Canon 5D Mark 3 or 6D Mark 2

Hi,

 

I need to buy a new full frame camera, and my final choices are Canon 5D Mark 3 or Canon 6D Mark 2. Each has pros and cons, and I'm torn & I need your help/opinion!

 

5D Mark 3:

Pros:

- Uses the same battery/charger with my 7D

- Magnesium-alloy body (which is essential in extreme weather)

- Uses compact flash card instead of SD card

- Has 61 AF points

 

Cons:

- Lower native ISO 100-25,600

- Lower resolution

- Older technologies

 

 

6D Mark 2:

Pros:

- Has higher resolution

- Native ISO 100-40,000 (which is essential in night photography)

- Has a flip out screen

- Newer technologies

 

Cons:

- Not magnesium-alloy body

- Uses SD card

- I don't like to buy/bring another charger, memory card, and battery when I go on the trips

- Has 45 AF points

 

 

 

Please advise guys! Thanks!

Do you already have Canon lenses?

Yes!

Canon 6D II. Why is an SD card a disadvantage? Smaller size of the 6DII is nicer IMO. Slightly better sensor than 5DIII. Price between them is probably not much different, so I'd get the newer tech given this. Magnesium-alloy body: the 6Ds are perfectly robust enough whatever they are made of.

Without knowing what kind of photos you take and hence which features are most important to you, it's impossible to answer.

 

For what it's worth, night photography: ISO40k isn't essential by any stretch of imagination. Even in dim-lit places, ISO6400 with a reasonably fast lens will do the trick. If you shoot sports in dim-lit places, then the ultra-high sensitivities matter, but for normal photos after sundown, any full frame camera will do the trick just fine.

 

As for the number of AF points: more isn't necessarily better; there is a bit more to it. I'm not utterly familiar with Canon AF systems, but it's more important to see at which lightlevels the AF is rated to work, how many cross-sensitive points there are, etc. Just the number of AF points isn't the whole story, so look beyond the "snapsort" spec listings.

Again, it all depends on the kind of photography you do to understand which features make a real difference.

If we assume he is a "regular Joe", he probably takes shots when he's out and about - places, things, family and people, so perhaps a little extreme to say it's impossible to know. My guess is if he was taking largely birds and/or wildlife, for example, he would have let us know in his posting. However, I basically completely agree with your points! I'd still say for general photography the 6DII is the better bet today.

As DSLR's become obsolete and Nikon and Canon prepare to enter the full frame mirrorless market, it might be prudent to wait and see what happens.

As DSLR's become obsolete...

 

The assumption that mirrorless makes DSLRs obsolete is such silliness. Sure the market for DSLRs will continue to decrease and become more of a niche, but that doesn't make them any more obsolete than rangefinders, medium format or film. The market is broad enough. So if one prefers an optical viewfinder, there is zero reason to wait.

What do I use this camera for? Well, pretty much anything and everything from family photos to sport to landscaping photography in hot, dry, wet, cold environments, from day and night photography as well. At night, I usually love to take star trail and northern pictures. Thanks!

I wouldn't use max ISO as a make or break decision point.

 

40,000 is only 2/3 of a stop faster than 25,600-it's really not that big of a difference. Even with a slow zoom lens(albeit with VR-or IS if you're a Canon user) I can easily take handheld photos under a full moon at 25,600. If I needed more sensitivity, it would be easy to make up that extra 2/3 of a stop with a faster lens.

 

With that said, 25,600 looks pretty terrible from my D800. I consider it perfectly useable up to 6400, but it falls apart beyond that. Without looking at those specific models, I'd want to take a good look at how the super high ISO photos look from those cameras.

I shoot ISO 12800 on the Canon 6D or 5DIV. Results are actually quite good with noise reduction. I don't go higher though.

re AF points. On my Nikon D7200 I have 51 AF points, but I use center point + D21. Which means center point, but the camera will track if the subject moves within a 21 point area.

I can see the use for more AF points, but I don't use more.

Example a posed/static image and you don't want to focus and recompose, you would move the active AF point to the subject. This could call for more than the 21 points that I use.

Also the dispersion of the AF points. If they are concentrated they may or may not be as useful as if they were more dispersed.

YOU have to determine if for the way and what you shoot, is more better or not.

 

Depending on what and how you shoot, the flip out screen of the 6D can be very very useful and be a major factor.

I have been belly on the ground doing low angle shots, because I do not have a pivoting screen on my camera. So for ME, that is a major factor in favor of the 6D.

For many others it does not get used, so has no benefit.

 

re the ISO. You need to see the image quality/noise characteristic at each ISO level for both cameras. Some cameras get noisier at a lower level than others. So despite having a higher high ISO, it is not as usable, because of the noise.

 

The battery charger and memory card should be way down on the things that affect the decision.

• Every upgrade from my first dslr requires/would require a new battery and new charger, so as much as I don't like it, I take that the battery will change on a camera upgrade. And a Li battery only lasts for a few year anyway, then you have to buy a new one. Li batteries degrade with time, more so than use. So your old Li batteries may be on their last leg and need to be replaced soon, so you would be buying new batteries anyway.
  

• Similarly the sensor MP increase calls for more card capacity. So that is another given on an upgrade. I've gone from 1GB CF on my D70 to 64GB SD on my D7200. I would not want to be using my old 4GB SD cards in my D7200.
  

I would not say that a SD card is a con. It is different than CF, but is it really a con? Is it only because you have to buy SD cards? I presume you have lots of CF cards.