Thoughts on Sony A7 II VS. Canon 5DM3?

K

kat.hayes

Active member
I need to shoot some 4K footage and am wondering if anyone has any experience with the A7II and also the 5DM3 for photo and video quality. I know that the 5DM3 does not shoot 4K, though I am just curious to hear any thoughts regarding visual quality when shooting 1080P. Besides the obvious problem of needing to replace lenses, does the A7II compare with photo quality?

Thanks.
 
For stills, the autofocus on the A7II was no where near adequate for my needs. That is for events in low light, plus wildlife and similar, but I never considered the A7II for the latter. The AF is fairly limited, although they have improved it with firmware updates. It is similar to the whole Fuji AF situation, with Sony AF being really good only on the A7RII, and better on the A6300.

I believe you will also need an external recorder for 4K on the A7II. It would overheat with internal 4K when I looked at it 1 year ago. I don't know if they made any progress with firmware updates for that, like with the A7RII.

The Canon 5D3 is great for stills of course. It is a fantastic, all around, pro quality stills camera. The sensor is a bit dated compared to some others, like the 1DX II. But the 5D4 is supposedly going to be announced in 1 month.

It has incredibly beautiful 1080 video in RAW mode with Magic Lantern. That is a bit of a specialized beast, usually for more cinematic projects.

I still use a Nikon or Canon APS-C DSLR for stills, after stepping back a bit from the cost of full frame. (Sold my D810 & 5D3.) I have a Nikon D7200, a D5500 for more casual use, and a Canon 7DII. I can't quite dump either my Nikon or Canon yet.

I added Panasonic for event 4k. I couldn't really cost justify any of the Sony with an external recorder for multicam stuff, with 2-3 cams.

I am also trying to make a Sony A6300 work for 4k video, for limited use. I can't rely on it for longer shoots.

+++

The big advantage of Canon for me is being able to easily adapt the Canon lenses to Sony and Panasonic, with good to great quality autofocus, in body aperture control, and IS support.

I am trying to go to just a minimal Sony and Panasonic lens kit, after having $3,000+ invested in each. It is only with the A6300 and the Panasonic GX85 that I feel the AF performance is good enough (for stills mostly) to dump the proprietary lens kits. (Of course, the manual focus and portrait folks were able to adapt lenses long ago for most of their needs.)

It is great to be able to use one lens kit for 3 different bodies. The APS-C bodies aren't that expensive in the end, $1,000 each or less.

Sorry. I may have strayed a bit from your question. But I saw you also asked about another comparison. The bottom line for me right now is different cameras for stills and video, with as much re-use as possible.

The Canon 7DII is also a pretty decent 1080 camera when good AF tracking I'd needed, especially with long lenses for wildlife and similar. And Panasonic has a $350 100-300 mm lens (200-600 equivalent) for stills. Plus a newer 100-400 (200-800 equivalent.) So there is some stills and video dual use for each, plus the A6300 for stills. We still have a harder decision making process than those shooting only video or only stills.

Good luck!
 
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I'm pretty happy with my a7ii for stills, however I don't use autofocus so cannot comment on that. I will point out that you mention wanting 4k but neither the 5d iii or the a7ii have it (it was the original a7s that needed external recording for 4k, the a7ii does not do it at all).
for 4k you need the a7sii or a7rii.
I just picked up the cheap and excellent Panasonic gx80 for 4k myself :)
 
Thanks for the correction on the A7II. :)

Isn't the GX85/ 80 a great little camera, with the 5 Axis Stabilization and the Dual IS? Better shutter, no AA filter, etc. Plus external monitoring while recording, which neither the G7 or GX8 have. (Panasonic crippling on those 2 to protect the GH4.)

It is too bad they crippled the GX85/ 80 a bit too, with no mic input and no headphonejack. The data rates for 1080 are low, and they didn't include Cine-D (neutral is good.) Cine-D would have cost them nothing.

It has the first (mostly) usable autofocus in video mode for a Panasonic too. And it is cheaper than the rig you don't need anymore for stabilization. :)

Hopefully we will see Panasonic pull all of this together for the next releases. Plus more....
 
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