6D vs MK3 colours

[Tariq Peter]

Hi All,

Looking to purchase another full frame for my wedding shoots and am torn between the 6D and MK3. I already own the MK3 and it truly is amazing in low light situations. I understand the moire issue with the 6D however for the price difference I don't think I can justify the extra cash. My only real concern is the the difference in the colour from both cameras using the same setting. Would they match up or would I be spendi hours getting them to match?

[James Manford]

This is the thing ... unless its the same camera you will still have a small difference in colour.

I don't know about FCP on MAC, but Sony Vegas on Windows has a tool called Color Match that works really well although it drains your PC big time and makes the whole workflow sluggish. But if you have patience, its very effective and does a near enough EXACT color match with a simple click of the mouse.

Personally I would pick up another MK3, or sell the MK3 and stick to two 6D's and use the money towards other equipment (may be another lens) ... realistically speaking, you have to ask yourself how many times do you need such superior lowlight functionality? The 6D is a solid camera itself at half the price.

[Khoi Pham]

Hey Tariq, I'm thinking about getting the 6D with this Welcome to Mosaic Opto-Electronics, Inc - to compliment my 5Dm3, as far as color, it should be easy to match in post.

[Bill Grant]

Tariq,
I have a 6D and a MkIII and to my eye all the way up to ISO 10,000 they are pretty much the same. I've not even seen the dreaded Moire duh duh duh! But I'm also not really using it for that. When I need bricks shot, I send my mkIII :)
Bill

[Tariq Peter]

Moire is not really that big of an issue to me, we have used the 600D and the 7D in the past and while it is present in certain situations I have never had a compliant about it. What i really don't want to do is spend 2 hours on editing each wedding, colour correcting. I think that would justify the £700 but if you say they colours are pretty much on par with each other then the 6D it is. I could use the extra cash for a better lens :)

[Khoi Pham]

You guys don't see aliasing on bride's hair or any wide shots like the church brick wall...? I got tired of that and that is why I went with the 5Dm3.

[Tariq Peter]

I don't shoot in churches so I am quite lucky in that department. I have seen some amazing weddings films shot with the MK2 and the only reason why I never purchased that was because the MK3 is so much better in low light and SD cards are so much cheaper.

The video quality of the 6D Compared to the MK2 is virtually identical however the 6D is much better in low light and takes SD cards, which for me make it an easier decision.

I would love to see a wedding film where Moire stands out and ruins the film.

[Shannon Rawls]

Get the 6D as 2nd cam... save $1000 on a favorite lens of your choice.

[Khoi Pham]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

I don't shoot in churches so I am quite lucky in that department. I have seen some amazing weddings films shot with the MK2 and the only reason why I never purchased that was because the MK3 is so much better in low light and SD cards are so much cheaper.

The video quality of the 6D Compared to the MK2 is virtually identical however the 6D is much better in low light and takes SD cards, which for me make it an easier decision.

I would love to see a wedding film where Moire stands out and ruins the film.

You don't see it because people like me don't included in the final products, yes you can get away with some but some are just really bad.

[Tariq Peter]

What percentage of footage would you say that is lost due to the moire issue?

[Jon Fairhurst]

How much footage is lost due to moire? That's hard to say. Probably not all that much.

1) Sometimes the end placement (You Tube) doesn't justify anything better.
2) Sometimes the editor/director/producer doesn't notice or care.
3) Sometimes you notice and cut around the offending parts.
4) Sometimes it matters and you fix it in post. (That could mean anything - like taking a still photo of a background scene and splicing it in, masking and painting, or synthetic replacement.)
5) What's left are shots that are done over.

So, from a bottom-line, financial analysis, one might save money and go with a camera that aliases and skip the VAF filter.

But on the other hand, if you have moire on a shirt collar, it could be in every shot and would be very expensive or impossible to fix. So maybe you accept it in your project. And then you might drop it from your demo reel. Or you include it and it loses you a future job.

So, aside from liking a silkier aesthetic, a non-aliasing solution buys you reliability. And that why pros use pro gear, rather than DIY stuff. You want to deliver high quality, reliably, no matter the situation.

For personal projects and amateur work, we can take shortcuts that might cost us time and we can choose to sacrifice quality. When competing for pro jobs, the calculus is a bit different.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Tariq Peter

What percentage of footage would you say that is lost due to the moire issue?

If you did a 100 shots of which one showed severe moire, that's just one percent so no big deal but what if that one shot was the most important one out of those 100?

Like Koi said it's there and it can be nasty, but we either don't include it, work around it (by applying shallow dof to blur out a background if that would show moire) or we are just lucky not see any patterns during the day that can produce moire.

So most of the time it's no issue at all and when we see it doesn't mean the client will as for weddings you could use a gopro but get all the keymoments and have happy clients. But I have seen footage from a 6D where the moire was very bad, so bad a client would notice and might complain about it. And if you have very demanding clients and you are doing a corporate shoot some shots would require you to just use another, moire free, camera, so like Bill said you"d leave the 6d in the bag and get a 5dIII out, either a hired one or your own.

[Bill Grant]

Jeff
I have never had a shot ruined by moire. Out of three years using the mkII and 2 before that using the A1 it was never an issue. Did I see it? Occasionally but I seemed to be the only one who did. I think we have bigger problems out there than moire. But we do struggle to justify our equipment purchases don't we.
Bill

[Noa Put]

But we do struggle to justify our equipment purchases don't we.

There are also videographers that are ok with delivering shaky and out of focus footage to a client, it just depends how high you set your own standards and what level of standards your client expects. In the wedding industry you can get away with a lot and then it does apply that if we don't care, so won't the client as they are happy you got the shot in the first place if it was a keymoment, no matter if it has moire, aliasing, is shaky and out of focus..

[Jon Fairhurst]

My son was on an Indie shoot that included a climactic shot with a 5D2 (no filter) in a hotel hallway with detailed lines on the wallpaper. The shot demanded shallow DOF with a live zoom. And sure enough, as it zoomed, the moire pattern crawled up the hallway. Hero shot ruined. No getting that past any client.

I feel that this should be moot by now. Before the 5D2, if you wanted shallow DOF, you either needed to shoot film or on a Red/Alexa. The 5D2 comes along and for $2,700 you can shoot on a big sensor - but you have to tolerate aliasing.

Now, there are many non-aliasing solutions. Cameras like the C100 have filled the gap. And if that's still above your budget, for less than the price of a top lens, you can get a VAF filter.

Tolerating aliasing these days is similar to buying a cheap tripod and tolerating sticky pans, wind-up, and shake. Not everybody notices a bad pan. You can smooth things out in post. But it's really about having an overly tight budget. And that's okay for some productions, but not tolerable for others.