My review of the Canon 5D mk iv

[PhotoSimon]

So here's my initial, highly unscientific thoughts on the 5D mk iv after playing with it for a couple of weeks . . .

http://simonbrettellphotography.co.uk/canon-5d-mk-iv-review/

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of other mk iv users now we've had a little time with the camera

 

[cpsico]

Skin tones seem a bit different at low iso, but 1600 seems dead on to canon colors. I truly love this camera and will use it most of the time. High ISO is excellent, auto focus is really really great.

 

[RGF]

thanks for posting.

 

[romanr74]

balanced and helpful review. tx for posting.

 

[JPAZ]

Very nice review. While I am quite happy with my 5Diii (I am not a professional), the touch screen, increased area of focus points, WiFi, GPS and slight decrease in weight all make this camera appealing. The DR and slightly better high ISO performance are also good points. I think that in a year or two, when the price starts to hopefully come down a bit, I'd be interested in an upgrade.

But, I wonder about the increased megapixel count. My most frequently used lens is the 24-70 f/2.8 ii without any IS. I almost always shoot handheld. Will this pose an issue in real life assuming I use my usual (hopefully) good techniques? Will I need to automatically go to faster shutter speeds than I now use? I understand the issue but am wondering how much this affected IQ in your or anyone's real-life use of the camera.

JPAZ

 

[atlcroc]

Thanks for sharing your review. My comment is for JPAZ. I had the exact same question. While I cannot speak from actual experience, there are a few possible answers I found in my research. One review stated that you might find it necessary to increase shutter speed by 1/3rd to 2/3rds when moving from the Mark III to the Mark IV specifically for this issue. The other thing you could do is go to the BH Photo site and check the reviews of the Mark IV. One user was raving about hand held quality at very high ISOs and another was also using the same lens you use and posted a link to many of his photos on smugmug. His work looked pretty good and you could check it out there. So others who are actually using the camera seem to indicate that you would be fine with handheld shooting and your setup with the Mark IV.

 

[PhotoSimon]

Hi JPAZ,

I mainly shoot weddings using primes so I'm normally at focal lengths under 85mm. However; I do occasionally bust out the 70-200 f2.8 IS mkii. I've not noticed any additional blur that has resulted in me having to use higher shutter speeds. But there are a couple of caveats around that, the main one being that my subjects aren't particularly fast moving . . . people at weddings! The other being the impact of the IS. Although the main cause of the blur should be due to the movement of the subject, if the lens has IS the additional movement of the camera will be compensated for, so your results may differ. However as atlcroc has said, the high ISO performance / noise is better than the mkiii so you can increase the ISO to use even higher shutter speeds. I never used my mkiii above IS) 6400 but from my initial testing I'd say that ISO 12800 is at least as clean.

 

[LSXPhotog]

There seems to be a handful of 5D IV users seeing some funky results when they push shadows, and other seeing excellent results. I think there may be some variation in the camera sensors and I'll have to see if mine suffers from this today.

 

[privatebydesign]

There seems to be a handful of 5D IV users seeing some funky results when they push shadows, and other seeing excellent results. I think there may be some variation in the camera sensors and I'll have to see if mine suffers from this today.

I don't. I think some people are stupid enough to try doing the lifting to jpeg files from before they could manipulate the RAW files in Lightroom or other third party programs.

Before I get blasted for calling some people stupid, let me point out that is exactly what one heavily followed YouTube pundit did!

 

[PhotoSimon]

Nope . . . some might but I didn't. I used RAW format for my tests

There seems to be a handful of 5D IV users seeing some funky results when they push shadows, and other seeing excellent results. I think there may be some variation in the camera sensors and I'll have to see if mine suffers from this today.

I don't. I think some people are stupid enough to try doing the lifting to jpeg files from before they could manipulate the RAW files in Lightroom or other third party programs.

Before I get blasted for calling some people stupid, let me point out that is exactly what one heavily followed YouTube pundit did!

 

[dak723]

In order to take advantage of the higher MP count, it may indeed be necessary to use faster shutter speeds or a tripod, but you should not see any negative effects from the higher MP count. The worst that can happen with the smaller pixels is that you get no additional benefit from the additional pixels and your photos have the same resolution and detail as your old Mark III. The amount of "blur" from movement is the same regardless of MPs, as far as a understand it.

 

[PhotoSimon]

In order to take advantage of the higher MP count, it may indeed be necessary to use faster shutter speeds or a tripod, but you should not see any negative effects from the higher MP count. The worst that can happen with the smaller pixels is that you get no additional benefit from the additional pixels and your photos have the same resolution and detail as your old Mark III. The amount of "blur" from movement is the same regardless of MPs, as far as a understand it.

dak723, unfortunately I think your assessment is incorrect. The higher the MP count for the same sensor size the more likely you are to encounter blur. This is because there are more pixels per unit area with a higher MP sensor and therefore the resolving power is higher. Blur is caused by an image moving across multiple pixels during he course of the exposure.

Using the mkiii and mkiv sensors as an example. Lets say you're photographing a racing car as it moves from left to right across your frame. Lets say that on the mkiii with its 5760 horizontal pixels, during the exposure the car moves across 100 pixels giving 100 pixels of blur. On the mkiv which has 6720 it would move across nearly 117 pixels . . . giving 17 pixels more of blur.

This is one of the reasons why the top end cameras, like the Canon 1Dx mkII and the Nikon D5, which are aimed at sports shooters are not so geared towards the megapixel race. It makes it harder to freeze the action with the increase in pixel count.

 

[Mikehit]

dak723, unfortunately I think your assessment is incorrect. The higher the MP count for the same sensor size the more likely you are to encounter blur. This is because there are more pixels per unit area with a higher MP sensor and therefore the resolving power is higher. Blur is caused by an image moving across multiple pixels during he course of the exposure.

Using the mkiii and mkiv sensors as an example. Lets say you're photographing a racing car as it moves from left to right across your frame.

Lets say that on the mkiii with its 5760 horizontal pixels, during the exposure the car moves across 100 pixels giving 100 pixels of blur. On the mkiv which has 6720 it would move across nearly 117 pixels . . . giving 17 pixels more of blur.

This is one of the reasons why the top end cameras, like the Canon 1Dx mkII and the Nikon D5, which are aimed at sports shooters are not so geared towards the megapixel race. It makes it harder to freeze the action with the increase in pixel count.

I don't look at pixels. I look at photos. I don't 'see' pixels I see the blur in terms of measurement on the screen.
If you print both to the same size, the 117 pixels on the MKIV and the 100 pixels on the MkIII translates to precisely the same linear distance. If that linear distance is not discernible it does not matter how many pixels it covers.
And if you blow it to a large print I bet you can't tell the difference between 'motion blur' on the MkIV image and lack of resolution on the MKIII image.

And that is the reasoning behind dak723 comment - if you do not use full and proper technique (tripod, mirror lock up or liveview etc) then the inaccuracies such as camera shake reduce the MKIV image to that of the MKIII image. But if you do use proper technique the resolution on the MKIII will never approach that on the MKIV.

Unless, of course, you can present images that show this. Please note I am NOT talking about viewing at 100%. I am talking about outputting the two images to the same physical size. Some people call this downsampling, I call it 'living in the real, physical world'.

 

[PhotoSimon]

That's a fair point Mikehit - how you view the image will make all the difference - viewing the same full size, uncropped image should not make any difference