General Which enthusiast level DSLR for video?

S

shardymo

New member
Hi All,
I’m very happy with my old Canon 450D for general family and hobby snaps.
I would like to start incorporating video into my freelance motion graphics work.
Is it possible to get 1080px video at 60p frame rate with a budget of up to £700?
I was thinking I could just about afford a Canon 70D body only for around £700 and use the kit lens and prime lens from my 450D.
But I’ve realised 70D is not supported by Magic Lantern firmware so can only capture HD up to 29.97fps.
Its a shame as from the examples I’ve seen the Digic 5 processor looks like an improvement especially in low light, and the auto focus looks great.
I would like to stick with Canon if possible so should I get a 60D or 7D and try to use magic lantern or switch to something like a Nikon D5300 or D7100?
The Canon auto focus seems to work a lot better than the Nikon.

Thanks in advance for any wisdom shared

ps
I’m a noob on dvxuser, so I hope this post is in the right forum, apologies if it is not.
 
* D7100 / D5200 --> awesome, can't go wrong with these
* D5300 --> still unknown, we need some thorough reviews
* 7D/60D/650D/etc --> all have the same image quality, soft-ish and with lots of aliasing/moire; clearly inferior to current alternatives if you ask me; they have their fans, though
* 70D --> same image quality as 7D/60D/650D, but with the best video AF from any DSLR yet (not sure if it will work with your lenses)

Of the above, the only one that records 1080p60 is the D5300. All the others offer 1080p24, 1080p30, 720p60.
Why do you want a higher framerate? Do you need slow motion? Because I'm guessing you should watch this.
 
If using 70D dev finitely consider getting STM lenses for video. Been reading a lot about how non-canon brand lenses not working 100% with the 70D live video af with video mode.
 
thanks for reply guys, much appreciated.
I did once buy a nikon before taking it back and swapping for the canon.
reason being the auto focus was too slow and my daughter was out of shot before I could get a picture. I did notice the Nikon image quality was slightly better than the canon as the canon has noise in the dark areas especially on high ISOs, it felt sturdier too. but i found the canon easier to use.
I'm tempted by the Nikon D5300 but need to find out if you can set a high data rate on the video. Not much point having HD 60p if its really compressed.
I'm also really tempted by the Canon 70D and I think you can set high data rate on video.
I was aware that at this price range Nikon had slightly better image quality than Canon for stills but I thought video was other way round?
I think if I buy either of those two I'll be delighted with it.
If it was just for video I'd be tempted by the Black Magic pocket cinema camera. The video quality is amazing. Huge files sizes though if you shoot in RAW, plus short battery life. the batteries are cheap however, so you can keep a couple spare in your pocket.
yes I was planning on playing with slow motion effects.
the link to macvideo page showed an error by the way
 
shardymo said:
Hi All,
I’m very happy with my old Canon 450D for general family and hobby snaps.
I would like to start incorporating video into my freelance motion graphics work.
Is it possible to get 1080px video at 60p frame rate with a budget of up to £700?
I was thinking I could just about afford a Canon 70D body only for around £700 and use the kit lens and prime lens from my 450D.
But I’ve realised 70D is not supported by Magic Lantern firmware so can only capture HD up to 29.97fps.
Its a shame as from the examples I’ve seen the Digic 5 processor looks like an improvement especially in low light, and the auto focus looks great.
I would like to stick with Canon if possible so should I get a 60D or 7D and try to use magic lantern or switch to something like a Nikon D5300 or D7100?
The Canon auto focus seems to work a lot better than the Nikon.

Thanks in advance for any wisdom shared

ps
I’m a noob on dvxuser, so I hope this post is in the right forum, apologies if it is not.
Click to expand...

Its OK that you asked it here, but this is a question better suited for the generic HDSLR section if you want less biased answers (this section is primarily for fans of Canon DSLR bodies).

If you had asked out there, you would very well have also been recommended to check out the Panasonic options, like the G6, GH3, GX7 and new GM1, all of which are EXCELLENT video shooters for the money, without a lot of the hurdles you have to jump through with traditional still-shooters-turned-video-recorders.
They have far cleaner video with sharper images than the Canon options, support very usable autofocus with a decent Lumix lens, and some of them even offer focus peaking and other assist tools for using lenses that don't autofocus. Throw in 60p at full 1080 resolution, and the GH3's flexible bitrate and codec options with full audio monitoring via headphones, and I'd say its an easy recommendation for your needs.

There's also a small following (but not on this forum for some reason) for Sony's cameras. At least two colleagues of mine (including a B&H employee who's job is to recommend hardware) swear by those.

Bear in mind, however, that no large chip autofocus system is fool proof. Even the 70D- which in my opinion isn't really markedly better than the autofocus Panasonic has been using for years. A buddy of mine recently had a second shooter on a 70D for a wedding, and a vast majority of the shots were NOT in focus. It was awful. The Nikons are nice as well, as Samuel pointed out, however their ergonomics for video take some getting used to. If I am not mistaken, there are silly hangups like not being able to adjust the aperture while live view is active. I've never used one myself, so I'm basing that on what I've been told from at least one Canon user who switched (she didn't like it and actually prefers Canon- go figure).
 
shardymo said:
Hi All,
I’m very happy with my old Canon 450D for general family and hobby snaps.
I would like to start incorporating video into my freelance motion graphics work.
Is it possible to get 1080px video at 60p frame rate with a budget of up to £700?
I was thinking I could just about afford a Canon 70D body only for around £700 and use the kit lens and prime lens from my 450D.
But I’ve realised 70D is not supported by Magic Lantern firmware so can only capture HD up to 29.97fps.
Its a shame as from the examples I’ve seen the Digic 5 processor looks like an improvement especially in low light, and the auto focus looks great.
I would like to stick with Canon if possible so should I get a 60D or 7D and try to use magic lantern or switch to something like a Nikon D5300 or D7100?
The Canon auto focus seems to work a lot better than the Nikon.

Thanks in advance for any wisdom shared

ps
I’m a noob on dvxuser, so I hope this post is in the right forum, apologies if it is not.
Click to expand...

I shoot with a 60D and 600D. I shot 70+ race films since June with the 2 cameras. They are very cheap but quality pretty good. Everything shot with a tamron 17-50 2.8 non VC and a Canon 55-250 s IS zoom. (on the 600D with 3x crop) I have 5 gopros on the cars also.
The lens is quite sharp, but tomorrow I'm finally getting a canon 70-200 f4L IS.
here is the link to the You Tube channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/AsiaCupSeries

The 70D isn't much different except 2x the price. For better low light I would buy a 60D or 600D and the Sigma 18-35 1.8. One of those 2 cameras and Sig 1.8 will cost you the same as the 70D body only.
Invest in lenses.
Don't fall into the new camera gadget vortex. Trust me, my 2 Canon camera bodies have served me well but are worth almost nothing except they keep making me money, so better shoot them to death, but before that I'm loading up my 60D with ML and shoot some raw.
Almost forgot my 60D has been out on the job more than 1,000 days in heat, rain etc. The rubber came off but still works perfectly.
 
Last edited:
shardymo said:
I did once buy a nikon before taking it back and swapping for the canon.
reason being the auto focus was too slow and my daughter was out of shot before I could get a picture. I did notice the Nikon image quality was slightly better than the canon as the canon has noise in the dark areas especially on high ISOs, it felt sturdier too. but i found the canon easier to use.
Click to expand...

If Af for video is really important to you, chances are you should be looking at video cameras that boast fast AF. A DSLR, so far, isn't that optimized for it. Video is still somewhat of an afterthought on SLRs. The newer Canon stuff sounds promising, many people reporting it's still not in the video camera AF speed league.

Compared to a dedicated video cam, a DSLR's form factor's pretty bad, and you'll need a good tripod, shoulder mount, flyer, something along those lines. I get it if you're sold on DSLR, and video cameras don't take very good stills.

shardymo said:
Not much point having HD 60p if its really compressed.
Click to expand...

Lots of 5300 users are finding the 1080/60 to have great quality, google around and check vimeo for tests.

shardymo said:
If it was just for video I'd be tempted by the Black Magic pocket cinema camera. The video quality is amazing. Huge files sizes though if you shoot in RAW, plus short battery life. the batteries are cheap however, so you can keep a couple spare in your pocket. yes I was planning on playing with slow motion effects.
Click to expand...

No 60p on the pocket, at any size, far as I know. Not on the Cinema cam or the 4k either. But if you'e not interested in MF and like the DSLR look, I can't imagine you'd be shooting much Raw... the pocket's ProRes will beat any DSLR though. Dunno what kind of AF performance the Pocket offers, BMCuser is your friend for pocket info.
 
If video was my only priority, I would get a T2i, T3i, 60D or 7D instead of a 70D, spend any saved money on nice lenses and load up magic lantern. Magic Lantern alone makes Canon > other brands when it comes to video. Image quality; sure it might not be the best, but you can clean it up a lot in post. You can even install an anti aliasing filter from mosaicengineering (about $300). So in theory you can have a camera with little to no aliasing, magic lantern, and RAW video ability for under 1k if you get a T2i or 60D.

If you have trouble with autofosucing stills, it is attributed to cheap lenses more than the dslr in my experience.
 
For video, the 6D doesn't make any sense to me: it's not better than the 5D2 in any area (except maybe high-ISO), and it can't shoot RAW at full res because it uses SD cards.
If you can't go up to the 5D3, consider the A7: it's a lot better than the 6D (not difficult nowadays), it's also FF, and it's even cheaper.
 
MadHMC150 said:
I am torn between the GH3 and 6D.....
Click to expand...

Samuel H said:
For video, the 6D doesn't make any sense to me: it's not better than the 5D2 in any area (except maybe high-ISO), and it can't shoot RAW at full res because it uses SD cards.
If you can't go up to the 5D3, consider the A7: it's a lot better than the 6D (not difficult nowadays), it's also FF, and it's even cheaper.
Click to expand...

I feel the same way. Of the two choices, the GH3 is FAR better than the 6D as a video camera. But then, on the Panasonic side of things, you also have the G6 (closely related to the GH2), the GX7 and GM-1, all of which offer some things the GH3 doesn't (remote monitoring over WiFi, focus peaking, etc). The GM-1 has been said to even record cleaner video than the GH3, if that's possible for a low budget body!

The bottom line is that there are a lot of great choices out there right now, but its hard to find positive things to say about the 6D.
 
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