Canon EOS 5D Mark IV review

7th October 2016

Written by Gordon Laing

Quality

To evaluate the image quality of the EOS 5D Mark IV, I’m presenting three sets of results, one for resolution, one for noise and one for movie quality. In my Canon 5D Mark IV noise results lower on the page you’ll see how it compares against two key full-framers, the earlier EOS 5D Mark III and the mirrorless Sony A7r Mark II, all using the same Sigma 50mm ART lens – I won’t be offended if you skip to that straightaway! In my Canon 5D Mark IV movie quality results you’ll see how the 4k and 1080p quality compares to the Fujifilm XT2 and Sony A6300.

First though I’m making a different comparison, looking at the resolution of a daylight landscape scene. Since I already have a comparison with full-framers on the next page, I thought I’d make a different comparison here against an APS-C mirrorless camera, the Fujifilm XT2. I know they’re completely different cameras aimed at different photographers at different price points, but I’ve received a lot of requests to compare them, so here you go. Once again if you’d prefer my full-frame comparison using identical lenses, scroll down to my Canon 5D Mark IV noise results.

I took the scene above with the EOS 5D Mark IV fitted with the EF 24-70mm f4L IS USM lens, set to just over 55mm f8. For the Fujifilm XT2, I fitted it with the XF 35mm f2 prime lens, set to f5.6; the aperture values chosen represent sweet-spots for quality on both lenses. As for the choice of lenses, these were the ones supplied by the manufacturers and better than any other alternatives I had to hand. I would have preferred to use either zooms on both or primes on both (although getting the field-of-view to exactly match with primes would have been difficult). But in terms of quality, both lenses used are very good and at the aperture selected I don’t believe either are holding the bodies back. If you think this is an unfair test, skip to my Canon 5D Mark IV noise results where I used the same Sigma 50mm f1.4 ART lens on all three bodies.

At the time of writing, Adobe hadn’t yet released support for the 5D Mark IV RAW files, so I’m presenting a comparison of JPEGs straight out of camera; I will update this page with RAW results once the 5D IV is supported in Adobe.

So in the left column you’re looking at an APS-C body with a 24 Megapixel X-Trans sensor and on the right you’re looking at a full-frame body with a 30.4 Megapixel CMOS sensor.

Judging from the crops below I’d say both are resolving a similar amount of real-life detail – certainly there’s no visible benefit here to the extra 6 Megapixels of the EOS 5D Mark IV, nor its larger sensor, at least for low ISOs on the conditions of the day. If anything, the Fujifilm XT2 crops in the left column are a little crisper and more contrasty, due no doubt to Fujifilm’s in-camera processing defaults when using the standard Provia Film Simulation. I’m not surprised as Canon often reigns back the sharpening on its JPEGs using the Standard style, so once I get a chance to process the RAW files with the same settings, I’m expecting a similar playing field in terms of visible sharpness.

So an approximate draw here on the first page, but the really interesting test is lower on the page where I’ve compared the three full-framers with the same lens, allowing you to directly compare sensors and processing styles. Keep scrolling!