Nikon d800 or canon 5d mk III what is moste future safe. Pros/cons

J

jonas18z

Member
I want to buy a equipment for shoot video, this time I have a budget for d800 or 5d mk III with some prime lenses ( 28, 35, 50, 85) I don't own any equipment before.

And have have plans for expand my company so I want to buy a future safe system and not change system in a few years.

What is the pros/cons 5d mkii vs nikon d800?


My list:

5dmkiii

+
5dmkii has been a standard and alot of accessories hoppfully to mkiii also, you can rent it in many paces.
Magic Lanter (hoppfully)
Pro equment (c300,c500, 1dc, cine lenses)
Audio level during recording also changeable
Audio monitoring


-
no uncompressed hdmi output
no XLR inputs




Nikon d800

+
Full uncpressed output via hdmi
Best sensor ever for stills (dxomark)
audio monitoring

-
No firmware hack
No pro area like c500.
No XLR inputs
No shure about ascessories (folow focus, rigs ... )
 
* For stills D800 is king. For video, I'd say the 5D3 is superior: even if the D800 can output 422 hdmi, it's not clean, it has all the aliasing/moire issues that I've learnt to hate so much on the old Canons. Anyway, Philip Bloom should post his D800 review soon, and it should be great help for this decision.

* In any case, cameras are never future-proof: lenses are. With this in mind, I went for a set of vintage Leitz primes for Leica-R mount: awesome lenses, and they'll work on nearly anything (Sony A, Nikon F, Pentax K, Canon EF, NEX, m43, etc). I got my full kit (35mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4, 90mm f/2.8, 135mm f/2.8, 180mm f/2.8) for around $2K. If you don't want to go vintage, consider a set of Samyang primes for Nikon F mount (24mm f/1.4, 35mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.4), plus a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 (Samyang hasn't released a 50mm yet).
http://www.similaar.com/foto/equipment/es_lensc.html#samyang
 
ive not used it myself yet. but from what ive heard, the d800 still has noticeable issues with moire / alaising. which make it a deal breaker for me.
i have used the d5lll and it is way better than the 5dll in regards to moire. another plus for the 5dlll is that it handles camera movement ("jello") much better than any other DSLR ive used.

depending on what you shoot, you might look into the GH2 as well.
 
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It all depends if your willingness to use a Mosaic antialias filter for the d800, this should take away the aliasing issues and still have the benefit of uncompressed signal.

the canon has advantages in high iso and ease of use ( no need for extra alias filter )
The nikon has advantages in uncompressed and sharpness.
 
I don't think any DSLR type camera is future proof.
With technology changing at such a rapid rate, you are looking at 3 years tops.
I would also question the choice of either of these cameras as a primary video camera when there are in my opinion better choices in that price range for video work.

All the Best!

Dave
 
A camera is like a computer (since basically now it is one). A year after you buy it something better will be out. Three years after you buy it you'll start to feel it's outdated as multiple new cameras are better and you'll want to upgrade. Five years after you buy it it will be little more than a doorstop in most people's eyes even though it may still do a pretty good job.
 
I think it's hilarious that people are so obsessed with moire/aliasing that they disregard how much better some aspects of the D800 are for video vs. how little their obsession actually matters.
 
I know the D800 is better in some areas: rolling shutter seems even faster than on the 5D3, DR is defninitely better (at least a stop higher if you use the widest picture profiles for each one, on my Flaat suites), and 422 HDMI-out can be great for some

but aliasing/moire can destroy your images, it is a big image quality issue, I'd take "needs sharpening and has 1 stop lower DR" over "has aliasing/moire" any time

unless I was also shooting serious stills, I'd prefer the 5D3 over the D800 (specially if, because of the D800's superiority in their core market, the price of the 5D3 falls below that of the D800 in the coming months, as it happened when the D700 and the 60D were found to be inferior to their competition)
 
Thanks for your input,



I did not mean that the camera itself would be future proof. What I meant was that the "system" would be future-proof the lenses for example.
Nikon today has no highend series (4k, 500 mm centers, cinelenses)
 
Nikon today has no highend series (4k, 500 mm centers, cinelenses)
Click to expand...
if thats the kind of work you do or want to do, it seems like you just answered your own question.
 
If your interested there is a Philip Bloom vimeo video comparing the Canon 5D III, NIkon D4 + D800. Worth watching, has some excellent information. I don't have the link but do a search
 
I looked att blooms review and hes conclusion is that it's a dead race between d800, mk iiii?



Nikon will fit everthing, yes but how do you control the apature with lenses thaht don't have the apature ring?
 
if you choose Nikon-F lenses (or Leica-R) plus adapter, they have to be full manual: the camera won't be able to control focus or aperture (ok, there are some adapters that promise they can do this, but they're either extremely expensive, or too prone to "issues")
 
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