Photography News | Issue 38 | absolutephoto.com
Camera test 49
Original image
Ultimately, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is a superb camera with a great deal to like
Verdict
Features There is not much this Canon doesn’t have, and that is reflected in its price Performance Impressive with fine exposures and swift, accurate AF Handling Excellent generally; more customisation options would be good Value formoney You get a lot for your money, but still pricey Overall A terrific camera, inspirational to use and full of excellent features. Pros Image quality, ISO and dynamic range performance, touchscreen, autofocus, solid build Cons Price, limited benefit of Dual Pixel Raw, fixed screen, more customisation would be good is not a security blanket for slapdash focusing technique. In this test the potential for minimising ghosting and bokeh shift is also limited, and there’s the negative of having large file sizes that come with Dual Pixel Raw and the need to use Canon DPP software. All that said, many buyers will undoubtedly use and appreciate the feature. Ultimately, though, the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is a superb camera with a great deal to like. It easily lives up to the lofty reputations of its predecessors and offers a fine alternative to the current higher resolution EOS 5DS/R models. It’s pricey, but then you get what you pay for. Still and 4K movie picture quality from the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is very high, with fine colours, smooth tones and deep shadows, all combined with an excellent noise performance where great quality can be had at ISO 6400. Throw in swift, sensitive autofocus – for stills and video, spot-on exposures and intuitive handling and you have a formidable camera at a formidable price. Dual Pixel Raw adds an interesting and rather intriguing dimension with the potential of post-capture adjustments. It should be stressed that the degree of focus adjustment is tiny and Dual Pixel Raw processing 94/100 24/25 24/25 24/25 22/25
Performance: exposure latitude
Canon claims that the EOS 5DMark IV has excellent exposure latitude. To test this claim we photographed a contrasty daylight scene shooting a 4EV bracket in steps of 0.5EV. The camera was set to manual with correct exposure metered at 1/750sec at f/4, ISO 100. In Lightroom, the Raw files were subsequently adjusted to give correctly exposed pictures with no other editing changes applied. A comparison set of bracketed images of another scene was made using a Nikon D810 – again, these were processed in Lightroom with no other editing.
With low contrast scenes you can probably get away with +3EV overexposure but shots featuring strong highlights come out grey. Looking at the comparison shots taken on the D810, the Nikon fared better with overexposure and the
+3EV shot looked better than that from the Canon after remedial processing with minimal extra noise and clean highlights. With underexposure, Raws from the two cameras recovered well and produced familiar results.
The Canon coped very well indeed with underexposure and even the -4EV and -3EV shots recovered amazingly well in processing with little extra noise or artefacting compared with the correctly exposed picture. Colour rendition, tonal smoothness and shadow density impressed too. The -2EV shot looked identical to the correct exposure. Overexposure was also handled well by the Canon with the +2EV picture exhibiting the same quality as the correctly exposed picture, but that was the limit in scenes where there were strong highlights.
-4EV
-3EV
-2EV
-1EV
0EV
+1EV
+2EV
+3EV
+4EV
Images The Canon EOS 5D Mark IV is very capable of dealing with dynamic range and showed impressive tolerance to exposure abuse, especially underexposure. In comparison with the Nikon D810, it came a very close second with its handling of overexposure.
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