High-end full frame roundup (2014)

Hi! I was curious if you ended up finding a good full frame body and if so what are your thoughts. I am in the exact same situation as you and I can't decide between the d750 and the canon D5 Mark iii. Ah!
Thank you!

Go for d750, you won't regret.

If you got the cash buy what you want. If you don't buy what you are able to afford within the field of cameras that allow you to create images you like. You can learn on any camera. Correct the camera doesn't make the photographer but it does allow for creativity and allows you to expand your abilities when you choose to do so. Soon we will see 100mp ff with well over 1 million ISO that will be amazing. It will not mean people won't shoot with flash or it won't mean you are better off with the extra pixels just allows you to expand your abilities and creativity.

Hi ecube, I think you are misleading people to think that a better, more expensive camera would somehow be a handicap. That is not true at all. Learning the technicalities of a camera is not difficult for some. For those who do not want a technical camera, but prefer something that gives them great image quality without a lot of hassle, there is AUTO mode in virtually EVERY DIGITAL CAMERA SOLD. My knowledge and ability grew dramatically, when I got a more complicated and "advanced" digital camera. A professional camera does not make you a professional, but it helps, and it CAN improve your photography. I seriously doubt that putting a beginner race car driver into a high-end race car will handicap that driver. More likely the opposite. I think the same goes for cameras.

This is a gear review site, hence people like to talk about best for the money, best in its class so your argument is practically falling on deaf ears. lol.

Photos are so subjective anyway and I'm not disputing talent/eye creativity but having the tool that can get you the shot is the difference.

Hmmm - Sony also has only one lens mount for their mirrorless system cameras...

Well, I'm sorry...

There is a mistaken idea that FE lenses use a different mount. It's good to clarify that this is not the case. ;-)

That is true. I thought we were talking mirrorless.

The A-mount is already a mature system with no new lenses for some time. With a number of new FE lenses in the pipeline, I think it would be fair to say that Sony is also concentrating on one lense mount.

@Wayne - I don't blame you...but for me I'm moving from a 5D2 to the A7II. I have shot Canon for years but I don't need a 'one camera does all' solution anymore. I always felt that's what Canikon's strength was...you could get away doing sports/landscape/weddings etc in one body. I now shoot strictly for pleasure, so what makes me happy is shedding weight and pure image quality, which the A7II has in spades.

Clint:

Right the A7II is a good low ISO body, which takes native SonyZeiss lenses, but it has compressed raw problems and the D750 is good bit better at high ISOs.

So absolutely, if you know you're not going to shoot above ISO 3200, the A7II has great appeal, thought the shutter is still a bit too loud.

@BarnET Thanks for the suggestion, but I've read/seen that the autofocus with metabones adapter slows down AF a lot. A deal-breaker for me.

no problem.
that's why i said
"If you don't mind slower operation"
Now it depends on your lenses. And your will to part with them at a certain loss. The Nikon sensors are better. and a lot as well at the lower ISO's But whether that's worth the money of switching systems. that's a tough personal call.

BarnET... You should have said... Sony sensors are better....Sony makes Nikons sensors .... Nikons gift is in the processing and software that what those sensors are sensing .....

Kendunn - While I now shot Nikon exclusively, I do not claim it is a better system nor produce better Image Quality photographs. To me, it is just a matter of preference.

I am one of the very few who prefer JPEG and AVOID post processing enhancement but when needed, I can and have changed (enhanced) the skin tones. Similarly, nature color can also be manipulated by post processing regardless of the source.

What I like about the Canon lens was the Breech-lock mounting.
What I like about Nikkor is that I could use ALL my Nikkors (lenses for film cameras) on any NIKON DSLR. I have used and am using my 1960s vintage Nikkors on my D90, D5100, D600 and D800.

Hi Kendunn - Thanks for the advice. I agree with you that post processing make the picture more appealing. For me, however, I am not for making the picture look better than the ACTUAL scene or subject.

Almost 50 years ago, I used to contribute to a major newspaper which influenced my preference. At that time, I also do portraiture which of course require airbrush, the equivalent of PhotoShop in this digital world.

I am digitizing ALL about 40 albums of photos taken with film camera. That is where I use the PhotoShop to restore the photos to what my memory remembers.

Donny,

The Nikon D4S is s good bit better at high ISOs than the Sony A7S. Above ISO 20,000 the A7S has the shadow cyan and magenta blotches typical of Sony.

The D4S doesn't have those problems until above ISO 40,000.

The A7S does have the advantage of native SonyZeiss lenses and those help, but it's a middling high ISO body.

Why would you bring up resolution and the A7R and not then mention the Nikon D810? And the Nikon is a better high ISO body--better than the A7II too.

Why I did not mention D810? Because it was already mentioned in the article in the first place remember? Tim complained about bodies not mentioned in article. So we were talking about missed cameras not mentioned here. I just gave a reasonable opinion why they were not mentioned as opposed to those mentioned like A7/R/s etc. I never said that A7R is better or worse than D810. I wasn't even comparing D810 to anything. I'm not following your logic.
As for D4S being a good bit better than A7s - I leave that without commenting much, because they are different tools, and while 4DS fails to be included in this review due to obvious reasons like price and very limited applications, A7s does get mentioned in this review - again because it is not only priced much more democratically but also it is a multi-tool - e.g. is usable not only for stills, but is actually a most favorable video tool for many videographers. Especially having some unique things like S-Log etc.

The concern here is that Canon has always been seen as a leader in the full frame professional photography world. They didn’t even come close to getting honorable mention in this shootout. That is a really bad sign of things to come for Canon.

They won’t die out completely because there are still people out there who can make great images with Canon equipment and some of those people would never switch even if other competitors products offer huge advantages.

However, the Canon consumer photography group could find itself in financial trouble if they don’t make some changes soon. People that won’t switch systems no matter what competitors offer also don’t tend to upgrade often either. Canon consumer photography needs the recurring business to be successful in this market.

Oh, yes. You hit the nail on the head, as they say. Amazon can sell a lot more D750s and make a nice profit on each one. Thus the results of this totally bogus BS "review" which is nothing more than a shill for the company that owns this web site.

Yeah, sort of. Of course it does. But if you resize 36MP with a bit higher noise down to 24MP, that extra noise tends to go away and make the two pretty equal.

Downsampling to reduce noise is a myth???

In what reality?

Thank you for the link. Interesting article, and my question was fully answered! Even though I use Nikon, the principles sound like they are true for all modern dSLRs.

In the review of the Nikon D810, the reviewer did not like the absence of "non-central cross-type AF points". I assume that means that it would be desirable to have additional cross-type points closer to the periphery of the coverage area. Yet the image shown of the Canon sensor (in the article you directed me to) only had them in the central area.

The question comes to mind: How would a regular person know what kind of sensor points are in a particular camera, and how they are arranged? I don't see this kind of information in the camera specs.

Thanks for helping.
Susan

People buying D810/5D mkIII tend to know what kind of AF sensor points camera has, where, and what do they do.
And in case they don't - both: camera manual (available to download for everyone) and Canon website explain it. If that's still not enough - camera reviews also tend to include a map of AF points.

The 4K while yawn today is quite necessary to future-proof and keep resale value for any current purchase of FF. Because in a year/two all of those wonderful FF will have it.

Bah, the obsession with 4K! It is not necessary right now but the 'I want it' crowd will probably get their way as the consumer market like to entice people to upgrade. The file sizes 4K produce are huge and the computer power needed to edit them is huge also. Btw LaFonte, future proofing and resale value don't feature in any companies camera products, why would they when they want people to upgrade every other year.

I guess Leica is not a "High-End" camera so it was excluded.

As were all the digital view cameras with digital backs. A Cambo Ultima with a a Leaf 80mp back and two digital lenses will cost close to $50,000. The back alone runs $34,000!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/871308-REG/Mamiya_010_13011a_Leaf_Credo_80MP_Digital.html

I guess they meant "High End DLSRS plus Sony".

In that statement, we were simply pointing out that the extra resolution effectively gives you extra reach via an enhanced ability to crop while still maintaining a respectable resolution.

This is a reply to Serious Sam. If you are a professional or serious wildlife photographer you will shoot in raw and you will want to shoot continuously at a high frame rate. At full frame your buffer will fill pretty quickly. There are times that you will want to shift quickly to DX so that the buffer will not fill. A dramatic photo at 16MP is better than no picture at 33MP.

In the dating game including the 5D3 in the top ten would be called a mercy f***.

It's the 'ol dependable workhorse. I like mine. Used it from Alaska to Southeast Asia. It doesn't let me down.

dpreview hasn't even done a real photography review of this camera, just a video comparison to the GH4.

The low light focus is amazing, it's not blazing fast, but it focuses in the darkness where most other cameras don't do anything

Composition of the Milky Way in astrophotography is one of the frequently cited examples: Crank up ISO to 400k, physically see the Milky Way and compose, then crank back down to a more sane ISO and shoot.

@ Jackspra
The A7s is obviously a video oriented body, that's where high ISO capabilites combined with high dynamic range is very helpfull and the resolution is native 4k from the 8MP crop of the 12MP sensor. I for myself wouldn't need it for photography, although the silent shutter would be nice to have...

Obviously DPreview thinks the same about the A7s and selected it for the video category. The comparison review with the GH4 was also mostly about the video features.

The A7, A7s and A7r are all targeted at different customers, the A7 and it's sucessor A7II being the alround models.

@jackspra - Philip Bloom has an a7s review and he addresses the why would you want ISO one gazzillion.

Basically it gives you options and opens possibilities that you didn't have before.
You can shoot places/subjects you didn't even dream of shooting before.
What it really means is that ISO 80K or 102K is usable and that means you can maybe shoot with less lights, or no lights.
Say you want to shoot wildlife at night you won't change their behaviour as much.
People doing surveillance (cops, military secret squirrels, private Ds).
Documentarians.
Lots of people might want to shoot at night/low light without adding light and the A7s lets them.
You might not want to use that capability, but tons of people will.

This is what I have been arguing with what I call "wide open" fans for a long time. In low light, you often left with no choice but using 6400, and that often is still not enough. Then you have to open your fast prime wide at 1.4/1.8. That gives you around 1/60 to 1/100 shutter depends on light condition. This setting you are force into a very shallow DOF, focusing in such condition is not exactly easy wether you AF/MF.

Further more from above, what about if you don't want such a shallow DOF. With constrain illustrated above you don't have a choice. With A7S you now have the choice to stop down your lens to say f5.6 or f8 and increase your shutter speed to say 1/200 and shot at 102k. This type of exposure was not possible before and even D750 with have problem doing it.

It is not all hunky dory thought. To achieve this sony has to enlarge the pixel size hence reduce the resolution to 12mp. If you compare the same image from A7R, you realise how much detail is lost.

The A7S can, in fact, focus in even lower light than a 5D Mark III, A7, or A7R. I've tried controlled tests moving a candle light further and further from a subject and nothing the point where each camera fails.

The reason there's so much confusion around this topic is b/c in the real-world, we tend to not shoot absolutely stationary subjects. So while the A7S can, yes, focus in situations dimmer than any of those other cameras, in real shooting scenarios this is often not the case.

Why? B/c subjects move. Meanwhile, CDAF systems have to move the the focus element back & forth looking for the point of maximum contrast. Problem is, your subject may move during this process, throwing off the whole algorithm/search altogether.

A PDAF system, OTOH, just needs a couple of measurements. In other words, it has a greater chance of already calculating where the lens needs to go by the time your subject's moved.

But at least it got some 'idea' to get focus in the ballpark.

This is why people tend to find DSLRs only rated down to EV -2 still focusing better than a CDAF system rated down to EV -4. B/c the CDAF system is too slow to actually complete the proper focus search by the time a subject has already moved (I bet even simple camera shake/movement can throw off the algorithm when it's really dark and the SNR is very low to begin with).

The ability of the PDAF system to just figure out where to move the focus element(s) from a couple measurements allows it to pull ahead of an even lower-light-rated CDAF system.

But, of course, if it's so dim (EV -4) that the PDAF system can't even make any measurements, then the A7S' AF system has a greater chance of attaining focus.

But for more reasonable, low-light situations, dedicated PDAF systems in modern CaNikon counterparts will tend to pull ahead.

At least, that's what we gather from our tests/reasoning. Does it make sense?

Please keep it between us, and do not tell Amazon.

Difficult for an interchangeable lens camera - current interchangeable lenses are corrected to focus on a flat plane, so if a curved sensor is used it would most likely be in a fixed lens camera like the RX1..

The reason for our big optics is the flat sensor. the lenses would produce a curve image field more naturally, but with several optical elements we have to make it flat today and correct for all kinds of distortions. On a curved sensor like in our human retina the lens design can be much more simple which will result in smaller optics and probably higher resolution.

Sony is rumored to develop an RX1 successor with a curved FF sensor and even smaller lens. Another rumor says it might even be a medium format sensor at a similar size as the current RX1.

By the way, there is already a curved sensor in a Sony "selfie cam" launched in Asian market (don't laugh, obviously Asian girls need this)

http://petapixel.com/2014/08/20/sony-curved-sensor-make-debut-strange-perfume-bottle-shaped-selfie-cam/

I suspect most frequent readers are not in segments like you suggest.
Most are enthusiasts and like to try and shoot a bit of everything.
They may shoot one genre more often (for me it's architecture and street) but they'll shoot anything given the chance.

The average casual mom and pop who buy a camera once every 5-10 years also probably don't have specific needs in mind.
They just want a camera and their choice will be defined by size and budget and maybe certain features, e.g. want to be able to change lenses (or not), has a built in flash, etc

If you shoot a given genre already you're a specialist and will know what you need.

@lacikuss, I think you missed the point, the D750 is in DPR's opinion the best camera over all, it offers a balance to all those points you raised.

The D750 might not be the smallest, lightest, have the most MP's etc, however it does rank high in each of those categories.

Well it depends on which article you read. http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7947009894/high-end-full-frame-roundup does not use the word "camera" whereas http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6591740927/2014-high-end-full-frame-camera-roundup does

I edited based on the title used in the full article, rather than that used in the short preview one :)

This is listed as enthusiast roundup. 1D X and d4s are pro models.

I am a Nikon user and a Fuji user and I also endorse it

another endorsement from me.
best bang for buck allround fullframe on the market.

I'm a heavy professional user of the 5DIII (weddings mostly) and am also becoming a heavy user of the D750. I also strongly endorse the D750 recommendation. In actual use, however, I find the focus system on the 5DIII to be more "aggressive," just as capable in extremely low light, and equally as accurate. The 5DIII has nothing similar to the 3D tracking or auto face detection, but otherwise has been equally accurate and awesome! I love using both cameras.

I'm a nobody and an Oly and Nikon user and I not only endorse the D750, but have proposed to marry mine.