5d mkiii vs BMPCC

New_Zealand

Veteran
Talking with a few friends about the BMPCC price drop. My question was how does the 5d mkiii compare to the BMPCC for filming?
 
BMPCC - tiny sensor, 3.02 crop factor. So your 50mm lens has the FOV of a 151mm lens. Wides are a problem.

Speedbooster ($400 ish) takes your 50 to about 107mm FOV, increases speed by 1 stop. Pocket-camera specific booster ($500-ish?) a bit wider & better quality, but only works on the pocket (regular booster will work on, say, a GH4).

You can use many older super-16 film lenses with c-mount adapters, but many will vignette. Useable super-16 glass has increased in price after the pocket came out. But some film lenses do answer the wide issues, if you can find one that works. Ebay used to be full of wide 16's (12mm & thereabouts), seems a little thin these days.

Native raw and prores shooting to high-speed SD cards. No compressed (IE H264) codecs. Huge files, but far more robust than a DSLR.

5D shoots Raw, but with magic lantern hack. Might look into any issues with that.

BMPCC - up to 30p at 1080. No 60p at any size.

Batteries are cheap but not long lasting (uses a standard Nikon p&s size battery, widely available aftermarket) - external power's a must for pro work. LCD is so-so, micro HDMI out.

Major differences are the tiny sensor, tiny size, and really great image quality. Other than raw (no knowledge of raw on the MKIII) the codec should blow the Canon away. But the sensor limits your wide angle choices, pretty severely.

The price drop, this close to Photokina, suggests something new is on the horizon. BMC forum members hoping for 4K. I'd be surprised though. I'd love to see APS-C/super-35 sensor and 60p.
 
The way I look at it is if you have time to grade and you're skilled at it, then the BMPCC will give you a sbetter image than the 5D at least in H.264 (I've never used RAW on the 5D). Despite being a dedicated video camera, I find the BMPCC to be much more of a pain to shoot video with image quality aside. The menus are poorly laid out and you have to go through like three sub-menus to change the ISO. Low light on the 5D is much better.

The file sizes on the BMPCC are way too large for my needs and it would cost a fortune for post for any project of length shot with it. By the time you spend all that money, the low price of the BMPCC is irrelevant.
 
What Michael Carter said.

For me, the BMPCC would be almost permanently attached to a BMPCC speedbooster and Sigma 18-35 f/1.8, which becomes a 31-61mm f/3.1. But with that, the SD cards and the arsenal of batteries that you definitely need, then you're already talking $2K, so, not as cheap as the $500 sticker would make you think.

The image is great, but it has drawbacks.

You may want to check my sharpness and DR tests.
 
The BMPCC is history. No way the price is going back up after this drop.
Clearly something is in the works, probably for IBC in September.

The moire and aliasing on the BMPCC is quite nasty, I will take the 5DMIII with ML Raw any day of the week.
 
The BMPCC is history. No way the price is going back up after this drop.
Clearly something is in the works, probably for IBC in September.

The moire and aliasing on the BMPCC is quite nasty, I will take the 5DMIII with ML Raw any day of the week.

^^ exactly
 
I was considering this for a few minutes but now it looks like I would be better off investing the money in more high speed media for 5Draw. When you think of the pocket + speed booster + moire + complaints that batteries don't last long + media for raw capture, quickly the price spirals up.
 
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