Right time to purchase 5d MK iii ?

[Ramji Meena]

Just sold my Mark ii body. Still have lot of canon L glass and a 70D body. I do lot of video and next project may start in July. I am not fully satisfied with the MK iii video specs after seeing GH4 footage. I want a main VDSLR and totally confused whether to go for MK iii or GH4

[Les Wilson]

Beware the Panny enthusiasts faking you out. I went from a 5DM2 to a GH3. If ergonomics matter to you, take a look at what Panasonic did not fix and decide if it matters to you. Image wise, you will notice the difference in DOF that the smaller MFT chip size affects. YMMV

[Tim Polster]

Tough choice. The 5DMKIII is better than the MKII but unless you are shooting RAW video with the MKIII, it is tough to recommend as a video camera these days. It is just soft in comparison.

Great still camera and the RAW video is really amazing, I mean really amazing. So if RAW can work with your workflow, get the MKIII. If not, I do not know what to get these days. The GH4 or Sony A7s are probably better choices for video.

[Richard D. George]

Rent or lease a C100?

[Jon Fairhurst]

Between internal shooting and RAW on the 5D3, there's also the option to record to an external device. With Atomos, you could go cheap with the Star (no monitor), more costly with the Blade (monitor with focus indication & waveforms), or middle with the Ninja 2 (simple monitor). And with so little aliasing and noise, you can sharpen in post.

But it really depends on what you shoot. If you want shallow DOF for narrative works and "feeling", the 5D3 is nice. For documentary works, there are other solutions out there these days.

[Ramji Meena]

Thanks everyone.
Jon, I shoot history based documentaries covering Archeological sites, museums and low lighted caves. I have canon 17mm TS and canon f/1.2 lenses. My work is unique and it is based on many years original research therefore I want to keep it relevant for atleast 5 years. Now even youtube is testing 4k codec , GH4's 4K attracts me. 1DC is out of my budget and its 60 seconds limit is a big let down.
5D3's raw ML firmware is still not stable moreover we dont know how long RAW HD will last (as a format).
May I ask you Jon , what are the other solutions?

[Noa Put]

You would have to replace all your existing lenses if you move to Panasonic, also bear in mind the gh4 is not a low light king and it's fairly noisy at 6400 iso, a 5dIII would suite you much better in "low lighted caves".

[Ramji Meena]

Noa, you are right .I am caught between low light, TS lens compatable - 5D3 vs 4K or even better UHD - GH4

[Noa Put]

You can also wait for the sony a7s which can see in the dark and get a external recorder for it if you want 4K capability.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Ramji Meena

...we dont know how long RAW HD will last (as a format).

Of course, RAW is the capture format, not the delivery format, so we don't really need to worry about the life of RAW. (One can convert it to 16-bit TIFFs, if you want a less camera-dependent format.) The questions is HD vs. UHD.

Well, that's one question. There is also the question of "more pixels" vs "better pixels". The easy answer is that we want both. Get a RED Dragon sensor and you can have it all. But on a budget, which do we choose?

In the near term, we're moving to UHDTV1 (4K). Japan has its sights set on UHDTV2 (8K). There is also a lot of work related to high or extended dynamic range and wide-gamut video. I've seen Dolby Vision demonstrated a number of times (as well as other EDR technologies), and it's really striking.

Dolby Vision

You won't be able to master EDR right away, but shooting RAW could allow EDR re-mastering down the road. If you shoot 8-bit 4K, you'll never be able to pull true EDR out of your clips.

I think the choice depends on two things:

1) Over what timeframe do you want to re-release? You can monetize now in HD and release soon in UHD or further down the road in EDR. Do you want the faster UHD cadence or the slower EDR cadence?

2) Which best suits your content? Are you more impressed with the light or the detail? I can imagine a dark cave with a bright lamp and strong reflection favoring light. Or maybe it's more about the details of the artifacts and grains of dirt and sand.

So, is it best to capture more, standard DR pixels or fewer extended DR pixels? Or is "both" the real answer? It's your choice.

FWIW, most of the EDR material I've seen recently was shot on a standard Arri Alexa. It doesn't do UHD but it captures far more than 8 or 10 bits.

[Ramji Meena]

Jon, thanks for elaborated reply. If I translate your advice into practice, it should be an UHD camera capable of recording 10 bit RAW. I think apart from BMPC ( which I am not considering) there is hardly any option. The unit supplied with GH4 has a dual link output for 4K video in 4:2:2 10-bit. Sony A7S is able to output uncompressed UHD 4K at a 4:2:2 color depth over HDMI which is only 8bit.

[Ramji Meena]

Jon, thanks for elaborated reply. If I translate your advice into practice, it should be a UHD camera capable of recording 10 bit RAW. I think apart from BMPC ( which I am not considering) there is hardly any option. The unit supplied with GH4 has a dual link output for 4K video in 4:2:2 10-bit. Sony A7S is able to output uncompressed UHD 4K at a 4:2:2 color depth over HDMI.

[Tim Polster]

Originally Posted by Ramji Meena

Jon, thanks for elaborated reply. If I translate your advice into practice, it should be an UHD camera capable of recording 10 bit RAW. I think apart from BMPC ( which I am not considering) there is hardly any option. The unit supplied with GH4 has a dual link output for 4K video in 4:2:2 10-bit. Sony A7S is able to output uncompressed UHD 4K at a 4:2:2 color depth over HDMI which is only 8bit.

There is always an option, it just may not fit into your budget. :) Jon, as usual, is right on the money.

I always ask for budget consideration in these types of decisions because there needs to a realistic expectation of what is possible with the money allocated.

How much is your targeted budget?

How profitable is your work and how important is it to the survival of the project to have 4k 10bit RAW video? (actually true RAW video would be 14bit or higher) 10bit is more for uncompressed.

This really should be easy to answer. In reality, those specs are up in the "Hollywood" territory. Not many of us fly at that altitude! The cost of storage will probably be more than the cameras mentioned above...

[Ramji Meena]

Project is not profitable. We just do it for heritage conservation. It is an important cause. I can’t spend more than $5K on camera. Yes, the cost of storage and archival is major concern for me.

[Ramji Meena]

I think I am not flying high because I don’t know what is an Arri Amira. We started making films on PMW EX3 with NanoFlash recorder. Second camera was 5d2. Now I feel we are passing through a transition period from HD to 4K and at this point of time 4K is difficult for my type of budget.