IQ: EOS M or 5Diii?

[plucas]

I picked up a 5Diii for a bargain price ($450 AUD) not long ago as a complement to my EOS M, but the image that I can so far get from it has a lacklustre look about it. (I'm using the 1080p mode, not the higher resolution ones.)

One other YouTuber said that, having tried a number of ML cameras, he actually liked the EOS M more than the 5D Mark iii; that the former, he found, had a more cinematic look.

Despite the image issues I had with the EOS M, I have liked the images it can produce.

What are your experiences and thoughts? For anyone who has tried Magic Lantern on the EOS M and the 5Diii, do you prefer the image quality on the M or the 5Diii?

[Walter Schulz]

Are we talking H.264 or mlv/raw recording?
And at least a link to said youtuber would reduce guessing a bit ...

[plucas]

Are we talking H.264 or mlv/raw recording?
And at least a link to said youtuber would reduce guessing a bit ...

RAW recording.

It was in the comments section of a video, and I can't recall which video.

[Luther]

MKIII is better on all areas, except camera weight.

[Walter Schulz]

Off-topic: If we weight in all arguments ... M is easily adaptable to different mounts because of shorter flange distance.

[plucas]

Off-topic: If we weight in all arguments ... M is easily adaptable to different mounts because of shorter flange distance.

Yeah, the "M" allows access to more vintage lenses on account of that.

[yourboylloyd]

I picked up a 5Diii..., but the image ... has a lacklustre look about it. (I'm using the 1080p mode, not the higher resolution ones.)

That may be your problem. Try the crop modes.

Have you seen the short film Sea Gypsies? That entire thing was shot on a 5D3 magic lantern and it looks amazing. You may be doing something wrong mate.

[Walter Schulz]

"Lacklustre" issues in non-crop mode but not in crop mode? Really?
Anything substantial (samples) available backing this claim?

IMO this thread reached esoteric level like some audiophile discussions.
Starting with a quote from memory of an unidentifiable source claiming something unverifiable by facts (because absence of)

Your last sentence: Most likely (judged by the way this thread developed.)

[yourboylloyd]

"Lacklustre" issues in non-crop mode but not in crop mode? Really?
Anything substantial (samples) available backing this claim?

IMO this thread reached esoteric level like some audiophile discussions.

I was just throwing something out there because the eosm outshining the 5d3 made no sense to me. Maybe this person just needs to see more pixels

[plucas]

I didn't post this thread to provoke or even to offer a firm opinion. I simply wanted to gauge a few experiences from people here who had used ML on both EOS M and the 5Diii.

I've seen lots of online clips from both. Ive used both cameras with ML for promo videos at work (though I'm not a pro filmmaker or videographer). I have wondered if the 5Diii is a little softer by comparison, even with maximum sharpening in the MLV app. Besides that, the EOS M can have a certain filmic "look" to it. I haven't yet thought that about my 5Diii footage even though I use the same MLV app settings. But no, I haven't recorded a direct comparison which would aid this thread. I moreso again wanted to see what other users had found in their shooting experience.

The YouTuber I mentioned posts on these boards but I didn't want to name him since he may not want to be asked to give an account for his comment to me a while back that he found the EOS M "more cinematic."

[Walter Schulz]

Reproducable facts, samples: None.
Give or EOT (for me)
Witness protection? This is worse than esoteric! Did you have asked him by PN or other channels if he has a problem to participate in this thread and back his opinion with samples and answer follow-up questions? Because that's what I do if I quoted someone and been questioned about it but unwilliing/unable to speak in quoted person's name. Been there, done that.

[plucas]

Alright Walter. If asking for others experiences is inappropriate, then I'll remember not to produce another thread like this.

[Walter Schulz]

Quoting a1ex:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#not_losing

[ngemu]

I only have an eos m so can't really say but from what i've seen, both cameras can produce terrible and amazing footage

[plucas]

I only have an eos m so can't really say but from what i've seen, both cameras can produce terrible and amazing footage

That's true. If you get the exposure wrong in camera or miss a beat on ordinary operator things like composition, Magic Lantern won't save your footage. I have seen terrible and amazing footage from my EOS M, but the "amazing" shots make me want to go out and shoot with it. You can get magic shots like this, for example (courtesy of ZEEK):

Thus far when I've shot with the 5Diii (even having used the same M31 LUT as in the example above), I've thought my footage has looked "OK," and other 5Diii footage I've seen on Vimeo and YouTube looks just "OK" to me. The best I've seen so far is from Andrew Reid:

The difference that I subjectively perceive, at this point, is that it's easier to find a more "vintage-filmic" look from the EOS M, but then I need to shoot with the 5Diii more and play around with it because it doesn't make sense that it would produce a less cinematic image than a cheap mirrorless camera.

[andy kh]

The best I've seen so far is from Andrew Reid

how about this

[ngemu]

This is the video that eoshd recommends. It is very cinematic to me.

[ngemu]

This is the video that eoshd recommends. It feels very cinematic to me.

[Dmytro_ua]

It feels very cinematic to me.

It has nothing common with any Canon's camera. What you call cinematic here - is a color toning and some film grain. Color toning has some shift in colors so they doesn't look natural but more like a film (you can grade it manually or apply some film LUTs). Film grain can also be added in post to "glue" the footage.

[Kharak]

Which cleats score more goals in Premiere League ?  Nike or Adidas ?

[meanwhile]

IMO this thread reached esoteric level like some audiophile discussions.

I think that's inevitable given the looming presence of the word "cinematic"...

[meanwhile]

It has nothing common with any Canon's camera. What you call cinematic here - is a color toning and some film grain.

I'd say it has more to do with the short cuts and camera movement. If you look at individual frames the "cinematicness" often vanishes. And that's true of "real" cinema too - motion and the extra visual cues it provides change our perception. The main thing that mattered here is the skill shown in shooting and editing.

On the hand if you look at eg 11 seconds the the frozen image is impressive in a way that has nothing to do with colour grading: the camera (which may be either a 5D or BMPCC from the comments - I've seen video from both that shows they can do this) has handled transitions from very dark skin tones to highlights extremely gracefully - the way that film or a real cinema camera does. And its maintaining low contrast detail in the skin. I've never seen anything like this in video from the M. If you look at eg 3.08 in zeek's video the face is several times large but the detail is much less.

Bigger sensor pixels give more information than small ones and a higher date rate preserves more of that information. Grading plays with this information, but it has to be there in the first place. The BPMCC and 5Diii are simply both much more capable cameras than the M - they should be. One is a much larger more expensive camera from the same manufacturer and the other is heavily optimised for video quality! If bigger, more expensive cameras and more specialised cameras didn't produce superior results then all cameras would be small, cheap and general purpose...