Author Topic: Panasonic GH5 or Canon 5D Mark III? (Read 10661 times)

Aeidxst · « **on:** October 08, 2018, 11:38:48 PM »

Hi all, quick question:

I have the option to choose between these two cameras. Recently my own 5DIII broke so I don't have a camera atm. I love the RAW video quality that ML provides for 5DIII, but I also love GH5's quality and its workflow. Personal downsides to ML RAW is the fact I can't properly play back footage. It's super annoying and my clients hate to see some pixelated black and white preview, or some preview in color that stutters like ****. I only do video, mainly music videos.

I already own two Canon L lenses, but that's easily solvable with a speedbooster.

Please help me choose

Aeidxst · « **Reply #1 on:** October 08, 2018, 11:43:16 PM »

Hi all, quick question:

I have the option to choose between these two cameras. Recently my own 5DIII broke so I don't have a camera atm. I love the RAW video quality that ML provides for 5DIII, but I also love GH5's quality and its workflow. Personal downsides to ML RAW is the fact I can't properly play back footage. It's super annoying and my clients hate to see some pixelated black and white preview, or some preview in color that stutters like ****. I only do video, mainly music videos.

I already own two Canon L lenses, but that's easily solvable with a speedbooster.

Please help me choose

12georgiadis · « **Reply #2 on:** October 09, 2018, 12:24:17 AM »

playback available with h264+raw workflow (read here https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=15108.msg206903;topicseen#msg206903). The best quality is with 5DmkIII but GH5 is good for features like IBIS+OIS, crop mode, V-log, autofocus, size of the body, 6K H265. But it's not raw and the sensor is m4/3 so the sensibility iso is not good. I just bought a new 5D3 (mine was broken last month) and I wait for Pana full frame S1

ilia3101 · « **Reply #3 on:** October 09, 2018, 12:28:47 AM »

I bet the GH5 is better in low light as well

I'd still have the mark III it just looks best

12georgiadis · « **Reply #4 on:** October 09, 2018, 01:12:45 AM »

https://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Panasonic-Lumix-DC-GH5-versus-Canon-EOS-5D-Mark-III___1149_795

Kharak · « **Reply #5 on:** October 09, 2018, 02:47:45 AM »

BM Video Assist is a cheap solution for your clients viewing pleasure.

On your question, one is Full frame and the other like 2x crop...

5D has amazing colour science and the other meh.. i have still to see anything baffle me from a GH5, then again I dont go looking for it.

Aeidxst · « **Reply #6 on:** October 09, 2018, 09:06:10 AM »

Quote from: 12georgiadis on October 09, 2018, 12:24:17 AM

playback available with h264+raw workflow (read here https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=15108.msg206903;topicseen#msg206903). The best quality is with 5DmkIII but GH5 is good for features like IBIS+OIS, crop mode, V-log, autofocus, size of the body, 6K H265. But it's not raw and the sensor is m4/3 so the sensibility iso is not good. I just bought a new 5D3 (mine was broken last month) and I wait for Pana full frame S1

Pana S1 is also really interesting to me. I have 3 Canon L lenses though and I want to keep using them. But I heard the Pana S1 will have a specific mount which makes that not possible.

What'd you all advice?

benoit · « **Reply #7 on:** October 09, 2018, 09:28:43 AM »

I had the same idea recently so I looked for tests on dpreview.
On high iso, even my 5D2 beats the GH5 so I'll go for an used 5D3 in your case.
The s1 seems to be interesting but his price with speedbooster in the first month of launching will be high ...

Aeidxst · « **Reply #8 on:** October 09, 2018, 11:40:48 AM »

Quote from: benoit on October 09, 2018, 09:28:43 AM

I had the same idea recently so I looked for tests on dpreview.
On high iso, even my 5D2 beats the GH5 so I'll go for an used 5D3 in your case.
The s1 seems to be interesting but his price with speedbooster in the first month of launching will be high ...

I see, but will there even be a speedbooster in the first month(s)? If yes, then I'm definitely getting it. I have yet to see what the Pana S1 is capable of but I'm expecting big things.

Wintel · « **Reply #9 on:** October 09, 2018, 12:44:48 PM »

If you are recording Raw, you can use the Magic Lantern 4K Crop Rec build which allows you to record H264 proxy on your SD card. You can use these proxy files for preview

ilia3101 · « **Reply #10 on:** October 09, 2018, 08:38:07 PM »

I mean for video not RAW photos. Big difference.

DXO seems meaningless in real life across very different sensors. In low light, take a video in RAW on the 5D mark III in crop mode (3k or 4k whatever) and compare it what GH5 will produce. Old Canon always has noisier shadows, which disproportionately affects low light. GH5 also down samples full sensor resolution to 4K. Bigger sample size = less noisy data. So GH5 has a few advantages (including dynamic range which DXO even says).

If the mark III was better then the GH5 in low light for video, the 5D mark II would also be (according to those pics). From experience I know the 5D mark II is worse than modern m43 cameras.

Here's an old panasonic G7 destroying the mark II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTlgFRzuQsA

I'm not a Canon hater. The 5D mark III with ML is still my favourite camera.

Though I'd love to be proved wrong about this

12georgiadis · « **Reply #11 on:** October 10, 2018, 01:25:49 AM »

I have to agree but is it really raw video or H264 ? Do you have a test 5DmkIII vs GH5 low light to show ?
Maybe I don't know how to setup the GH5 with V-log & co, But I see significantly more noise in the overall picture (not just shadow). And GH series are very complex with noise (a lot of settings...), see this : https://doddlenews.com/panasonic-gh5-promises-great-noise-reduction-but-theres-a-caveat/
I didn't find valuable comparison with 5DmkIII

Deadcode · « **Reply #12 on:** October 10, 2018, 11:37:41 AM »

I think everyone should try shooting with a 5D raw.
The image is gorgeous. The feel is awesome.

After several month you want more. AF, better low light, more portability, more dynamic range.
After few another month you start to realise RAW is nice but the workflow is complicated and the files eats drive space for breakfast.

Then you switch to GH5/A7 III.

If you skip owning 5D, all you can think about it how good can it be.
If you owned a 5D, your remember the good old times, and you also remember why you stepped forward to another camera.

This is my story

12georgiadis · « **Reply #13 on:** October 10, 2018, 11:53:10 AM »

I'm sorry, Without side by side video of A7III, 5D3 raw, GH5 in low light, I cannot agree. Maybe GH5 with open gate H265 has a better result... but A7III really ? What about the colors ?
Let's compare also with the dual iso and 1X3 from 5d3 !
But it is true that we miss some good AF and portability. Disagree about better low light and dynamic range. I mean, that's true that it is better on spec, not on the final render output after grading. Look at the colors... But maybe, it's a matter of taste...

Deadcode · « **Reply #14 on:** October 10, 2018, 01:31:39 PM »

Actually i tested 5D Mark II against BMPCC and Sony A6300.
Both the BM and a6300 crushes the 5D in terms of dynamic range.
Noise on the a6300 is a lot lower than 5D2 Raw. And yes, all of the cameras was shoot by using ETTR.

Dual ISO is nice but it (was) is very slow in post process and aliasing heavy in the non-overlaped regions.

I'm talking about video, and i tried neat video on the 5D footage.
Im not gonna prove anything on a Canon related forum, because it's pointless. I just wrote down my experiences.

Kharak · « **Reply #15 on:** October 10, 2018, 04:28:26 PM »

How is the workflow complicated?

You drop your Cdng’s in Resolve, edit, colour and export? And mind you, you can actually colour grade the 5D footage.

Levas · « **Reply #16 on:** October 10, 2018, 04:36:54 PM »

First I must say I don't have any of these cameras, I have a Canon 6d.
So I don't know how Sony or BMPCC files look.

But the problem with these comparisons of other cameras against magic lantern raw, is that the quality of the image heavily depends on the workflow one is using.
You see people shooting raw, open the files in one of the available converters and export, without any corrections to the image, to a mov container file with for example Prores codec.
That way, you're losing a lot of the possibilities raw has to offer.
You don't see the maximum dynamic range the camera has to offer this way.

With raw shooting, the quality of your image heavily depends on your raw video processing skills.

12georgiadis · « **Reply #17 on:** October 10, 2018, 05:09:12 PM »

+1 Levas. Let's see true comparison with files corrected in MLV app

Deadcode · « **Reply #18 on:** October 10, 2018, 05:17:12 PM »

Kharak, Levas you are both right.

I loved to grade the footage straight from MLVFS to Resolve. RAW to final grade.

When you shoot for yourself this is awesome.
But when you shoot for clients where you have to shoot hours of footage week by week, raw is pain in the ass.
I had to shorten my workflow and lower the storage space consumption as much as i can to finish my work till the deadlines.
So i switched to Sony with SLOG2 workflow.
I got very nice results, but after few weeks i realised colorgrading slows me down a lot. Now im recording with fine tuned settings, and using my own correction LUT's to get
similar looking image what i have got from my 5D.

Dont blame sony for bad colors, blame those who dont know how to colorgrade properly.

And no, im not gonna link footage, i dont want to prove RAW is bad, because it's not. Just not suit for everybody/every job.

ilia3101 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 10, 2018, 05:20:25 PM »

Oh god MLV app isn't what you should be using if you want low light and noise reduction

@Levas Yep. It's all about the processing skills. A beginner will get better results with a gh5 or a Sony, but if you know what your doing raw is hard to beat.

Also if you expose to the right and use other tricks the dynamic range is infinite.

Levas · « **Reply #20 on:** October 10, 2018, 06:23:03 PM »

@Deadcode, you're probably right about the difference in ease of use when having to use it for making a living out of it.

If ease of use wasn't in the game, everybody by now would already be shooting raw

Deadcode · « **Reply #21 on:** October 10, 2018, 06:27:33 PM »

100% correct.
And everyone want the option to shoot raw. This is the reason why a lot of people want the new Blackmagic Pocket 4K. I want it too so baldly, but it dont fit my needs. Only my desire

Once i will have 5D(3) once again, just for fun. When it goes below 500 bucks

12georgiadis · « **Reply #22 on:** October 10, 2018, 07:08:29 PM »

with some SD/CF hack improvement & Lossless for all, no need for a 5D3 anymore =D

hyalinejim · « **Reply #23 on:** October 11, 2018, 10:05:04 AM »

I switched to GH5 after using 5D3 ML for a few years.

If you're doing jobs for clients the GH5 is a no-brainer in my opinion because of smaller file size, 4K and IBIS. If you are more casual or are doing a passion project then 5D3 ML is absolutely marvellous.

VLog colours are crappy out of the box but the 10bit codec will stand up to extensive grading and you can get lovely colours from the GH5. Here's a comparison I did in the early days of the GH5 where I was trying to match its look to the look I was using on the 5D (since then I use a different look, but it shows that the GH5 isn't limited to Panasonic's default colour):

12georgiadis · « **Reply #24 on:** October 11, 2018, 11:24:33 AM »

+1 hyalinejim and nice test. I already saw it somewhere else... 5D3 needs more time to manage the workflow than a GH5 (which I love for corporate) IMO, it's very good for short films, where you have a crew etc. It's ok for documentary except the body factor of the 5D3 but the raw option + the crop mode on a 24-105 lens +dual iso in documentary are amazing features. In lossless 14bits, it's 25min on a 64GB CF, which is pretty acceptable.

Aeidxst · « **Reply #25 on:** October 13, 2018, 02:42:33 AM »

I was wondering, what would be the better option for the Panasonic S1? My two Canon L lenses with a lens adapter, or the standard lenses that will be released together with the S1? If it's the latter I'm definitely going to sell my 5D III including the lenses...

Boscom · « **Reply #26 on:** October 13, 2018, 07:22:32 AM »

Another alternative thats just been released is the Black Magic 4k 'Pocket' Cinema Camera. Seems good value as its a lot cheaper than the GH5 and GH5s. 12 Bit 4K RAW as well as ProRes. You can use your Canon lenses with a speed booster.

12georgiadis · « **Reply #27 on:** October 13, 2018, 09:30:22 AM »

Quote from: Aeidxst on October 13, 2018, 02:42:33 AM

I was wondering, what would be the better option for the Panasonic S1? My two Canon L lenses with a lens adapter, or the standard lenses that will be released together with the S1? If it's the latter I'm definitely going to sell my 5D III including the lenses...

It depends on the compatibility... For sure, you'll lose OIS+IBIS with canon Lenses. The standard lenses is a good option.

12georgiadis · « **Reply #28 on:** October 13, 2018, 09:31:57 AM »

Quote from: Boscom on October 13, 2018, 07:22:32 AM

Another alternative thats just been released is the Black Magic 4k 'Pocket' Cinema Camera. Seems good value as its a lot cheaper than the GH5 and GH5s. 12 Bit 4K RAW as well as ProRes. You can use your Canon lenses with a speed booster.

There is no IBIS and it's just a cinema camera. No stills (or 8mpix...) and no open gate 6K... I prefer my 5D3 or GH5

zalbnrum · « **Reply #29 on:** October 13, 2018, 01:48:28 PM »

BMPCC4K is a perfect form factor (cheap media? and batteries). On the plus side it has DCI 4K 60fps raw, will see what .braw brings in that camera. .braw put their 4.6K Pro at least a few steps higher than with old cDNG, you can playback footage with no frame drops, with heavy grade etc. on a +1K€ 3 year old PC laptop. Files are smaller (longer recordings, less disk space) and easy to transfer. And from what I could test, I can belive them that .braw put one extra stop of DR in the shadows. CDNG with its separate frames=files is the bottleneck of post performance... On the downside it is a small sensor camera (usable with speedbooster?), not exactly rainproof, etc.. Has its early? quirks as I have seen on some video reviews.

If A1ex gets enough help and pull ML on 5DIV, that would be the camera to go for what our team needs. 13.6 stops of dynamic range and good low light performance and 2.2K raw from 1080p (if I understood correctly?); that is almost like having an old Alexa with 1 less DR and much better lowlight performance, perfect for 2K DCI deliver.

But you can't have it all, for now what ML enabled on 5DIII is just plain awesome and for our workflow, raw is just a no brainer over all other 10bit 4K enabled plastic-ish image looking mirrorles wonders of the world. I agree about dynamic range. Roughly 11 stops can be a little short, but if you know what are the limits and how to pull that extra bit when pushing cDNGs, then you can get quite good results regarding DR I think.

I can agree with what was written about handling raw in post. But lets not forget, that on the other hand, a 40K$ option medium format from Hasselblad has 4K raw, that you have to convert first to get cDNG, just like with our ML enabled little and cheap, yet raw capable cameras (thanks to ML devs).

If there was a way to convert MLV to some other form of raw than cDNGs, that would put ML Canons into a different ballpark, on an extent even higher than for example Kinefinity or some other smaller exotic companies that are forced to use cDNG (but if there was a way, they would use it already).

12georgiadis · « **Reply #30 on:** October 13, 2018, 03:48:28 PM »

you're right but you forget that 5D3 is a still camera first ;-) which is not the case with the new pocket.
There are a lot of ML workflow, but read H264 proxy + MLV thread workflow, you'll discover a new world in post-prod. Cdng is timeconsuming. C-log Apr444 from MLV after editing is IMO a better choice and save storage space

dfort · « **Reply #31 on:** October 13, 2018, 09:17:44 PM »

The OP was to help choose between a 5D3 to replace a busted one that he loved or to jump ship and go with a Panasonic GH5. Since he only does video the still photo capabilities of these cameras don't matter. Technically, the GH5 is more of a video camera that can shoot stills while the 5D3 is a still camera that can shoot video.

This is a forum where we're experimenting with Canon still cameras so the obvious answer you'll get here is to go with the 5D3. It is after all the "golden standard" for Magic Lantern. However, if you are making a living with your equipment you probably want the best quality and reliability for your buck along with a practical workflow so you can concentrate on creativity rather than fixing technical issues.

Ok--so both cameras can exceed HD resolution, is that important for you? I'll tell you a dirty little insider secret, many productions are still shot and mastered in 1920x1080. About a year ago I was considering drinking the GH5 Kool-Aid so I signed up for a local workshop with Panasonic GH5 guru Griffin Hammond. Guess what, he doesn't shoot in 4k either. So which camera has a better looking HD image? No doubt, 5D3 raw video.

How about slow motion, is that important? The GH5 comes out on top here but again you've got to give up maximum resolution to get the highest frame rate.

What about the cinematic look? The 5D3 has the larger sensor but if you want to work with the highest ML video resolutions you're going to have to give up a lot of it. If you stick with HD resolution (3x3 sampling) you can use that full sensor. Note that the latest professional cine cameras like the Arri Alexa 65, Sony Venice, Panasonic Millennium DXL2 and RED MONSTRO are all large sensor cameras so if you want that look, the 5D3 is the way to go.

Finally, I'm going to go off topic and suggest not to limit your choices to just these two cameras. If I had a couple of Canon lenses and only shoot video I would be looking at Canon Cine cameras. You can pick up a C100 for about the same price as a used 5D3/GH5 and if you look hard enough you can find a C300 in that price range. Need something special for a paying gig? Rent a C300 Mark II or C200. If you're used to shooting with a cine camera there's practically no learning curve compared to going from a 5D3/GH5 to one of these beasts.

D_Odell · « **Reply #32 on:** December 04, 2018, 07:00:49 PM »

Regarding colorsience I would only go for Canon or Fuji! Best of luck!

jpegmasterjesse · « **Reply #33 on:** December 04, 2018, 08:13:45 PM »

Quote from: dfort on October 13, 2018, 09:17:44 PM

Ok--so both cameras can exceed HD resolution, is that important for you? I'll tell you a dirty little insider secret, many productions are still shot and mastered in 1920x1080. About a year ago I was considering drinking the GH5 Kool-Aid so I signed up for a local workshop with Panasonic GH5 guru Griffin Hammond. Guess what, he doesn't shoot in 4k either. So which camera has a better looking HD image? No doubt, 5D3 raw video.

Griffin is the best! Such an incredibly nice guy who does great work. He and my brother go way back so I've talked to him a few times. His advice for me was just to be super nice and do good work which I find to be a good grounding principle.

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Author Topic: Panasonic GH5 or Canon 5D Mark III? (Read 10661 times)