Will the new offering from Blackmagic convince Canon to liberate the HDMI on the 5d3

The small Alexa pictured above is a bit deceiving. It looks small, but the body is just broken up into 2 parts attached by the cable, and one cannot exist without the other.

As for Canon HDMI, apparently the D800 is kicking the crap out of the 5D3 in terms of sales on Amazon. This might be the ONLY reason Canon is forced to up their game a bit.
 
Sigh, can we stop using the Amazon reference please? Due to how INACCURATE it is.

Kegan
 
gene_can_sing said:
The small Alexa pictured above is a bit deceiving. It looks small, but the body is just broken up into 2 parts attached by the cable, and one cannot exist without the other.

As for Canon HDMI, apparently the D800 is kicking the crap out of the 5D3 in terms of sales on Amazon. This might be the ONLY reason Canon is forced to up their game a bit.
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Kegan said:
Sigh, can we stop using the Amazon reference please? Due to how INACCURATE it is.

Kegan
Click to expand...

Yep. Hard to have high sales of a camera nobody can keep in stock.
 
So what should Canon's move be to right this ship then?

And it seems to me Sony is making the exact correct moves. They are breaking molds with the 700 and threatening all with the future offering of 4k. Sony put the price just about spot on too; not trying to hold the old buyers, but trying to grab all new comers. Canon, they're fighting RED and Alexa for a smaller pie, a shortsighted move at best, imho.
 
I don't REALLY see huge problems here. The 5dmarkIII makes excellent looking fullframe images, albeit slightly soft. If you want sharper, there is the GH2.

HDMI and an external recorder isn't REALLY needed, I bet a lot of D800 users will not be doing that for many reasons. One is the connection itself, HDMI is extremely fiddly. Second is the quality difference. It isn't exactly mind blowing. Third is the convenience factor. It's an extra step.
 
HDMI is really for a studio type shoot. I don't think many will be running out in the Jungle with an HDMI recorder, but it does make a considerable difference in the footage and especially grading. Just gives it that professional edge.

I'm happy that Canon is getting their a$$ handed to them by Nikon and Sony. As a company they are way too conservative and very frustrating to deal with from a customer perspective in that they rarely listen and just try and milk you for all your money.

The Sony FS700 is going to change things greatly. Good for Sony. I'm buying one with the money I had saved for a Canon.
 
In looking for a small B/C Cam to Red to throw in our kit to replace a GH2 and 5D MKII,
a couple of things came to mind...

FF DSLR's like D800 or 5DMK3 for timelapse and low light performance are very useful as a
compliment to a Pro RAW camera if portability is an issue.

If BM has a successful launch, migrates to S35 and eventually includes genlock for 3D,
I might end up buying a pair!
 
Cosimo Bullo said:
So what should Canon's move be to right this ship then?

And it seems to me Sony is making the exact correct moves. They are breaking molds with the 700 and threatening all with the future offering of 4k. Sony put the price just about spot on too; not trying to hold the old buyers, but trying to grab all new comers. Canon, they're fighting RED and Alexa for a smaller pie, a shortsighted move at best, imho.
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The right move for Canon would be to do a firmware upgrade for clean HDMI out of the the Mark III. 8 bit 422. To correct the ALL-I issues and take a second look at what is creating the softness and re-tweak whatever is needed. The camera would remain Full HD and not higher resolution, and will therefore be on par with the Nikon D800, but still beat it due to better moire and aliasing. And, they need to inch closer to the same price as the Nikon and Blackmagic.

For the EOS 1D-C at 4K resolution, they need to offer 25p and drop the price to arrive closer to the FS700 territory or provide a DSLR that is somewhere between the C300 and the Mark III in terms of both price and quality.
 
Personally, I'm only speaking about the 1DC.

I don't think the MKIII or anything like that will be affected at all. Just the 1DC because they're positioning it in that world.

mico said it a while ago, but Canon sent their message to this crowd: If you want real firepower, put your dollars down, otherwise you can use one of our lesser alternatives.
 
well, the price of the BMD is lower than that of the 5D3, I would use that one as a comparison; you can go full frame with clean images and crisp detail with post sharpening, but very limited codec for grading, or m43 with no image issues at all and amazing 12-bit RAW flexibility, but 5 times less sensor area and with intensive post needed - bring on an APS-C BMD or similar for $5k and It's not easy to find excuses for going with canon (or most other options, actually)
 
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now, about the 5D3 vs D800 sales numbers: I understand that amazon numbers have issues, and that if Canon can't make the damn thing it just can't be sold, but I also know that in its core market (stills), the D800 is looking a hell of a lot better than the 5D3, for a smaller price too; look at the detail tests on dpreview, or at the hard numbers on dxomark (14.4 vs 11.7 stops of DR!!), and it's not easy to find excuses to buy a 5D3 instead of a D800 (my father is a Canon stills shooter, he's been waiting for the 5D3 for a long time, he has all his glass ready for it, and still I sent him the dxomark link today and it's not an easy decision; he might just take a $1500 loss in glass and switch to Nikon, if the camera looks worth $1000 more) - http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Ca...brand)/Canon/(appareil2)/792|0/(brand2)/Nikon - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/stu...r&x=-0.9011666895935071&y=-0.8663359160946293 - which brings me to: of course the first thing Canon has to do is sort out the manufacturing issues, if, awful as it is compared with the D800, the camera can't be found in stores, trying to increase demand is silly; but if manufacturing can be sorted, what then? time for plan B, I'm afraid; that can mean bringing down the price clearly below that of the D800, or adding more features and trying to find a niche; and that's where hdmi-out comes in (collaboration with the ML people wouldn't hurt either)
 
Samuel H said:
... but very limited codec for grading...
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That is just wrong. I don't get how people say that the codec in the 5dmarkIII is "very limited for grading". People have been grading 4:2:0 25mbps HDV material to look great, I've seen some seriously well graded shots with the 5dmarkII and I've never experienced this "very limited"-aspect of the codec.

This was shot with the 5dmarkII.

http://vimeo.com/11339453

What kindoff grading do you guys do if your grades go all wonky?
 
ok, significantly more limited than uncompressed 12-bit RAW - for most stuff, it's good enough for me, but sometimes it breaks down and starts to show obvious macroblocking issues
 
maarek said:
That is just wrong. I don't get how people say that the codec in the 5dmarkIII is "very limited for grading". People have been grading 4:2:0 25mbps HDV material to look great, I've seen some seriously well graded shots with the 5dmarkII and I've never experienced this "very limited"-aspect of the codec.
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Have you ever graded a Raw photo still or Red Raw video? There's quite a bit of difference, regardless of how well some people have been able to grade HDV/H.264 footage.
 
Stills shooters seem to have MUCH stronger brand loyalty than video people. If you're a Nikon guy you'll buy Nikon, if you're a Canon guy you'll guy Canon, once somebody picks a brand you very rarely see them switch. No doubt partially because the lens investment is much larger than the body investment.
 
Gary Huff said:
Have you ever graded a Raw photo still or Red Raw video? There's quite a bit of difference, regardless of how well some people have been able to grade HDV/H.264 footage.
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Of course I have and still I really have no "big" issues grading jpeg stills. Raw's do tend to give way more dynamic range though. But video is usually graded quite differently anyway.

If someone said "I can't grade this shot, it's only a jpeg!" then I wouldn't hire that guy to do anything.

The camera itself can even process those jpegs better than some other software later. My sony-nex5n does better jpegs than when I use Lightroom to process the raw to make a jpeg. And thousands of photographers still take jpeg's in cam, instead of RAW eventhough they could.
 
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maarek said:
That is just wrong. I don't get how people say that the codec in the 5dmarkIII is "very limited for grading". People have been grading 4:2:0 25mbps HDV material to look great, I've seen some seriously well graded shots with the 5dmarkII and I've never experienced this "very limited"-aspect of the codec.

This was shot with the 5dmarkII.

http://vimeo.com/11339453

What kindoff grading do you guys do if your grades go all wonky?
Click to expand...

There are both blown highlights and banding in this short; both results of the limited range and precision. Obviously, a lot of work has gone into coloring this (and in post-effects, in general) and probably defects were cleaned where possible. And the result is nice despite the defects.

Surely careful shooting and dedication can bring you far even with 8-bit 4:2:0. But being able to work around disadvantages doesn't mean one needs to spend one's time fighting these disadvantages. It is really as simple as that.
 
I just uploaded this piece, just a fun project that I shot last week at Madrid's Zombie Pride Parade 2012: http://vimeo.com/40741414

it was shot literally run and gun, with no time for "careful shooting and dedication"; I chose an extended-DR picture style (Flaat_11p), to give me more flexibility for fixing in post the exposure problems I was 100% sure I was going to find; I had to push the footage much harder than many people would be confortable with; and because of that, the 420 8-bit codec has created a lot of issues that just wouldn't be there if the camera was shooting uncompressed 12-bit RAW (or just 10-bit log 422)

and even with all the IQ issues, I think it looks great, it was a ton of fun to shoot, it was fun to edit the piece together too, and it's great to watch now that it's done; I just wish I had a bit more time to make it look better (some exposure problems remain, and NR could help a lot with those IQ issues)
 
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gonzo_entertainment said:
Stills shooters seem to have MUCH stronger brand loyalty than video people. If you're a Nikon guy you'll buy Nikon, if you're a Canon guy you'll guy Canon, once somebody picks a brand you very rarely see them switch. No doubt partially because the lens investment is much larger than the body investment.
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. All the stills guys on Canonrumors.com are psychotic defenders of Canon. To them, Canon is a company of Saints headed up by Jesus himself. For me, I just want the best camera. With all the lets downs by Canon, I've come to hate them as a company and only wish ill-intent upon them:furious3:

Now that the MaxMax OLP filter removal seems to be a bust, the 5D3 seems to be destined to be a "Soft" video camera. With it's internal resolution being so soft, it does not seem like HDMI output would help that would it? It would just give more colorspace and picture integrity, but would it help the sharpness at all? Doesn't seem like it.

I think the only solution is just to buy the Sony FS100 if you want good, sharp, un-crippled video at a decent price with clean HDMI out. Or if you can swing it, the FS700 when it come out.
 
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