MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. The Canon 5D series of camera ushered in the DSLR video revolution and made it easier than anyone to be a working photographer.
That's how good the cameras were.
The new 5D Mark IV, aimed at serious photographers and videographers is even better.
It's not cheap--$3,500 for the body only, without a lens, but the two weak spots the new edition addresses are pretty major. So if you have a previous 5D, you will want to upgrade. Here's why:
--Autofocus for video. The previous two models as good as killed the pro video camera. The full-frame image sensor is 20 times the size of those found in consumer video cameras, and the video seen has a high-end, dreamy cinema quality. The only problem was the struggle to focus for video. You could use the autofocus to compose your shot--but once you started recording, if you moved the camera, or the subject did the same, you went out of focus.
Newer cameras from Canon, the 70d and 80D, fixed that, with a follow focus that worked flawlessly. Now those same tools come to the 5D Mark IV, and it’s most welcome. I tested the 5D Mark IV focus by bringing it to Venice Beach, and following folks walking down the street, where folks came in and out of our shot, as well as a skate park. The focus was flawless.
I did a test shot the other night at 9 p.m., in virtual darkness, and tried a video shot where I walked in and out of the camera. Amazingly, I was somehow sharp.
Beyond focus for video, the new 5D does a better job of quickly finding focus for stills as well.
LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE:
The Mark IV has another big plus--the ability to shoot in lower light, with vastly improved quality over the previous model.
To shoot in low light, you need to crank up what’s called the ISO settings--ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor to the light. The lower the ISO, generally, the higher quality the image. Once you start going up the ISO dial, you let in more light, but it can also become ultra grainy, with visible artifacts in the image.
Most cameras start at 100 ISO, and the rule of thumb is not go higher than 800 or 1600 before the quality falls off.
I own the Mark III and Mark II, and have been shooting with both cameras for over ten years, for portraits, weddings and events and video journalism.
I have tried not go higher than 3200 in a pinch on the 5D Mark III--but on Mark IV, I got results at 3,200 that looked as good as 1,600 on the Mark III.
I also went out in early morning and late night, and shot at 10,000 and above. Some of the results look fabulous--as with these two accompanying shots of morning in Manhattan Beach.
Yes, the image is noisy, and you can see the artifacts. But it was taken at 250,000! I'll live with the noise. I'm amazed at how good the shot is.
The new Mark IV has a 30 megapixel sensor, up from 22 on the previous model, and touts faster operation (I didn't see it) from an improved processor, built-in Wifi for connecting to a Canon app, using it as a remote and transferring photos and videos to a smartphone.
The new Mark IV is a substantial upgrade for owners of the previous models. But when compared to other recent cameras however, most notably, the Sony A7SII, you can get a lot of the low-light performance in the Sony, for instance, in a camera that's half-the weight of the 5D, with the added bonus of fantastic image stabilization, which goes a long way for video.
Photographers--have you checked out the 5D Mark IV yet? Let's chat about it on Twitter, where I'm @jeffersongraham and listen to the daily podcast on Stitcher and iTunes.
You can get similar results on the Sony A7SII camera, but the focus isn’t as stellar. That said, it has built-in image stabilization and is about half the size and weight of the 5D Mar IV.