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GH3 vs 5D MKIII for stills?
  • acuriousmanacuriousman

    I know the 5D3 beats the GH3 for depth of field, but what about actual still image quality? I'll be doing food photography for which I won't be making large prints, just for the web.

    Has anybody here used both the GH3 and the 5D3 who can post their experiences/examples?

    Thank you.:)

  • 15 Replies sorted by
  • DrDaveDrDave

    The 5D3 takes better photos, but you can take a very nice photo with the GH3. Just load up the comparometer if you want to see the difference.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I'll be doing food photography for which I won't be making large prints, just for the web.

    Regarding noise and such it is absolutely useless to compare cameras in your case, as you have fully controlled light and static products.

    So I think GH3 will do very good. Mirrorless cameras, especially with full Wi-Fi controls are much better for your tasks.

    Take few native primes like 20mm and 45mm and you must be good.

  • maxrmaxr

    Those parameters you're giving us are too loose.
    What kind of image are you after? How much you want to invest in a system?
    Do you need a fast and reliable (accurate) jpeg engine? How much time are you willing to spend in the darkroom? Is it for one time job or more? Are you clients snobbish? I've seen people making food photography in a assembly line like process and I've also seen people with big format film cameras making more money with 1 photo than the others in a week. A friend of mine made loads of money making jewelry photos with an old coolpix... but he built an incredible softbox that greatly eased his task? Are you thinking in using the camera for stills only or for video also? I guess you get the point

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @maxr

    I agree with you. But all my talks with product photographers show that wireless remote control is important feature. Electronic shutter is also very big plus. As usually they check photo remotely on big screen or note and also make very big amount of photos (so electronic shutter saves from shutter replacement expanses).

    Some are shooting even on medium format, yep. But it is mostly magazines and big advertisement photos.

    But otherwise it is skill. Lighting, special preparation of items, etc.

  • maxrmaxr

    @Vitaliy_Kiselev how I see it also depends what volume of work you have and how fast and in what support you need to deliver proofs and final product. Heartily I can tell you that wifi just made my life much more complicated, I know that this is me, a small bug in the ocean of product wrapping :P

    But otherwise it is skill. Lighting, special preparation of items, etc.

    Absolutelly and let's not forget marketing and PR

    From a personal side - bit offtopic - I can honestly say, since I sold my FF camera and zega pro lenses I haven't enjoy photography in such a fully and free way. I guess that I miss having a heavy brick in my forehead. Also IQ wise (read DR, noise, bokeh, soul-matter) there is much to be desired. Maybe it's a quest for lenses... beginning ;-)

  • VeskuVesku

    FF sensor gathers 4 times more light than m4/3. And with same absolute resolution of lens it makes twice as sharp images than m4/3. There might be bokeh and vignetting and corner sharpness issues with FF but in general pictures are cleaner in FF. I have pictures from same summer event ( GH3 + 5D3 ). Even in good light GH3 struggless against noise and diffraction compared to 5D3.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    FF sensor gathers 4 times more light than m4/3.

    And this make no sense for product photography. Except for very rare dynamic photos.

    And with same absolute resolution of lens it makes twice as sharp images than m4/3.

    What is exactly "absolute resolution"? And do you understand that about 90% of all product photos are now tailored for internet or local printed menus/catalogs usage that does not require even 16Mp?

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    There is really no comparison between those two, 5D3 being significantly superior stills camera. But that is not the point, GH3 is more than capable of producing amazing results especially in controlled environment. Thanks to the power of digital raw post processing many of those differences will become less pronounced even diminished - if you don't make large prints.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    There is really no comparison between those two, 5D3 being significantly superior stills camera.

    Just one question. Why 5D3? If you need FF and high res it must be A7r.

    It just make more sense. As it is mirrorless, fast, has Wi-Fi. Allow to mount any cheap lens (and under cheap I mean even 28-200mm gem).

  • inqb8trinqb8tr

    Just one question. Why 5D3? If you need FF and high res it must be A7r.

    I absolutely agree. 5D was in OP's question, and it is popular for weddings :)

  • VeskuVesku

    I was thinking IQ in general. When downsizing with proper resampling and sharpening differences will be minimal if none. I think 5D3 has still "purer color gamut" due to 14bit RAW vs 12bit RAW of GH3 and lower noise. More important is though RAW processing skills.

    With lenses I ment:

    1. Lens is always limiting factor to resolution with 16-24 Mpixel range.
    2. It is twice as easy to maintain sharpness in double widht sensor with the same lens.
    3. m4/3 objects must have very "sharp glass" to get same resolution than objects with bigger sensors.
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I think 5D3 has still "purer color gamut" due to 14bit RAW vs 12bit RAW of GH3 and lower noise.

    I think you mix all here. Color gamut does not give a fuck if camera has 14 bit or 12 bit raw, same for noise.

    As for sharpness. For any local paper, article photo or internet one each and every modern system camera is enough. m43, APS-C, FF. Even LX7 is fine for many cases.

  • VeskuVesku

    @Vitaliy

    Thanks for thinking these matters with me. These are not easy and trivial matters and with my bad english I can say things wrong.

    Color gamut/color space/color profile is a tree dimensional space where colors lurk. You can render photo from sensor RAW to sRGB or AdobeRGB colorspace. RAW from sensor contains as much as possible color information and one tries to render colors to smaller space. I usually render to SRGB because it is more safe for monitors of today. 14bit RAW contains about 16 000 steps of shades in each channel (RGB) and 12bit 4000 steps. Does that matter much - I dont think so. More matters sensor quality. My experience is though that my friens 5D3 picks finer nyances of color than my GH3.

    And resolution. When 4k screens comes and later 8k, resolution differences with our pictures will be more obvious and I think I will not regret that I try to shoot now with best possible resolution. Of cource with web productions or normal photo usage today resolution is OK with most cameras. It is important to save RAW files because future monitors will have wider color spaces and you can render then new better versions of your photos.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Color gamut/color space/color profile is a tree dimensional space where colors lurk. You can render photo from sensor RAW to sRGB or AdobeRGB colorspace. RAW from sensor contains as much as possible color information as possible and one tries to render colors to smaller space.

    You are again mixing things, up. I suggest to check http://www.personal-view.com/faqs it has few interesting things. To be short - camera gamut is defined by lens (yep, who knew), sensor color filters, some raw processing. All else, including JPEG processing can vary greatly from settings and not worth time to talk about.

    14bit RAW contains about 16 000 steps of shades in each channel (RGB) and 12bit 4000 steps. Does that matter much - I dont think so.

    Sadly it is also not full truth. Theoretically, 14bit raw can contain 2^14 shades. But it is not so, as all low values are occupied by noise (thermal, noise from amplification, etc). This is why, btw, why requests to make 16bit raw for m43 sensors are stupid.

    My experience is though that my friens 5D3 picks finer nyances of color than my GH3.

    I hope we won't go to the airy high and punchy bass area here :-)

  • VeskuVesku

    I can see that I am thinking of theorethical sides of these matters and you know things more practical ways. That is good because theories and specs dont meet reality always. I am wondering also that we are talking different things when you use term camera gamut and I color gamut. Again practice vs theory. By the way I have never before heard term "camera gamut" but thats ok for me. We are soon beginning to split hairs and thats not helping anyone. But thank for interesting opinions.

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