Canon EOS 70D DSLR Exposure and Dynamic Range Test
This is an un-edited upload of the original on-camera footage.
The lens is a Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 prime lens.
The shutter speed is 1/125 of a second, with the lens at f/1.8 and the ISO set to 100.
I recorded it at 1920x1080x30fps with All-I compression (685MB a minute according to Canon's website, the same rate as the Canon EOS 5D Mark iii and Canon EOS 1D C).
The white balance is manually set to match the 5500K full spectrum lights used in the studio with a slight tweak to the in-camera colors to reduce the push to green that the camera seems to have from the factory.
I had just over 1900 lux hitting my face and less than 30 lux hitting the dark parts of the book-shelf behind me for 6+ f-stops of incident lighting dynamic range in the studio. Considering that we're recording 8 bit video (which would be doing good to accurately represent 8 stops of dynamic range), we're actually doing pretty good in the DR department.
In Adobe Premiere Pro, the exposure looks a little hot straight off the camera, but I'm sure will cool down once it gets edited and transcoded for YouTube (and then transcoded again by YouTube).
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So, I realize that the Canon EOS 70D is a stills camera first and foremost (and makes a wonderful upgrade to my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi for stills), however, I feel that if you're going to bother putting a video mode on a camera that costs more than $1000 for the body alone, at least make it as good as what you can get from your consumer camcorder line.
Yes, I know I get better dynamic range and 35mm glass with better depth of field and a more 'filmic' look with a DSLR, however, in my opinion, if my DSLR 1080p picture has less fine detail in it than what I get from say a Canon HFM500 consumer camcorder (that costs $350), what exactly is the larger sensor and 35mm glass of a DSLR getting me?
Not a cleaner, better looking picture, that's for sure.
As for 'more filmic', if I wanted my video to look like film, I'd shoot it on film. I want my video to have more resolution and look better than film. Digital surpassed film for stills 5-10 years ago and in the past 2-3 years has easily been stomping at film's doorstep for video. There's a reason why movies shot on film today are only DI'd at 2K, doing a 4K DI doesn't really give you more resolution if your source format was film. A 4K DI from film will give you more data, but it doesn't give you more picture detail or dynamic range in a way that makes it look better. Granted, there are die hard film guys who swear by film. Film is an aesthetic, just like tube amplifiers are an aesthetic for the audiophile crowd. It's a proven fact that digital renders more fine detail and dynamic range than analog and has done so for a while now, so if I want the 'filmic' aesthetic, I'll just shoot with film. 'More Filmic' is not really a valid argument in my mind.
As for dynamic range, IMHO, more dynamic range doesn't do you a lot of good if you don't have the resolution and fine detail to make use of it. The two go hand in hand. Have you ever seen a really high dynamic range image that didn't also have a lot of resolved resolution? More dynamic range looks better with more resolution. Having less fine detail and resolved resolution than a cheap consumer camcorder largely renders all that potential DSLR goodness for naught.
So this really only leaves us with 2 things that a DSLR really gives us over a camcorder with a built in lens: Lens choice flexibility and Depth of Field. Both are compelling, but given that it costs more than 2-3 times what you can get in camcorder land, that makes for a difficult to justify expense if all you're going to do is shoot video with your shiny DSLR.
Just my two cents worth.