Sell my 5d and move to m4/3 ?

A

arnohist

Member
Hi all. I need your opinions on a matter that has been troubling me during the last days :
In brief: the question is if it is a good idea to sell my 5dmk2 + 24-105 and buy a gh4(body).

Little background info about me: I am a filmmaker and photographer so I need good quality in both modes. I am not a "pro" in the sense I do not live from either arts but I have made short films (one award winning) and a feature documentary, that all have been in festivals.


The documentary I shot was made just with the 5dmkii / 24-105mm / manfrotto 055xprob tripod legs / 701hdv.
The reason I am saying all this, is to make a point that I am working low budget with the most budget equipment possible.

I have also participated in photo exhibitions and want to be able to make a large print (not billboard) but enough for a house (40x50 cm). Saying that I have left my photography a bit behind but I want to catch up. But I always, always wanted a more portable and lighter solution because I like to travel a lot also. And although my fuji x20 is great, it is not real substitute for photos from my full frame 5d. Not to speak about video.


The problem :
During the last days I have been considering purchasing a new lens for my 5d and also the possibility of getting the BMPCC - only because of the dynamic range which sucks on the 5d. I was thinking of slowly building a prime lens collection and the cine Samyang 14mm looked like a good candidate. Now, I have not been reading a lot about the developments (which are happening tremendously fast) in the indy/dslr world, mainly because my 5d works fine and also because I have no money to spare. But this last week was cursed! I caught up with some of the developments bmpcc/gh3/alpha 7 etc. and saw that there is a huge shift towards mirorless and hybrid cameras. So, as I was doing my research, I kept asking myself the question: does it make sense to invest in full frame glass? Will it be obsolete - for my needs?

The only advantage at the moment, as I see it, that the 5d has (and any full frame for that matter), is the shallow depth of field. I am not interested in entering a debate as many mirrorless evangelists do, who have created blogs about "why shallow depth of field is not so important" and "if you care about the shallowness of the dof it means that your vision is shallow" !!! , etc.
For me, this is something I like in my images and am not sure how easy it is to replicate this to the m4/3 cameras. I.e During the above mentioned doc I also tried the 550d and the image quality was horrible in relation to the 5d.


To conclude, I am mainly interested in a pragmatistic opinion regarding the following two things:

a) Staying with the 5d/full frame in terms of investment. I am considered that in a year or two I won't be able to sell it, whereas now, I can get at least the gh4 (body) and jump on the m4/3 wagon. Yes I do need to spend a lot for a good glass that will be the equivalent of the 24-105.

b ) I know it is a bit early to make any conclusions but, on paper, the gh4 looks pretty good.

I would get it for (in this order):
1. Dynamic range
2. Better image (?) - ( Not interested in 4K for know but HD)
3. Variable frame rates
4. Portability
Weatherproofness is a nice thing to have but not so important for me.

I would not get it :
1. Because I am afraid I cannot replicate the dof of my full frame.
2. Stills not as good (?)
3. Because sony alpha 7 showed that mirorless full frame is something very possible and more full frame mirorless might appear in the future. Nevertheless the bulk will be the same with the big full frame lenses.

Thank you for your thoughts !!
 
I am wrestling with this and I would say move to RAW if you stay with the Canon. Otherwise move to a newer camera like the GH4. I shoot stills as well and frankly, I like the full frame for stills shooting as well as the nice L lenses. They can talk all they want about m4/3rds being a pro still solution, but the combination of Canon L glass and the 5D sensor is a better kit for stills. Not even to mention the 5D MKIII with the radio trigger flash system.

Since I already own the Canon gear, I am going for the RAW video and not moving to the GH4. I am sure the GH4 will be very nice for video but I would miss the Canon for still work and I think it is redundant to own a stills only camera and a separate vDSLR when they both shoot video.
 
Regarding DOF - I much prefer my APS-C DSLR look to my (in many ways more capable) Panasonic pro camcorders I've owned (currently AC-130). I'm not into the insane f1.8 tiny focal plane look; I do very much like the F4/5.6 look where I have complete control of backgrounds while still having reasonable focus on the subject.

I did a multi day corporate gig and we interviewed a warehouse worker; I wanted him in front of industrial gear but I wanted it soft, and I wanted to be able to zoom from mid to tight cloesup during the interview. Ended up shooting with him about 20' in front of the BG with the camera about 15-20 more feet away. Not very often you get 40' of space to get desirable DOF (and the BG was just barely in the softness I wanted, wide open). Hassle for mics, hassle to "connect" with the guy when yelling across a room. Shoulda shot it with my Nikon.

I've never owned an M43 camera, but I'm very interested in the G4, yet can't comment on DOF with that sensor size. I'd primarily love to be able to re-frame interviews when editing dialogue for corporate types; many of those projects are 720p/web-only (though I usually deliver a 1080 since they all want to see it on the "big meeting room TV"). Being able to reframe from a tight crop to a wider shot based on dialogue cuts (umms, pauses, mistakes) or emotional impact -without a 2nd take or running 2 cameras or zooming mid-shot - makes 4k interesting for me; and with all the green screen I do for creative projects/music videos, REAL 10-bit 422 via HDMI at 1080 (or more likely, downscaling 4K for 444) is the tits. As it 96FPS for food, beauty, hair, effects.

You're talking leaving the 5D, I will always own a pro-level camcorder for events and fast-paces stuff. And the GH won't replace my Nikon bodies, they're just not (to me) a camera for commercial stills gigs.

So, to me, the Gh4 offers some really compelling features for next-to-nothing compared to other cameras. I work with cranes a lot and with the AC-130, focus, zoom, trigger - easy as hell with the proper remote gear. That's another huge issue, remote control of a DSLR for cranes/rigs/overheads. Just rambling to some extent, but - I do feel your pain. Wish I could sell something when the Gh4 hits though - it just can't replace everything I need, as I understand it now.
 
I'd look into a used 5D Mark III and install Magic Lantern on it. You can find some great deals on used 5D3s. The only reason you'd want a GH4 is for 4K and possibly for cheaper M43 lens options. I have two MFT cameras and still use FF glass almost exclusively on both.
 
I like the clean look of the GH4 so far, but not for everything…. what one could hope for is that since it's so dirt cheap that some lovely people will hack it pretty fast and turn it into a nice little production unit.

About the XLR unit… too expensive. I would happily have paid 1500 for it, but it shouldn't really have gone above the camera price point.
I've gotten used to not having "proper" audio on the 5D3, and to both mine, my clients and Adobe Auditions ears, the sound is good enough. In other words, I don't miss the audio part too much, and when we do, we just whip out a Zoom H6 instead.

My main gripe is that the form factor of the XLR unit + GH4 is as annoying as a 5D with a grip.
 
The GH4 combined with a Speedbooster adapter, and you wont worry too much about lenses and super shallow DOF.
You'll have a light, small system, with great video quality and small file sizes (in comparison to a heavier 5D3 with raw with huge file sizes))

For my purposes, the stills are more than I'd need on the GH4 (and by extension the 5D3). The only time I'd want a 5D3 is to shoot in no light (> above iso 6400) but that is rare maybe once in a blue blue blue moon (light) only occurance
 
Thank you all.

Michael, on my 5d I also max it at 4. Not only because my 24-105 would not permit otherwise, but because that is the shallower DOF i like. More, it would be too much for my taste for still photography and too difficult to handle in video.

Unless I misunderstood, it seems that by dividing a given Full Frame aperture by the crop factor (x2) i could get the exact same blur in the background on the m4/3. I would like to see that on an actual photo comparison but if this is correct, it might be a good reason for me to make the jump.

Lammy, do you mean using the Speedbooster with canon EF lenses? What's the point? I guess if i'd go m4/3 it would mean to have smaller lenses too.
 
A 24-70mm F/4 Canon EF Lens shot at F/5.6 on a 5DIII would look about the same as the 12-35mm F/2.8 Panasonic lens wide open on a M4/3 camera.


If you were to totally switch systems and reap the benefits of smaller lenses that's fine.

Just bear in mind there isn't really a faster wide primes or a fast wide zoom that's as of the same quality as the full frame and aps-c lenses for video yet. The 12-35mm F/2.8 suffers from steppy aperture flicker during zoom, despite being a constant aperture lens... so I'd recommend a speedbooster and the versatility of bigger format lenses if that is an issue.
 
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Lammy said:
A 24-70mm F/4 Canon EF Lens shot wide open on a 5DIII would look about the same as the 12-35mm F/2.8 Panasonic lens wide open on a M4/3 camera.
Click to expand...

No.

f/4 to f/2.8 is one stop, the actual difference is two stops. At equivalent focal lengths, the depth of field of the m4/3 format at f/2.8 is equal to the depth of field of the 5D3 at f/5.6, not f/4.

(equivalent focal length meaning same angle of view, that is, a 25mm lens on m4/3 vs 50mm lens on the 5D3.)

The f/stop scale, in whole stops:

f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, etc.
 
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The Canon 5D3 with ML raw is a world-class still camera that offers some of the best 1080P around. You capture in raw, and then you have the option to compress your footage to any other codec that pleases you. Its functionality is always improving with each nightly build, but you have to be willing to put in the work in post to really make it shine.

The GH4 will have an easier workflow and should be even more reliable, with more inexpensive lenses and a sensor that samples the sharpest part of most lenses. Plus, you'll be able to pull stills from your 4K footage (though, keep in mind that shooting in 4K gives you a 2.3x crop rather than just a 2x crop).

The good news is that I don't think that you can go wrong either way!
 
Whoops! My bad, can't believe I totally missed off an entire stop there on something so easy. Got triply confused when mentioning APS-C/SpeedBooster and focal lengths.

Well, there you go, even more reason to know that things are twice as small =]
 
Uh... I almost forgot that the GH4 in 4K has an additional crop factor beyond the normal 2x of m4/3rds. In 4k, it is a 2.3x crop. That is a massive sensor size difference compared to to the 5D3. So in 4k, the GH4 DOF at f/2.8 is like a 5D at f/6.3.

Even with a speedbooster, it's a 1.7x crop, still a bit more than a Canon 7D.

I just wish Canon would build a something with a S35 sensor like the C100, but with 4k, 10-bit 4:2:2, log, raw, and a lower price. LOL
 
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I just buy a new GH 2 in January for 625 $.First for the possibility of the hacking,for it's size,and for the lens Mount.
My point of view it's the GH 3 it's not better just different. The GH 4 i dont want it. With the GH 2 with the 4/3 mount i have a lot of lens available, The GH 2, the Pocket BM, and the 2.8 Blackmagic got all the same focal flange distance and the GH 2 give me the oportunity to get ready to buy a Blackmagic 2.8 or 4k and getting all the lens in 4k quality i need for.Got a set of LOMO on OCT 19 ( the Russian copy of Zeiss) got zeiss Pentacon six made for Medium size film camera, a foton zoom 37 to 140mm on PL,canon 7D & 5D,OCT 19,4/3 gh2 foton are made by LOMO.Get ready for 4K you need 4k lens and over.
 
From someone that owns m4/3rds, apsc, and full frame, I use m4/3rds about 90% of the time. My Panasonic gh2 and g6 are both much sharper than my 5d2, BUT, that's not always a plus. The Canons produce a unique image (aside from the moire issue) they just look different than the pani's and for some scenes it works. And as far as the 5d2 DR sucking, well the gh series are about the same. In terms of the gh4, it's yet to be seen, But I doubt it will be more than 11 stops which is slightly more than what the 5d2 is. I suggest you go back and watch Philip Blooms film "sea"shot on 5d2, I don't think any more sharpness or Dynamic range would help that film as it's beautiful just the way it is.
 
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