Canon 6D vs 5DII - Is the 6D worth the extra cost & why? Comparison Tutorial

Hey everybody, today we are comparing Nikon's D3200 with Canon's Rebel T4i. Both are entry-level cameras but I will say there are some pretty important differences between the two. As always on all my videos I kind of like to cut to the chase so I'm not going to be talking about how the cameras are similar, I'm going to be emphasizing how they're different and who should be choosing which camera. Both of the cameras shoot video, both of them shoot about four or five frames per second, and for the most part they perform very similarly but there are important differences. First let's talk about Nikon's D3200. For $650, at least at the time of this recording, it has 24 megapixels and for that size sensor that is a lot. That's a lot of resolution for $650. And something that I loved about it was that it's very small and it's very compact. When I took it out on my test shoots I couldn't even feel it around my neck. It was like a glorified necklace and so that's something that if you do a lot of traveling or hiking and you need to get a really light camera you're going to want to consider it. When we look at the Canon T4i, as of this recording it's about $850 with the kit lens so it's $200 more than the D3200. It also has an 18 megapixel sensor which is significantly smaller than the D3200. The things on the T4i that really stand out immediately is the articulating touch screen monitor and what this means is that its monitor will actually rotate out of the camera body and it is also touch sensitive which means you can interact with the menu by touching on the screen itself. This is an amazing feature. It's a very different, in fact it's the only DSLR that does it as of this recording. I think every camera should have a touchscreen monitor. It's just so much easier and faster to get to the menu and One feature that's really easy to overlook on the T4i is the nine cross type focusing squares. A cross type focusing square, without going into too much detail, means that the focus point is better at picking up areas of contrast. If it's not a cross type focus square it can have some problems identifying where the focus should occur. The D3200 has 11 focus points but only one of them is cross type. The Canon T4i, all nine of its focus squares are cross type and this is comparable to the Canon 60D and just for comparison a lot of people don't know this but the 5D Mark II only has one cross type focus square which is actually pretty amazing because that's a great camera. So the optical focusing systems in the T4i is significantly better at least in my opinion. Another feature that the T4i has that the D3200 does not is a built-in wireless flash transmitter. What this means is if you have a speed light like a 430 or a 580 or even the new 600 you are going to be able to trigger those flash units off the camera without needing to purchase an additional transmitter. The T4i also has a number of interesting features such as built-in HDR, granted it's not a groundbreaking feature but those are both really nice. Now at first glance it may be really tempting to say well the D3200 has a 24 megapixel sensor or the T4i has this articulating monitor, touchscreen, great focus squares and it's kind of easy to jump to conclusions but I like to think of cameras as racing cars. What really matters is how they perform on the road. You can have a great steering system, well the engine may not be that powerful, how do they perform you know out in the real world? That is the important question. In the high ISO test I think the Canon T4i has the edge especially when you get up into the 6400 and the 12800 ISOs there is more visible grain and noise in the D3200s. In the portrait tests both cameras produced outstanding images but something that I noticed almost immediately was that the auto white balance on the D3200 it's a little green and this is consistent with other Nikon cameras that I know of. For some reason the auto white balance sometimes turns into the shade of green and in other times it almost looked underexposed maybe a half stop or a third stop with similar camera settings on the T4i. But I will say that once I dialed in the correct white balance on the D3200 the images were outstanding they were fantastic. So both cameras did great for portraits. The edge I'm going to give to the T4i simply because the auto white balance was more accurate and the optical focusing systems were better. Let's talk about some of the video features and how they performed. Moray is an artifact that you're going to see when you're filming subjects that have very tight horizontal lines next to each other and for the most part the moray on both cameras was pretty much unacceptable but I will say the D3200s looked a little teeny tiny bit better. Both cameras have the ability to track a moving subject while recording video or shooting in live view. This is a new feature to the DSLR market. The D3200 was the first camera to do it and the T4i was the follow-up camera to do it and this is something that DSLR videographers have wanted for some time is the ability to change and track focus on the fly while it's shooting. On paper the Canon T4i touts a phase detection and contrast detection hybrid focusing system so on paper it looks like the T4i has the edge but the truth of the matter is when we went out and did some tracking tests the D3200 was significantly better in the tracking video focusing. Essentially what we did was we put both cameras on a tripod and recorded the same subject at the same time. When the subject was closer to the camera they performed about the same but when the subject started backing up the T4i repeatedly lost tracking in fact did it many times I was disappointed and the D3200 was very good about changing and adjusting its focus. We could even have the subject leave the frame and come back in and it would pick it up. I was very impressed with the tracking features on the D3200. Now this is going to be a little nitpicky but something that I did not like about the D3200 was that you cannot change your aperture when you are shooting in live view or video. You have to actually leave the mode to change the aperture and then come back in. Another thing is that it doesn't let you use an ISO of 100. It peaks out at 200 where the T4i you can go down to 100 no problem. The dynamic range on both cameras was a little bit similar. I just liked the image of the T4i a little bit more. It seemed like the blacks on the D3200 were a little bit underexposed. As far as the video ISO tests again the T4i I thought was a little bit better at least by one stop. You're going to notice it most when you get into the higher ISO ranges. So in conclusion let me make a few recommendations. I've been shooting Canon for 10 years so I'm a little bit biased but I would say that the people who want the D3200 are pure beginners on a very tight budget. If maximum resolution is super important to you yeah you probably want the D3200. If you travel a lot you do a lot of hiking and you want a very very light camera I would say the D3200 is going to keep you happy. And if you're starting a video production company where you may need three or four or five DSLR video cameras $650 each that is a smoking good deal. I mean that's you're gonna save a lot of money. Now for the T4i that is the camera that I'm going to be recommending to my friends and the reason why is really because of the auto white balance issues. That's a bit of a hang-up. As a professional portrait and wedding photographer the advice that I'm giving to my friends is to try to make the T4i happen. Try to get that extra $200 because it is going to be worth it. You have that articulating touchscreen monitor, you have those nine focusing squares, but most importantly the auto white balance is more accurate and you're not going to have to worry about changing it every time the lighting conditions are different. And you know in the workflow of shooting that is a that's a pretty important thing. The D3200 outstanding camera it just really bothered me that I had to change the the white balance every single time I went indoors or outdoors or whatever. In any event if you own either of these cameras I can show you how they work in about three or four hours in an excellent crash course video. This is the video that I wish I would have had when I was first getting started and you can order it from the following link.