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I have a Sony A7 (full frame), A6000 (APS-C), Canon 6D and EOS R (full frame).
The A6000 is the smallest, lightest body but that becomes a disadvantage with most full frame lenses, they just make everything unbalanced and look ridiculous. It's nice and small though using the Sigma F2.8 E mount prime lenses (19mm, 30mm and 60mm) which give good results plus the excellent Canon 40mm pancake using a cheap mount adaptor. PQ is decent up to around 800 ISO, 1600 at a push (although I tend to try and keep it at 400 or lower). It's controls are frustrating in use, even more so if trying to balance a large FF lens.
My A7 is the original smaller version and is only a bit larger than the A6000. Much better controls though. Suffers the same disadvantage with FF lenses as the A6000. Using Canon adapted lenses the 40mm focuses OK, 16-35L, 70-200L F4 IS, and 100L macro don't and mostly require manual focus although focus peaking and viewfinder magnification makes this easy in good light conditions. I prefer using my Canon lenses on my 6D. Even with the battery grip adding size and weight the 6D handles better and strangely feels lighter as it is so much easy to hold with larger lenses.
The Sony kit 28-70mm lens is mediocre. If I want decent results I need to use the APS-C Sigma lenses which perform well but that means having just an APS-C 10MP crop from the 24Mp FF sensor. Not ideal. Or use Canon adapted lenses. Price of Sony lenses puts me off buying any of them and they would also be similar size and weight to the Canon adapted ones I'm using. Having two (or 3) different mount bodies I'm going to stay with Canon lenses as they can be mounted on Sony. Can't be done the other way around.
EOS R is smaller and lighter than the 6D (which is smaller and lighter than your 5DIII) and all my Canon lenses perform well with the bundled EF-R mount adaptor. In some ways even better as there is no need for micro focus adjust due to the focusing being done at the sensor level. The EOS R and 40mm pancake is a very nice small light carry around.
I find the EOS R to handle better than the A7 with full frame lenses. It's grip is much more comfortable to hold than that of the A7 where I will start to get discomfort after a couple of minutes. PQ is excellent and I can now use high ISO without qualms. With the 6D I didn't like much higher than 1600 or 3200 at a push. EOS R I'm happy with up to 12,800 and have got OK results with 40,000 ISO if changing the image size down to 1/2 or 1/3rd original size. The 30MP sensor helps to make it an easy decision as even at 1/2 size there are still a lot of pixels left.
Moving away from Canon to say Sony is going to require new lenses unless you are happy to put up with the potential limitations of using adapted lenses. Later A7 models have better auto focus with adapted lenses than the original A7 I've got but I don't think adapted will ever work as well as native. So you'd have to factor in the cost of switching everything over completely if going with just Sony and getting rid of Canon. That plus the price of the equivalent Sony lenses makes for a costly change.
In terms of cost from lowest to highest:
If you just want to give film (video) a go and dip your toe into the water while having a nice light kit to carry around I'd suggest something like the Sony A6300 or A6500 models. The 6300 with kit lens was £400 in Black Friday last year (after a Sony cashback). The A6500 has IBIS which would be useful if video is going to be a large element of its use. The A6400, like the A6300, doesn't have IBIS but has better auto focus than the other two. The APS-C A6xxx models have the advantage of being able to give good results with the smaller and cheap (around £150) Sigma lenses which makes them a joy, rather than a chore, to carry around. Even my full kit of A6000, two Sigma lenses, 16-50mm kit lens and a Samyang 12mm lens isn't too heavy or bulky (around 2.5kg including the bag and a couple of spare batteries).
If you wanted to stay Canon and full frame I'd suggest the EOS R or at a push the EOS RP.
That suffers from using the 6DII sensor vs the EOS R's 5DIV sensor and only has a 2.4MP viewfinder vs the 3.69MP one in the R. Comparing the R one to the 2.4MP one in my A7 I'd say it's well worth going for the larger size. At grey prices the R is around £1549 at HDEW whereas the RP being newer still hasn't dropped much in price and is £1209 (close to its £1287 at amazon). I'd expect it to be below £1K by the summer.
EOS RP is the smallest lightest 'new' full frame body (485g with battery), only a bit heavier than my A7 (474g), and lighter than the current Sony A7III model (650g). The EOS R/RP have better video auto focus than your 5DIII but aren't up to the level of the current Sony full frame models. Also don't have IBIS but that's not so important if using IS lenses.
A smaller lighter option could be the EOS M models but unless you buy into their native lens range you'd suffer from the same problems I have with my A6000: small body, large lenses.
The EF-M adapter is much cheaper though than an EF-FE one for Sony.
The Sony A7III body is around the same price at grey prices as the EOS R but factor in having to buy an EF-FE adaptor (£200 to £400) if using Canon adapted lenses or the cost of switching your Canon lenses to Sony ones. The 28-70mm kit lens is rubbish and thus I couldn't recommend getting an A7III bundle which includes that. A7III would probably be better if you wanted to shoot a lot of 4K video. But if you wanted to be able to edit your films you'ld need a high spec PC with fast processor and a lot of RAM.
Whatever you go for handling the cameras and lenses you shortlist is essential. Better specs are of no use if the camera is too uncomfortable to hold and use easily.
If you want any more info I'd be happy to expand details on specific areas of interest. |
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2-12-2019 06:41:20
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