[Video] Nikon v. Canon Full-Frame Shoot-Out by Philip Bloom

Filmmaker Philip Bloom has gotten his hands on Nikon's and Canon's newest full-frame digital SLRs. Luckily for us, we get an extensive side-to-side comparison in this rather thorough shoot-out. Bloom uses the almost 30 minutes to go through resolution, aliasing, low-light, and feature comaprisons. Let us know what you think in the comments section!

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Adam works mostly across California on all things photography and art. He can be found at the best local coffee shops, at home scanning film in for hours, or out and about shooting his next assignment. Want to talk about gear? Want to work on a project together? Have an idea for Fstoppers? Get in touch! And, check out FilmObjektiv.org film rentals!

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25 Comments

And here my buddy is waiting for the D800E cause its suppose to have the best video ever.. Thanks for the tip phil! thank you Fstop for posting this. 

 Very unlikely. D800 and D800E share the same sensor. Unless Nikon purposely handicapped the readout speed of D800, D800E is not going to have better SNR or aliasing behavior.

Same issue with high ISO video comparison between D800 and MkIII. THE GAIN IS DIFFERENT FOR SIMILAR ISO'S.

 Different curves? Canon has more crushed darks. I remember seeing in another video review with the CineStyle on Canon to give a similar tonal response to Nikon.

Yang, I think you might be talking about my video where I used CineStyle:
http://www.learningdslrvideo.com/5d-mark-iii-vs-nikon-d800/

I really liked the look of the Nikon D800's neutral style with the contrast all the way down in movie mode. To me it is the perfect starting point to color grade. The D800 had better dynamic range than the 5D3, that is why I think the blacks looked crushed compared to the D800.

D4 sharpness. Did you check AF fine tuning?

Pay attention, the lens was a MANUAL FOCUS Zeiss ZF lens.

I want to know what Phil used to film his summary at the end of this video. Whatever camera that was, THAT is the one I want. Of course it is lit and graded superbly. Kudos to Phillip Bloom and FStoppers. I wish all comparisons were this entertaining.

 He said it was a Canon C300 on his website. Not sure on the lens though.

No creds for recommending, eh? :(

Fuck yes! Going to be an awesome 30min

One very important test lacking, the Jello and rolling shutter test! I want to see that test with these cameras! 

They are the same for all of them. Same goes for AF.

I don't get why the 5D3 is being praised for it's low light...the footage turn to a soft goo at higher iso's due to NR

These gear reviews are all very nice, but now that I am thousand's of dollars deep in Canon equipment... I'll be staying with Canon for a while!

What I don't understand is that the C300 seems to be the one Philip uses all the time as opposed to these others but I read on Canon's website that the C300 outputs only 50 MB/s Mpeg 2. Wouldn't the internal video of  Mark III be better than this? Or am I to assume Philip always uses an external recorder so I have to add on another $1000-$3000 on top of the cost of the damn camera.

For some reason no matter where I drag the play head the video begins playing from 0:00.  I don't have 30 minutes to devote to this but I am curious about the conclusion.  Can someone bottom line it?

If you use Chrome browser, go to vimeo 
https://vimeo.com/42065372  and click "switch to html 5 player"

This will give you the ability to scrub through the video. For some reason, the flash player has never let you scrub on Vimeo.

 Thanks, Kyron.

Great honest side-by-side comp!

When it comes to compression and Mb/s - it depends on what file format you use. From what I've read, h.264 handles compression much better, and more information can be held at much smaller file sizes, compared to let's say .mov files.

I'm no expert, just read this a few days ago. It's weird that he didn't bring it up - as well as didn't show us the difference between internal recording and external recording.

That's because h.264 is the compression and .mov is the file type or container.  You can have both at the same time.

Both camera are great, but I go for the D800, and leave Canon, and maybe in the future go for blackmagic ..

Please lower background music from 28th minute, it is annoying for listening the speach in foreground.

I have brought D800 last week, mostly for photography, and have no possibility to test it's video capatibilities, but as I have seen it is awesome.

I love his reviews, they are by far the most balanced and friendly ones! Oh, and his name is almost the same as mine haha.