now, many people (including myself) have gone to greener and much better pastures for video (Sony, BMC, Panny, Nikon, etc....)

Canon needs to start competing in video instead of riding on their fast fading name. Cut prices and start making competitive products. Even in stills, Nikon has the better bodies now. That's really sad for a company that accidentally started a revolution with the 5D2, but failed to follow up on it because of greed.

Canon had to do so little to own the video market, but the way they played their cards was like going into the NBA finals with a 30 point lead in the fourth quarter and somehow losing. Seemed almost impossible to do, but they lost the video market they should have owned.

I, along with those countless others joined Canon on the journey of HD-DSLR video, and it was awesome, right at the beginning. Canon somehow lost out on the point of the 5D being popular because it was a "Cheap 35mm sensor with HD video" and decided the world wants the Cinema cameras instead, not the same camera system with improved specs and usability of the new feature. Soon after, every other manufacturer embraces the roll of putting video in their still cameras and moves forward with the evolution, even m4/3 looks to be better what's up with that?

Exactly. Idiotic. The world already had the other stuff. That ws NOT their revolution and now they need to cripple their revolution to protect the other stuff. And we have the 5D3 video and video features not at all what they could have been (even with the given hardware) and the 1DX needs a $6000 firmware update, etc.

 

[gene_can_sing]

The funniest thing is that if they did the 5D3 right, it would have probably been the biggest selling large sensor video hybrid camera in history. For every C300 they sold, they would have sold 100 5D3s if it was done right.

But now as it stands, nobody really cares about their cameras for video and the 5D3 has very lukewarm sales for the video crowd (not even close to the 5D2 or the 7D). Not only did they lose huge amounts of sales, they lost a huge amount of respect from their video customers and once people leave, it's hard to get them back.

For me, I bought a Sony FS700 and I absolutely LOVE it. Great camera for the price. It's been about 1 1/2 years since I've bought anything Canon, and that's not going to change until they make something worth buying.

 

[willis]

Should make that test again and change 5D3 to C100.

 

[Woody]

It's been about 1 1/2 years since I've bought anything Canon, and that's not going to change until they make something worth buying.

For me, the 6D will be the last Canon purchase I make. After that, I don't see myself getting anything from them until something worthwhile comes along.

I am however not so certain if the marketing folks are at fault. I suspect the recent spate of retiree is making its toll on the company.