A Return to Glory? - Canon 5D Mark IV Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,846 words · ~9 min read
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when I first got into shooting video this was my first camera and when I
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bought it Canon had a strangle hold on the small form factor video Market
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thanks to the 5D Mark I's amazing success two years prior in 2008 the Mark
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III in 2012 was a solid incremental upgrade but since this release the
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marketplace has changed a lot and Canon's dominance has absolutely been ch
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challenged so can the markv hold its own against the stiff competition that has
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sprung up from Panasonic Sony and even
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Fujifilm let's find out Mass drop is
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hosting a drop for the highi man ich 350 headphones which you can get for
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$999.99 check it out at the link in the video
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description let's take a quick physical tour of the camera on the right we have
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two memory slots One SD and one compact flash on the top we find the hot shoe
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settings display and controls for focus and exposure as well as the mode dial
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here on the left of the camera we have a flash connector mic in a headphone jack
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mini HDMI out unfortunately this is a worthless connector and USB the rear the
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camera has a shiny 3.2 in touchcreen quick access buttons a joystick a mode
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dial and a larger menu selection and settings dial so then out of the box the
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markv will feel very familiar to anyone who has used a mid-tier or better Canon
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DSLR but with some welcome additions the first usability change that really stood
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out to me was Canon's new integrated touch interface whatever Apple might say
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a smartphone is not a replacement for a DSLR but that doesn't mean we can't
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learn from them using the touchscreen like I would on my phone to set Focus
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points to wherever I wanted in the frame quickly is awesome and became second
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nature in both video mode and live view for Stills and on that subject live view
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which I've always avoided for Stills on Canon cameras due to to its sluggishness
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and inaccuracy was surprisingly usable I shot portraits of a friend's newborn and
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in order to get some of the top down shots that I wanted I had to hold the
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camera in front of me in such a way that I could only see the camera's display
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enough for composition trusting that Focus will be taken care of by the
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camera's dual pixel AF and to my surprise all of these photos came out
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sharp even with my unintentional changes in distance between each shot so beyond
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being a convenient way to choose your focus point the phase detection AF
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allows you use your camera at awkward angles where it's very uncomfortable or
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even impossible to look through the viewfinder with a stronger confidence
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that the camera will nail Focus for the shot moving on to video mode instead of
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being only fixated on image quality in this review I wanted to push the camera
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it's AF in particular to see if I could find success in situations that would
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normally be very difficult as a solo operator so I put the markv on my Glide
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Cam and did a tracking shot on a 35 millimeter lens at f1.8 and oh my God
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this is awesome the markv managed to keep Luke in Focus even as he was
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running away in this shot now I know
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this isn't a new technology from Canon but this is the first time phase
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detection AF was put into a 5D and it has never been better it isn't perfect
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and while shooting with the markv I did find scenarios that made it stumble but
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what impressed me even then is how natural it looked when recovering from
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its stumbles it managed to look much more human than any autofocus I've seen
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in any other camera this is the kind of feature that can legitimately make you
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look like a better camera operator and even compensate for not having a focus
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polar in certain situations on top of the performance benefits of the
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touchscreen paired with the AF the menus in the 5D are a breeze to navigate no
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more needless scrolling through the same five menus only to click through the wrong one and accidentally click out and
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start all over again these two are the kinds of little things that can speed up
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your workflow while shooting leading to ultimately better results let's move on
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to Canon sensor for the 5D this time around we're looking at a 30.4 megapixel
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seos sensor with an ISO range of 100 to
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32,000 on paper it's a very nice bump up instills resolution from The Mark iiii
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though we'll get more into that later with a slew of new video recording modes
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including DCI 4K up to 30 FPS shooting
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video on the 5D brought me back to the beginning of my career Canon hasn't lost
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the relative Simplicity in the menus compared to my current daily driver the
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Sony a7s2 and they've even managed to add quick functions that don't take over
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your entire live view like on previous cameras so you can finally change
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settings like white balance resolution frame rate and audio levels all without
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leaving the live view of the camera thumbs up Canon which leads us to a
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common thumbs down that many have brought up when looking over the initial specs of the markv when shooting 4K
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video the markv has a 1.64 crop of its
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full-frame sensor making its effective size rough roughly similar to an apsc
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sensor like my Canon 60D but while I
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understand the disappointment I also understand that there were probably
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engineering challenges associated with shooting fullframe 4K and anyway I don't
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agree that this is should be the top criticism of this camera because while I
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shoot with a fullframe 35mm field of view on the a7s2 I actually prefer the
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look of a 1.6 crop for a lot of my projects so when shooting with the markv
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I actually was quite pleased with the extra reach I got from my lenses I was
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been able to use one of my favorite lenses the sigma 1835 f1.8 which
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normally doesn't work on a full-frame camera a far bigger issue for me is
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Canon's decision to use motion jpeg as the internal codec in 4k this is an
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ancient codec that is basically only intraframe compression so it's far less
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efficient than something like the xavc interframe compression in the a7s2 to
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put some real numbers to this the data rate for this codec is 500 megabits per
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second so on a 64 G card I was getting 16 minutes of record time at 4K in 24
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FPS compare that to the hour and 10 minutes I normally get from the a7s2 on
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the same card it should be obvious that aspiring video creators will be asking
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for a lot of SD cards and hard drives for Christmas this year honestly it
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feels like they kneecapped it on purpose to avoid competition with their video
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cameras the markv still only outputs 1080p over HDMI so any hopes of
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bypassing the internal codec for 4K video can be put to rest the one one
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redeeming quality the 5D has is the internal recorded footage looks better
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straight off the camera than the a7s2 in this shot blown up to 400% the Canon has
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the edge in overall detail and in my opinion Canon's color science is more
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pleasing and easier to work with than Sony that said the camera has no
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internal log profile limiting its overall dynamic range so I ended up
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shooting most of this footage in neutral to get the most out of the sensor without having to use an externally made
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profile like cyle from Technicolor on the still side the markv is as Ed
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excellent Raw photos have improved underere exposure recovery particularly
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in the shadows something that the Mark III struggle with depending on your
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image and over the several shoots I did with the markv it performed exactly as I
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expected which allowed me to forget I was even using it and focus on shooting
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images are sharp and ISO performance has managed to improve quite a lot as well
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so in conclusion the markv is the new generation embodiment of what has always
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been Canon's goal with the 5D line it's a fullframe core Stills camera that has
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a video mode for the casual or pro suer video Enthusiast and it's very good at
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what it does Stills but if you're hoping for another Mark I a revolutionary and
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affordable jack of all trades camera then I'm sorry to say that if the markv
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is anything to go on that was entirely unintentional and it's not going to
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happen again the zero Tech Dobby drone a
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product whose name really doesn't make a whole lot of sense does it so zero Tech
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might imply that there's no Tech technology but it actually has a ton in it Dobby well I'm sure if we put a sock
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on it it wouldn't fly away to its freedom and drone okay they got that
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part right so it's a selfie drone that fits and folds into your pocket with
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specifications including a quad core processor 2 gigs of RAM and adreno 330
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GPU a 13 megapixel camera with a 75° field of view that can film 1080 video
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so you let Dobby take off from the palm of your hand it pairs with zeroex do.
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fun app which has built-in tutorials on how to take aerial selfies and you share
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the photos you capture with the Drone in real time so the Drone can follow and
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film moving people or objects to get the shots you want and using outdoor GPS
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tracking you can film 10-second auto track short videos it's got a price tag
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of $3.99 on amazon.com and you can check that out at the link in the video
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description so thank you guys for watching if this video sucked you know
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what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that like button or check
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out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video at B&H in the
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video description also linked in the description is our merch store that has
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cool shirts like this one and our community form which you should totally
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join now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to
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watch next so click that link in the top right hand corner to check out the video
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I did on the Ursa Mini 4.6k