What's the best EOS for video?

[ProducerMarisa]

Hello,

I'm in the market for a new DSLR.  Obviously I want beautiful photos, but the video is almost more important.  I would love to get the 7D, but I'm interested in whether there is a more budget friendly option that is just as good.  What about the 60D?

Or perhaps a Rebel T3i or T4i?

Thanks for your suggestions!!

[jfo]

The "best" would be the 5D Mk III (aka 5DM3), but its obviously at a whole different price range than any of the cameras you've listed.  As with almost everything in photography, there will be trade-off.  

Tell us a bit more about what you want to get out of video, what you will be shooting, budget for / access to lenses, features that are priorities, etc, and we can formulate better answers and advice. 

[ProducerMarisa]

I'd like to do sit down and on the fly interviews.  Along with some action - possibly dance.  And defnitely kids.  

This may sound silly, but I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with it, so the more versatile the ability, the better, I suppose.

I don't have a huge budget for lenses (about $1200 for everything), but I've heard the lenses make the shot, and not the camera.  Now that the T4i has come out, I've debated just getting a used T3i with a great lense to learn on and upgrade later if I need to.

[BrickR]

If video on a budget is your primary desire, the T3i or 60d with Magic Lantern would be my choice. ML will give both cameras essentially the same functions (which are IMMENSE with ML on board), but the 60d is going to have a few extras you may prefer in a stills body (plus little things like ease of swapping batteries on some tripods because of battery door placement). That said, if you can get a refurb T3i for $360 vs a 60d for $600 (black friday prices), I would get the T3i hands down. That is a LOT of camera for the money at those prices. Too bad it shows T2i out of stock, but at >$300 it's obvious why!!! 😉

Lenses make a difference in stills quality, but for video not as big, especially for what you want to do. There is NO reason you need to spend $1000 on a lens for video. An HD video image is about 2mp. A still will be 18mp. So obviously the quality of glass will have more affect on IQ for stills than video. Basically, any lens that is good enough for stills will be good enough for video. Not necessarily the other way though. That's why people like to use old MF lenses for bargain finds for video. There are other things to consider such as focus ring placement and smoothness for video use. For example, the 50 1.8 is perfectly fine for stills but the focus ring is in a bad spot for racking focus for video use.

I don't see a substantial enough reason to get a T4i over a 60d/T3i when it costs more than either. There is AF in video mode but after seeing it in real life action it isn't as impressive as it is on paper, and not worth the extra cost considering what the other two can be had for IMHO. I don't see the 7d as being a good choice for what you want.

I suggest the 60d and T3i because if you're doing video, that swivel screen will pay for itself immediately. I reach for my 60d over my T2i for video every time because of the swivel screen. Heck, I grab my SX20 for video (if I'll be outside or in good light) over the T2i BECAUSE of the swivel screen alone.

[jfo]

What the 7D does have that the T#i's and the 60D doesn't have is the headphone jack.  Depending on your audio set-up, that could simplify things or be a life-saver.  

[canonuser78]

How about 5D MKII vs. 6D / video ?

Is there anyone that can tell us a few pro/cons has anyone tested these bodies ?

thank you,

[HDCamTeam]

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@canonuser78 wrote:

How about 5D MKII vs. 6D / video ?

Is there anyone that can tell us a few pro/cons has anyone tested these bodies ?

thank you,

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Very interesting indeed.

I've shot a lot with the 5D2 and it's great (if you know the limitations, as with every camera)

But still waiting to see "RAW" footage directly from the card (I mean, un-edited video clips) cptured with the 6D to see if Canon has improved the image quality or not, especially regarding Aliasing and Moire.

In stills mode, the 6D looks very good, but not sure if Canon implemented an algorithm similar to 5D3 in video for the 6D...

Another limitation on the 6D is the lack of some connectors and the use of only SD cards (sometimes easier anyway)

What is disappointing on the 5D2 is the lack of 60p (even if it's at 720 fps) and the "Edit" option in the menu when playing back videos... Something SO BASIC that Canon SHOULD have implemented. It saves lot of time and card space when you want to discard part of your video (you can't on the 5D2).

- Back to the OP: 

I noticed some different color (and contrast) rendering in the EOS 7D when compared to other EOS cameras (which I pesonally don't like).

The 60D is a great camera. The T3i should deliver same quality as the 60D, but it's not so well built (cheaper and it does NOT have Kelvin option in White Balance).

The T3i has a very nice feature that Canon got rid in other models (WHY?): the 3x-10x Digital Zoom. At 3x the quality was very good, and you get really long "telephoto-like" shots.

Moreover, this Digital Zoom feature was initially implemented in the EOS-M camera, but it was removed at the moment of release... (again "WHY?" ?

Besides that, one very concerning potential issue that still manufacturers seem not to care about is making hot / stuck pixels remapping function available to the users. Every sensor has, or can get over time, hot / stuck pixels (deffective pixels), especially difficult to remove in video (time/resource consuming). But there is still no "official" function to "remap" / get rid of them (as opposed to the "Dust collection data")

Regards

[canonuser78]

Thank you for your large reply .Good to know.
All the best !