Canon DSLR Full Frame Shootout between the Canon 6D, 5D Mk II and III
The folks at Planet 5D borrowed Canon’s medium-end Full Frame cameras and did a quick test in the parking lot comparing the Canon 6D, 5D Mk II and Mk III.
Ignoring the somewhat sloppy editing and graphics, this video demonstrates a truth about the DSLR Revolution – it’s done. There’s not a huge difference in terms of quality between these three generations of cameras. The DSLR revolution gave us the ability to get some really cool footage out of tiny stills cameras and it proved there is a market out there for larger format senors on the low end, but folks, this is as good as it gets. If you want fixes to issues like moire and rolling shutter, you need to look towards cameras that are dedicated to video, not just stills camera with a motion picture feature.
And that’s not speculation – it’s happening right now with Canon’s C-line, Sony’s NEX line and the lower end F line and even the Black Magic Cinema camera. These companies are not going to cannibalize their higher end camcorders with a magic DSLR that can do the same things.
Enjoy these cameras for what they are, for the freedom they offer to still potentially shoot great images, but don’t expect amazing video when shooting a brick wall in a dirty parking lot.
“somewhat sloppy editing and graphics” – ok, help me learn. What’d I do that is so sloppy and why don’t you like the graphics?
Since you asked – and please don’t take this as attacking you because I’m not.
Framing wise – in the shot with you and the name of the building, if you bring the camera lower, you can get a more pleasing image of both you and the sign that would have this gap between you and the sign.
At 2:02 you have a hand graphic that pops up that reads “Text Goes Here”
At 3:30 the MK2 footage is frozen for a few seconds and then it starts rolling.
Minor thing: at 5:33 – the image on the left is shorter than the right – has a black bar on the bottom.
Another minor thing with all the animated titles – the text doesn’t clear the frame when it exits – it’s gets half way and then eases in to a stop. Would be better to cleanly exit before cutting to the next shot. A little motion blur can help that stuff out. Font could be better, not something ridiculous but something a little classier than Arial. The Arial works for the camera labels because it looks so industrial but the title animation needs a little more something.
At 6:06 the text on the right reads “Animated Text” – looks like a fill in. Also the frame is frozen.
Clean that stuff up and I wouldn’t have said anything. Truthfully, I was trying to dispel the comments that would fixate on those things and miss the point completely. I misspelled “lose” a couple of times in an article and that’s all some people focused on.
Ok, gosh, I failed – I see the issues now. Hard to believe/explain, but I struggled a lot yesterday with the plugins for the graphics and the side by side shots – and I still don’t know why, but they would reset themselves without notice. When I did my final review before exporting, the side by side shots were all timed perfectly!
Sorry
I’m not attacking you Mitch, just trying take the ammo away from the trolls.
It’s still a good piece inside my argument. The DSLRs are as good as they’re going to get – which for the money and the freedom is pretty damn good.
All good guys, thanks for both the comparison video and for posting it!
Thanks for the video and the article. Nice dose of reality about the DSLR revolution, though I’d be more positive about the 5d Mark III. To me, moire is a bigger issue than rolling shutter, and the III’s improvements in that department are encouraging. I don’t own a Mark III, but I wouldn’t dismiss the value of a full-frame image, even against the newer video cameras you mentioned.
I think moire is a result of the spacing between the bricks, the lens, the size of the imager, and the type of scan of the image off the camera imaging chip. Since that info is complex, I am not sure how to interpret these obvious visual problems.
The moire is a result of line skipping on these cameras. These DSLR sensors are in the neighborhood of 18-22 Megapixels. That’s about 3-4,000 lines vertically. In order to get down to 1080p, the video only records every 3rd or so line and tosses out the other information. This greatly increases the effects of moire on tight patterns like a brick wall from far away.