While you always want to choose the right camera for the job, sometimes you have to deal with what you have. There are times when you might have a RED SCARLET (or maybe even a RED EPIC), but maybe you need something that's a little more light-sensitive as a B-cam for specific shots, or you might need dual-coverage and you've already got a second camera handy. What if that second camera is a Canon 5D Mark III, and you've enabled the Magic Lantern hack so that you can shoot RAW? How would the two cameras stack up against each other?

Ryan Lightbourn has been playing around with the Magic Lantern on a Mark III, and he recently shot a piece where he cut between that and a RED SCARLET (with limited grading). Head on over to Vimeo to download the full 1080p file, as that shows a bit more detail and less compression (thanks to cinema5D for the tip on this one):


Shot back & forth between the two cameras on the same day.

Minor grading done in ACR & RCX to match contrast. No sharpness added. Scarlet footage shot in 4k, downscaled 50% to 1080p.

Lenses used: Tokina 11-16mm & Zeiss 25mm 2.8 (both with Formatt 1.2 ND)

As Ryan noted on Vimeo, what might look like aliasing with the Mark III is actually the power lines painted black and white:

Ryan Lightbourn SCARLET 5D3 RAW power_lines

This is not to say one camera is better than the other, as there are positives and negatives about both. I think it's important to look at what's out there and how something might compare in a given situation, and it has become clear from everything I've seen and from shooting the Mark III in RAW that the footage absolutely stands up at 1080. Obviously at 4K, the SCARLET will come out on top, but if you're not shooting something that needs to be in 4K, this is a valid comparison, and the Mark III should fit in nicely.

Ryan also recently shot this music video with the Mark III in RAW, 24fps at ISO 1000 and 60fps at ISO 1600. Slow motion was shot at 60fps at 1728 x 458 and upscaled/stretched to 1080p (some NSFW language):

Another video from Ryan messing with 60fps slow motion Mark III RAW, shot at 1728 x 458 and stretched to 1080p. Exported @ 720p:

And just for kicks, here is a Vimeo Staff Pick of his from a few years ago shot on the Canon 5D Mark II and Nikon primes:

Link:

[via cinema5D]