Full frame - Canon 6d or 5dIII?

[PeteC]

Hi All

Can someone give me some advice on full frame cameras please? I've got a modded 1100d that I use for nightscape (milky way etc. with a landscape foreground) and wide field astro using a collection of vintage Takumar lenses I've been acquiring off ebay. I'm thinking of moving up to full frame specifically for nightscapes, where the high ISO capability of these cameras would be very useful. I'll still use the 1100d for widefield astro. I'll be sticking with Canon and was looking at the 5dIII and 6d. I can't see anything in the spec of the 5dIII that justifies paying the best part of £1000 more for it compared to the 6d. In fact I've seen a test somewhere saying that the 6d is better at super-high ISO. Am I missing anything or is the 6d good enough?

I'm assuming my old Takumar lenses will work OK with full frame since they were designed for 35mm film. I'm also thinking about a wider angle lens than I've currently got and have heard good reports on the Samyang 14mm. Are there any other lenses I could be looking at that won't break the bank?

Thanks for your help.

Pete

P.S. Not interested in CCD for now.

[Psychobilly]

For astro and landscape the 6D will be fine the  extra £1000 for the 5DMkIII Gives you a much more sophisticated and capable AF system , faster continous shooting , dual card support , better build quality and weather sealing etc...

[JonH]

For astro and landscape the 6D will be fine the  extra £1000 for the 5DMkIII Gives you a much more sophisticated and capable AF system , faster continous shooting , dual card support , better build quality and weather sealing etc...

+ 1

Last December I tripped over while carrying my 5D3 + heavy 17tse lens in the middle of a Christmas market shoot. As I went down like a sack of spuds (very uncool), I hurled the gear about 6 feet on to concrete slabs. I felt like a right berk, but the camera and, unbelievably the lens too, survived with just a few scuffs to the body and lens barrel. I've always been happy with this camera, but I like it even more now I know that it can take a little bit of punishment. Highly recommended.

[cstew]

There is no doubt that the 5D mk3 is the better camera, some would argue it's the best DSLR available at the moment. What it boils down to in this choice, which I recently had to make, is simply price. Is the 5D worth the extra money to you? It wasn't to me, and I don't regret buying a 6D for a second.

[jordyvz]

Glad to see you're considering moving to FF, it's something I did in September 2013 and I do not regret it at all.

I bought the 5D Mark III, and let me tell you, it is phenomenal.

The 6D is lovely, and it does have slightly better low light performance because it has 2mp less than the 5D, as more pixels allows for more noise to be apparent. But, saying that, the 5D still has extraordinary low light performance, as I get get clean images out of the camera at 10,000 ISO.

To me, it was worth the extra money on the basis of full magnesium build, whereas the 6D has a polycarbonate top to allow for the GPS and wifi signal. It has takes both CF and SD, so you can back up as you go, or enable the CF if you want to do movie or continuous shooting as even at the same write speeds, CF cards are slightly faster as they have more contact points.

Also,the 5D has 100% viewfinder coverage as opposed to 97% in the 6D, which isn't the end of the world, but it's nice knowing what you see is what you get.

The 5D has 6fps and the 6D has 4.5 fps, not a huge difference, but if you do much sport etc, than you might find the extra 1.5fps on the 5D very useful.

Lastly, not but certainly not least, is the difference in the AF system. The 6D has 11 AF points with one cross type in the centre which has extra sensitivity as f/2.8, whereas the 5D has 61 AF points, 41 of which are f/4 cross type, and then 5 dual cross type at f/2.8, which is what the 1DX has, and that camera costs another £2,000 roughly. The AF tracking is absolutely superb too. I don't need to say much more on that as it speaks for itself really.

Basically, if you have the money, go for the 5D. Thats's the way I did it anyway, and I am not rich by any standards, I'm a normal 19 year old guy who earns his own money by working in a shop. 

It is a lot more money, about another £1000, but you won't regret doing it because it IS an upgrade, and it is amazing. It feels lovely in your hands, balancing the heaving L series lenses very well, and just takes a fantastic photo basically!

As for lenses, best one to me seems to be the Samyang 14mm f/2.8, better than the Canon 14mm f/2.8L II and £1600 cheaper!

If you want zoom, get the Tokina 16-28 f/2.8 over the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II as it gives a better picture, but if you want to be able to use filters, get the 16-35 II as the Tokina has a bulbous front element.

Check out the thread 'Wide Angle Lens for Canon?' - it's a thread made by me as I'm thinking about it all too.

Hope this helps!

Jordy

[Pint Of Stellar]

If your main use will be night-time high ISO stuff then the 6D wins on the DSO ISO sensor tests from DXOMark

http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Ratings

and some of the AF benefits to a degree would be redundant. You are also less likely to need the weatherproofing aspect of the Mag body etc. The pixel size of the 6D is 6.55 versus 6.25 for the 5DIII.

I guess the additional question is what else could you buy with the difference and would it make for a more enjoyable session? (Eyepiece upgrade, canon lens upgrades etc etc etc)

[PeteC]

Thanks for all your advice guys. To summarise -

The 5d3 has more sophisticated AF than the 6d. This doesn't matter to me because I'll only be using MF lenses.

The 5d3 has faster continuous shooting. I don't need it for nightscape.

The 5d3 is better build quality. Worth thinking about, but the 6d is still better than my 450d and 1100d and I haven't had any issues with them, I'll just try not to bounce it off concrete!

The 5d3 may have better weather sealing. I don't think this would be important for nightscape, unless I get the weather forecast wrong. I've never had a problem with dew getting into my 1100d.

Both have very good S/N at high ISO, but the 6d is slightly better.

The dual card support of the 5d3 would be good.

One other thing that's just occurred is weight - the 5d3 is about 200g heavier than the 6d. OK not a lot, but when all my kit is going in a backpack when I head for the hills on foot in search of dark skies and interesting foregrounds, every little helps!

The 5d3 is tempting, but for what I'll be using it for I don't think the extra features can justify another £1k. If I get the 6d I'll have money left over for the Samyang 14mm and maybe another top class lens.

[petergc]

This is something I have been contemplating for a while also. I have a 60d but can't afford all these upgrades at once. Neq6 1st then new OTA then camera.

[jordyvz]

Thanks for all your advice guys. To summarise -

The 5d3 has more sophisticated AF than the 6d. This doesn't matter to me because I'll only be using MF lenses.

The 5d3 has faster continuous shooting. I don't need it for nightscape.

The 5d3 is better build quality. Worth thinking about, but the 6d is still better than my 450d and 1100d and I haven't had any issues with them, I'll just try not to bounce it off concrete!

The 5d3 may have better weather sealing. I don't think this would be important for nightscape, unless I get the weather forecast wrong. I've never had a problem with dew getting into my 1100d.

Both have very good S/N at high ISO, but the 6d is slightly better.

The dual card support of the 5d3 would be good.

One other thing that's just occurred is weight - the 5d3 is about 200g heavier than the 6d. OK not a lot, but when all my kit is going in a backpack when I head for the hills on foot in search of dark skies and interesting foregrounds, every little helps!

The 5d3 is tempting, but for what I'll be using it for I don't think the extra features can justify another £1k. If I get the 6d I'll have money left over for the Samyang 14mm and maybe another top class lens.

Pretty much! 

I would like to add though, that I don't manual focus when I do AP - the 5D3 allows me to autofocus on a star! For example, at the moment I need to only find Jupiter, Sirius, Betelgeuse etc, and I can attain focus automatically. Now, I don't know if the 6D is able to do this as I haven't been able to try it, but I like being able to autofocus as for some reason I just don't like manual focus much

6D is definitely a great camera, one of my colleagues has one and it is good. Saving the extra £1000 is useful of course as you can put that towards getting something like a 24-105 f/4L (£600) or even a 24-70 f/2.8L II (£1800), which the latter is pretty damn good for AP itself - 24mm is wide enough and it performs well wide open.

Jordy

[PeteC]

Pretty much! 

I would like to add though, that I don't manual focus when I do AP - the 5D3 allows me to autofocus on a star! For example, at the moment I need to only find Jupiter, Sirius, Betelgeuse etc, and I can attain focus automatically. Now, I don't know if the 6D is able to do this as I haven't been able to try it, but I like being able to autofocus as for some reason I just don't like manual focus much

6D is definitely a great camera, one of my colleagues has one and it is good. Saving the extra £1000 is useful of course as you can put that towards getting something like a 24-105 f/4L (£600) or even a 24-70 f/2.8L II (£1800), which the latter is pretty damn good for AP itself - 24mm is wide enough and it performs well wide open.

Jordy

Thanks Jordy, but I'm not interested in AF for AP. Apart from getting the Samyang 14mm, which is also manual focus, I'll be sticking with my old manual focus Takumar lenses which I'm very happy with for how little I paid for them. They all focus at infinity against the stop.

And I can't justify to myself spending more than a few hundred quid on a lens even though I could afford it. I'd rather spend that kind of dosh on a very nice apo scope or a week's imaging on La Palma

[jordyvz]

Thanks Jordy, but I'm not interested in AF for AP. Apart from getting the Samyang 14mm, which is also manual focus, I'll be sticking with my old manual focus Takumar lenses which I'm very happy with for how little I paid for them. They all focus at infinity against the stop.

And I can't justify to myself spending more than a few hundred quid on a lens even though I could afford it. I'd rather spend that kind of dosh on a very nice apo scope or a week's imaging on La Palma

No problem I can understand that! Oh fantastic! That's a good thing about the Samyang - although I've read a LOT of them are not actually calibrated correctly and infinity focus is in the middle of the scale! Bit of a downer there - but for £300 I suppose you can't expect everything to be perfect haha.

Haha very true

[cstew]

Using the central focused point, the 6d will be able to autofocus better than the 5d, better than any other camera in fact, it has the most sensitive focal point of any camera on the market

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

[Psychobilly]

If the camera is an "upgrade" then you will pretty much know why you do or don't need the extra features of the 5D Mk III.  I know I did so for me the choice was between a 1DX and 5DIII and at the time I couldn't bridge the even larger gap between them price wise and used the difference on glass.

Using the centre of the frame to establish focus is not necessarily the best approach for astro you will often get better "overall" results by focusing on a thirds point...

For the types photography I do I very rarely use the centre point for focusing so having a large number of "capable" focus points over the whole frame is important to me... 

Peter...

[cstew]

What I mean is focus for ap, use the centre point to autofocus on a star and then lock it to manual focus, I understand the centre point isn't always best for standard photography

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

[Psychobilly]

I'm not sure that approach achieves the same as focusing on a star that's physically located at or near  a thirds point in the lens fov... what you are looking to achieve is the best "compromise" focus across the whole frame... I find using FWHM based AF on a star on or around a 3rd's point tends to give better star shapes over the whole of the frame...

Peter...

[Martoon]

I had the same dilemma recently, after similarly considering all of the above points (well covered by all) I went with the 6D. I have not regretted it in the slightest. The decision was based on it being fit for purpose, which it certainly is.

As you say, the cost saving is enough to grab some nice glass to go with it too.

[PeteC]

It's nice to know that I'm not the first one weighing up the pros and cons of the 6d vs 5d3 and that those who went for the 6d have not been disappointed. I'll be joining you soon!

[laser_jock99]

I'd be thinking about the new Sony A7R

http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Sony-Alpha-7R-review-Highest-ever-full-frame-image-quality/Sony-A7R-versus-competition

Bit of a gamble though as not many (if any?) astro users yet. Potential giant killer though- 36MP, lightweight and no anti alias filter.

Who's going to be the first to hang one off a telescope.......

[peem]

I was looking at the  Sony A7 Less MP but bigger pixels but it does have an anti alias filter . What is the advantage of not having a filter Thanks

[laser_jock99]

I was looking at the  Sony A7 Less MP but bigger pixels but it does have an anti alias filter . What is the advantage of not having a filter Thanks

An anti alias filter blurs the image (at pixel level) most DSLR's have them. No anti alias filter should mean pin sharp star images.

[peem]

Thanks for your reply

[DaveS]

I *think* the main reason people chose the 5D III over the 6D is for video. The 5D III is so much better (Especially with Magic Lantern) as to be easily worth the extra.

Doesn't apply to an astronomy forum I know.

[Xplode]

Here's a dark noise comparison from different temperatures and ISO on the 6D.

[ronw]

I *think* the main reason people chose the 5D III over the 6D is for video. The 5D III is so much better (Especially with Magic Lantern) as to be easily worth the extra.

Doesn't apply to an astronomy forum I know.

Magic Lantern is a great piece of software.

Great for start trails, and a host of other astro work. I have been using it for some time with the Canon 60d, not on astro but on time lapse, muli shot, hdr, just to mention a few of its uses.

I have never used it with video yet, but there is still time.

Ron

[PeteC]

Thanks for the dark noise comparison Ole, it's interesting to see the drastic effect of higher temperatures at high iso.

Pete