Inspired by the other large shootout of high end expensive cameras, my buddy Kyle Bush and I decided it was time to do some real world head-to-head with cameras from the streets.
We grabbed cameras we had access to and took them out. We attempted to be as scientific as possible, but there are quirks. Lots of quirks. For example:
- The GoPro has no manual exposure. Or Focus. Or White Balance. Or a monitoring screen (sans lcd bacpac) It just…shoots. So…. it has almost nothing in common with the other cameras other than it shoots in 1080 (and at 30fps at that!) In all honesty, we just wanted to throw it in the test
- The EX1R does not have a removable lens
- The sensors are all different sizes
- Picture Profiles were wildly varied (and also N/A…GoPro…)
The “science” of this test is a long shot. So we chucked it. We kept the exposure, frame rates, composition, and focus as similar as possible and threw out the rest. This is the real world, we wanted to see the real results in real time. For real.
We wanted to test:
- Resolution
- Color/Skintone
- Dynamic Range
- Noise
- Aliasing
Some tech details on the cameras:
Canon 5D Mark ii
Codec: h.264 44Mbit/s
Resolution: 1920×1080 24
Lenses: Canon 17-40mmL, 28-135mmL
Picture Profile: Neutral, 0 Sharpness, 0 Contrast, -2 Saturation, 0 Color Tone
White Balance: 5200k
Canon 7D
Codec: h.264 44Mbit/s
Resolution: 1920×1080 24
Lenses: Canon 17-40mmL, 28-135mmL
Picture Profile: Neutral, 0 Sharpness, 0 Contrast, -2 Saturation, 0 Color Tone
White Balance: 5200k
Canon T2i
Codec: h.264 44Mbit/s
Resolution: 1920×1080 24
Lenses: Canon 17-40mmL, 28-135mmL
Picture Profile: Neutral, 0 Sharpness, 0 Contrast, -2 Saturation, 0 Color Tone
White Balance: Daylight
Sony PMW-EX1R
Codec: XDCAM 35Mbit/s
Resolution: 1920×1080 24
Lenses: Fixed Fujinon 14x
Picture Profile:
White Balance: 5200k
Panasonic DMC-GH1 (Hacked)
Codec: AVCHD 24 Mbit/s
Resolution: 1920×1080 24
Lenses: 14-140mm Panasonic Kit Lens
Picture Profile:
White Balance: 5200k
GoPro Hero
Codec: h.264 15Mbit/s
Resolution: 1920×1080 30
Lenses: GoPro Fixed
Picture Profile: N/A
White Balance: Auto
Comments
Correction: The T2i and the 7D have the same size sensors, that’s why their footage is identical.
Great video, I like the real world kinds of tests so much better!
we were curious to see if the build quality between the two impacted video performance. Tough to say from our tests (meaning probably no!)
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for doing this! I bought a T2i two years ago and it is nice to see that it still has a good image compared to these other cams.
glad it could be of use!
Thanks for taking the time to do this! Very helpful.