DRAMATIC COMPARISON – BMPC 4K vs CANON 5D Mark III

Drama makes everything more interesting, so I made this video nice and dramatic. Before you balk at the unflattering video quality, please understand that I shot it this way on purpose – in order to stress test the sensors and codecs of the respective cameras. In the beginning of the video, you can see the ungraded footage followed by the graded footage. This demonstrates just I far I had to push the codec in the color grade in order to get a half way decent looking image. As expected, the ProRes 422 (HQ) of the BMPC 4K faired much better than the h.264 (ALL-I) of the 5Dm3. The BMPC 4K was able to retain more of the color information in the skin tones and throughout the scene in general. I should note that when you push the BMPC 4K this far (or when you’re shooting low light with 800ASA) the vertical banding of the fixed pattern noise becomes apparent. It’s possible to shoot beautiful images with the BMPC 4K (without any vertical banding), you just need a good amount of light. Hopefully this fixed noise pattern issue will be fixed soon (as well as the black super highlights issue) in the next firmware update. I’m not trying to show off my DP skills with this video, I’m trying to push these cameras to their limits. In the picture below, you can see the before and after for each camera in order to compare how far the grade can be pushed. If you look at where the BMPC 4K started it’s a pretty substantial difference, which demonstrates the power and flexibility of ProRes 422 (HQ). I can’t wait to see how the cinema DNG turns out. Blackmagic Design, hurry up already!

As the owner of a BMPC 4K and a Canon 5D mark III, of course I’m going to test and compare these two cameras. Obviously, the 5Dm3 is two years older but it is a widely used camera due to its full frame sensor and low light performance…and mostly, because it works so well with Magic Lantern firmware. The only time I’m ever pleased with the image coming from the 5Dm3 is when I’m shooting RAW. Otherwise, the built in codecs record a mushy 600 lines of resolution disaster that Canon tries to pass off as 1080p. The problem with RAW is that it’s hardly practical. There’s no reference audio, the RAW file must be converted to CDNG, and most NLEs have a hard time processing the footage so your best bet is to run it through Resolve and then export ProRes. The end result is that you get great looking footage; but it comes with the high price of taking a lot of time and hard drive space. I once shot an entire music video using only 5Dm3 RAW and the video looks great but it was definitely a pain in the ass to shoot and DIT. If you’re interested, you can check out the video here:

As for the BMPC 4K, I love the ease of use and professional features that it provides. Shooting and editing in ProRes is amazing. Even at 4K, my NLE of choice, Adobe Premiere, flies through it at the full resolution setting. No need to process or transcode – I simply shoot the footage and I can start editing it right away and I’m happy with the results because there is lots of detail and color information. Of course, the same ease of use can be had when shooting h.264 on the 5Dm3 but the detail is horrendous. I also love shooting straight to an SSD, it’s by far the best media I’ve ever shot on because it’s so fast and the price per GB is as low as 50 cents (if you buy my favorite SSD, the 1TB Samsung 840 EVO). Of course, it’s annoying that you can’t delete clips or format the SSD in camera (firmware update, please!) but I can live with it because I simply use a SATA to USB 3.0 connecter to hook it up to my computer. Pro tip: if you buy the laptop kit version of the Samsung 840 EVO it comes with the slimmest, most perfect connector known to man. Another option is to pull off the top part of a Seagate Backup Plus (it’s meant to be swappable so don’t worry about breaking it). It’s thicker but it gets the job done.

It’s also really nice to use SDI instead of HDMI. And the HD-SDI is 6G so you can send a 4K feed from the camera to a 4K SDI monitor (if you can afford such a monitor). Having a global shutter is very luxurious also, no more jello. Last but not least, the fact that it comes with the full version of DaVinci Resolve (a $999 value) really sweetens the deal.

While both cameras have their pitfalls – the 5Dm3 sucks at detail and the BMPC 4K sucks in low light – the BMPC 4K is the clear winner and has been a nice upgrade for me. It just feels like a proper video camera, whereas a 5Dm3 feels like a photography camera first and a video camera in distant second. It’s nice not to have recording time limits and to have a form factor that is more conducive to building a rig around it. I love that it has the aluminum build with the 1/4 20″ inserts. My favorite way to utilize these inserts is to attach a JuicedLink BMC388. It fits on there so perfectly that I just leave it on at all times because it gives me XLR, way better preamps, audio meters, and better audio settings than the camera provides by itself.

Thanks for watching and especially for reading this blog. Be sure to check back for my full review of the BMPC 4K where I’ll be exploring in detail the pros and cons of the camera. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this blog and if you would like to see more comparisons or reviews done in this dramatic format. I imagine a comparison between the Panasonic GH4 and the BMPC 4K would be a good one. Or how about a RED Scarlet and a BMPC 4K?